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City of Champions
(Submitted By Matt Stys)
Pittsburgh
By Emil H.
I am soon to be 32. I was born in Pittsburgh. In my early twenty's I moved to a city in Norway to study...hmmmm... a-broad. That was pretty cool, but the funny thing about Norwegians is that they love to travel. So I found myself backpacking around Venezuela for a month. During the trip a bunch of us took a 3 day tour into the jungle. It was amazing. But the funniest thing happened. We were all sitting around a camp fire. There were about 10 people on the trip. It was like a United Nations meeting! People from Israel, Brazil, Norway, Australia and other places that I have since forgotten. We got to discussing places that we would go if we had any option. The obvious was discussed, Bali, China, NYC, the Mediterranean...the usual. The conversation got to me and I just blurted out...Pittsburgh. No one got it, not that they should have! But there is no place on earth like this city.
What’s the big deal about Steeler Football?
Author Unknown
Submitted thanks to M. Davis
Being a Steeler fan means so much more than football. It means being from a corner of the world unlike any other. It means being from a place where the people are so tough-minded that they have survived the Homestead strikes, the Johnstown flood and most recently the Etna floods. These people have the DNA of hard work, in mills and mines, without the necessity of complaint. They live simply, with no frills. They don’t have movie stars or fancy cars. Instead, they have simple traditions like kielbasa, Kennywood, and celebrations. They live in distinctive neighborhoods like Polish Hill and the Hill District and all of the surrounding counties. These people are genuine. They don’t have chic internet cafes and cappuccinos, but they have The Original Hot Dog joint, Primanti’s, Eat n’ Park and Iron City Beer. People from Pittsburgh don’t have sunny beaches or fancy boats, but the rivers roll gently, connecting the small towns
of people whose histories have been built on strength and humility. People from Pittsburgh don’t have the biggest shopping malls or the best nightclubs, but they’ll take Friday night high school football and Steelers Sunday over anything.
Steeler football means so much more than you think. It symbolizes a Diaspora of generations who had the best childhood they could imagine. They ran free without a care or concern in the valleys of those Allegheny Mountains. Their blue-collar world was easy…there was no one to tell them that they lacked material things. There was no one to
tell them that they needed more. As the steel mills closed and the jobs disappeared, some of these people had to leave. While the world benefits because they spread their Pittsburgh values, they long for their home where things
were simpler and more pure. They teach their kids about Jack Lambert, Lynn Swann, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Jack Ham, L.C. Greenwood, Joe Greene, and Myron Cope in hopes of imparting not just the knowledge, but the feeling that they represented.
They are everywhere, those Terrible Towels. They wave, not just for the team, but for the hearts they left behind. They wave in living rooms in Fort Lauderdale and in the bars of Washington, D.C. They wave all the way to the Seattle Superdome! They wave for the Rooney family, whose values mirror our own – loyalty, grit, and humility. They wave for football players like Jerome Bettis and Hines Ward, whose unselfishness and toughness have allowed sports to be about the game and the team.
Make no mistake that Steeler football is not just about football. I could not be prouder to be from the Pittsburgh area than I am right now!! Even if you no longer live in the area, you have South Western Pennsylvania in your blood no matter where you go. And deep down in your heart of hearts, you can still hear the Super Bowls of times past, the excitement in everyone’s voices especially our fathers, cousins, and anyone else who gathered around the TV on Football Sundays! Make no mistake, its just as exciting right now! It’s not just about rivalries and who is better than the other, it’s about family, tradition and roots! It’s more than football, but its football at its finest! If you now live in Arizona, Colorado, Ohio, Indiana, California, Florida, Nevada, or Texas, be proud of where you were born and who your FIRST favorite football team was! Go Steelers!
My Family and Pittsburgh
By socalsteelersfan
Another reason why I am a Steelers fan is because to me they are more than just an NFL football team, they are family.
They always remind me of my father who was born and raised in the city and who’s family all live within Pittsburgh and
the Western Pennsylvania area. In the 1970’s and 1980’s I can still remember the abandoned or soon to be closed
down ugly rusted steel mills that lined the city’s river banks. Back then I spent many a summer vacation as a child at
my grandparent’s house on the North Side. The 100 year old house stood within a hill top neighborhood next to an old
cemetery across the street from Oliver High School. This was the house that my father grew up in.
Warm summer evenings meant catching green glowing fire flies in the front yard and birthday parties with bowls of
ambrosia and glasses of mint ginger ale. On the 4th of July the entire family would walk down the street to the edge of
the hill where my great grandmother’s house used to stand to watch the city’s fireworks. From there you could see the
entire Y-shaped river valley with Mount Washington on the far right and The Point to the left as fireworks filled the
evening sky above the “dahntahn” skyscrapers. Just to the lower right you could see the circle shaped Three Rivers
Stadium. I was fortunate to be in Three Rivers Stadium once, but it wasn’t for a Steelers game, it was for a Pirates
baseball game that my Uncle Rich took me and my cousin to the year after they won the World Series. If you think it’s
hard enough to get seats for a Steelers home game, try being a 13 year old earning a three dollar a week allowance.
My first Steelers game would have to wait as a dream that would take 27 years to fulfill. In a Wyatt Erp movie I once
heard a phrase “Blood is thicker than water. Your family is your blood, every one else is just strangers.” Luckily, as a
hard core Pittsburgh Steelers fan today, I make an effort to watch every game on satellite TV with my girlfriend at my
Steelers Bar. And with every game that I watch, I am reminded of my family and of my childhood. I bleed black and
gold. I don’t just like the Steelers, I live and I die Steelers.
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