[twoodfin]

The etymological history of the group name is interesting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_(computing)

The term wheel was first applied to computer user privilege levels after the introduction of the TENEX operating system, later distributed under the name TOPS-20 in the 1960s and early 1970s. The term was derived from the slang phrase big wheel, referring to a person with great power or influence.

In the 1980s, the term was imported into Unix culture due to the migration of operating system developers and users from TENEX/TOPS-20 to Unix.

[somat]

I always understood it as the thing you use to drive the ship.