By ALAN ROBINSON AP Sports Writer

The Steelers' jut-jawed and oft-intense coach had made a career of losing championship games five in all, four in AFC championship games in Pittsburgh since January 1995.

But given the hardest road possible to an NFL championship after so many losses at home, his Steelers became the first team to win three road playoff games and then the Super Bowl by beating Seattle 21-10 on Sunday.

It was the franchise's fifth Super Bowl title, the long elusive One for The Thumb they had sought since the days of Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris and Jack Lambert in January 1980.

After the Steelers won it, Cowher began crying on the sideline. Turns out one of the NFL's toughest coaches can be a softie, too.

Cowher's relief was apparent, too, and not only by his tears of joy. As he stood on the victory podium at midfield, he slapped hands, pumped his fists and raised his in triumph a coach exonerated.

Then he raised up the Lombardi Trophy high with one hand, but only after first handing it to Dan Rooney, the team owner. Cowher has long said his career-long goal has been to give that trophy to Rooney.

"This is a special group of players, these guys are so deserving I couldn't be more happy for Mr. Rooney, the players, the coaches and the city," Cowher said.

Wearing their lucky white road uniforms even though they were designated as the home team, the Steelers finished off their unprecedented sweep of the top three seeded teams in the AFC and the top-seeded team in the NFC.

And the coach who got so much grief for being outcoached twice in AFC title games by the Patriots' Bill Belichick, for not having his teams prepared or inspired for title games clearly did the best coaching job of his career under the toughest circumstances.

Cowher did so by invoking such diverse figures as Christopher Columbus and Jerome Bettis, and by putting the ball squarely in the hands of his inexperienced second-year quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger. That move clearly went against the Steelers' long-standing philosophy of winning by the run.

Two months ago, when the Steelers were 7-5 and needed to win their final four regular-season games merely to get into the playoffs, Cowher stood up at a team meeting and told them that the journey looked hard and tough but could be done.

He then cited Columbus' unknown journey to a new world in 1492, and how his players could chart a path never accomplished by an NFL team a unique pep-talk blend of American history and NFL history. Intrigued, some players read up on Columbus, and some talked about "Winning one for Chris."

Later, after the Steelers won those four and started their AFC playoff sweep of Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Denver, Cowher talked of how badly he wanted Bettis, one of the greatest running backs in NFL history to get back to his hometown of Detroit and win the Super Bowl. Bettis, as expected, announced his retirement during the Lombardi trophy presentation.

Last month, Cowher's players began talking openly of winning a championship not just for The Bus, but for a coach who is No. 14 in NFL career victories but is one of the few on the list without a Super Bowl.

Not now, he isn't.

Cowher changed his personality in these playoffs, too, reflecting the Steelers' take-all-chances approach. The Steelers beat the Colts and Broncos by jumping into big early leads created by Roethlisberger's passing a switch in tactics by a team that has run the ball more than any other in the NFL the last two seasons.

"We're going to go as far as he takes us," Cowher said of what now, at age 23, is the youngest quarterback to win a Super Bowl.

By letting Big Ben take him to a Super Bowl, Cowher no longer faces unenviable comparisons to Chuck Noll, his predecessor who won those four Super Bowls the first one in the 1974 season by putting the ball in the hands of a young quarterback named Bradshaw.

Just as Cowher told his players to learn from history, apparently he did, too.