Greg Hawthorne, a first-round NFL draft pick who won a Super Bowl ring as a rookie with the Pittsburgh Steelers, died July 8, 2026, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which reported the news on July 10 after his family shared it. He was 69.

Hawthorne was born in Fort Worth, Texas, in September 1956. A three-sport athlete in high school who also ran track and played basketball, he was known locally for raising hogs before enrolling at Baylor University, where he rushed for 670 yards in 1977 and closed his college career with 303 more rushing yards as a senior.

The Steelers made him their first-round selection, 28th overall, in the 1979 NFL Draft, taking him out of a Baylor program he had helped carry for two seasons. As a rookie he carried the ball 28 times for 123 yards and a touchdown and caught eight passes, then closed the season on the winning sideline of Super Bowl XIV, a 31-19 win over the Los Angeles Rams played January 20, 1980, at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. He did not register a stat in that game, but the championship ring came all the same, in his first professional season.

He set his career rushing high the next year, gaining 226 yards and scoring four touchdowns in 1980, two of them in a single game against the Cleveland Browns. Hawthorne wore number 27 for the Steelers from 1979 to 1983, according to steelers.com, shifting from running back to wide receiver in his final Pittsburgh seasons and catching 19 passes for 300 yards in 1983 alone.

Pittsburgh then dealt him to the New England Patriots, where he played from 1984 to 1986. During the 1985 season he caught a fourth quarter touchdown off a fourth and one flea flicker that helped spark a comeback win over the Miami Dolphins, one of the plays Steelers Depot recalled from his career. That season carried him to a second Super Bowl, a 46-10 loss to the Chicago Bears at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, according to History.com. He carried the ball once in the game, for a four-yard loss.

Hawthorne closed his nine-season NFL career with the Indianapolis Colts in 1987, his third franchise after Pittsburgh and New England. Across 105 games and 25 starts, he rushed for 527 yards and seven touchdowns on 137 carries and caught 92 passes for 1,112 yards and four more scores, a line built by a player who kept finding his way onto the field at three different positions.

What stays on the record is specific. A Super Bowl ring earned in his first professional season, a jersey number worn for five years in Pittsburgh, and a 52-yard catch from quarterback Cliff Stoudt that Steelers Depot was still revisiting as recently as 2020, nearly four decades after his playing days ended. He was set to turn 70 in early September.