Detroit ? The Pittsburgh Steelers not only won one for the thumb, they won one for the Jaw.

Bill Cowher, 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’s surreal right now,” said Cowher, who replaced four-time Super Bowl champion coach Chuck Noll in 1992. “That’s what I was brought here for. It really does complete a void that’s been there. … But I was one small part of this, trust me.”

No one with the Steelers agrees.

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.

Pittsburgh coach Bill Cowher is doused with water after his squad beat Seattle, 21-10, in the Super Bowl on Sunday in Detroit.

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 long has said his career-long goal was to give that trophy to Rooney.

“It starts at the top, and I couldn’t be happier for Mr. Rooney,” Cowher said.

Rooney said he was just as happy Cowher won.

“Bill’s been great for us, and we’ve always had a great relationship. I feel honored he thinks that way,” Rooney said of the coach who has taken the Steelers to six AFC championship games since the 1994 season, and, the owner said, someday would be in the Hall of Fame. “It’s just great that he could continue the legacy.”

But while the Steelers won a fifth title, Rooney said the team planned to display the Lombardi Trophy apart from the other four to recognize the separation between the eras, the coaches and the teams.

“This one stands alone,” he said

Pittsburgh's Hines Ward, left, celebrates his 43-yard touchdown catch with Jerame Tuman. Super Bowl MVP Ward and Tuman, a Liberal native, helped the Steelers beat Seattle, 21-10.

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, players read up on Columbus, and some talked about “Winning one for Chris.”

“This one will always be remembered,” Joey Porter said. “It’s never been done before what we did. We kept being told we couldn’t do this, and that’s what we needed.”