Oh, Steelers, where art thou? Yes, this column is a lament about the Pittsburgh Steelers’ losing in January to the Tim Tebow-led Denver Broncos in the NFL Playoffs and an abrupt end to a once-promising 12-4 season. The defeat ended any hope of a return to the Super Bowl this season in Indianapolis, but this time winning as compared to losing last year to the Green Bay Packers.
Having left Pittsburgh after 13 years as a resident of the city, there is one thing that you know and learn: The Steelers make “The Burgh” roll as nothing else.
In a New Jersey bar recently, I watched the New York Giants whip the defending Super Bowl champion Packers in decisive fashion. As a recent returnee to New York, where I was raised, I remain interested in the city’s professional sports teams. So watching the Football Giants win brings some pleasure, especially since many friends and family are fans, as are millions of New Yorkers, who I now see on a regular basis in my current job. Although I grew up a huge sports fan, also watching baseball, basketball and hockey, and even soccer, my primary devotion in that area today has dwindled to professional football. And my team, now and forever, is The Pittsburgh Steelers. I’ve seen Broncomania in Denver, and heard about America’s team in Dallas, but I’m convinced there is nothing like The Steeler Nation.
For example, the Giant fans in the bar were interested in the game and were happy to win; Steelers fans watching their team in a Steelers bar (and these bars all over the world) are more than interested. They are “into” the game, big time, all in, passionate about it, obsessed. It’s not just men who go, but women also, and they know football, too.
Pittsburghers don’t say “who are the Steelers playing this Sunday;” they say “who are WE playing this Sunday.” Steelers jerseys are considered acceptable attire at work on any Friday before a Steelers game that weekend or for that matter any day of the week. A friend of mine calls the Steelers Black and Gold jersey the Pittsburgh Tuxedo, appropriate at any occasion.
Since 1933, when the Steelers were founded by sports entrepreneur Art Rooney on Pittsburgh’s North Side, the team has been controlled and operated by the Rooney family. First by Art, then by Dan, and now Art II. Nobody in Pittsburgh has been or will be ever as beloved as Art Rooney. An ever-present cigar in his mouth accompanied his jet-white hair atop his familiar Irish face. In addition to running the team, Dan Rooney was appointed ambassador to Ireland by President Obama. Art Rooney II is a work in progress.
In their first 35 years, the Steelers represented futility having never won a big game. Same Old Steelers, people would say. But in 1969, Art Rooney hired Chuck Noll to coach the Steelers which began what is now a 40-plus-year run of success that has included six Super Bowl trophies, the most of any franchise. They have been a model of stability with only three coaches since that time, and the envy of the league. With this success they have developed a national following that appreciates the Steelers ferocious commitment to defense and power backs that has in more recent years also featured Big Ben Roethlisberger throwing and running with abandon. In addition, because so many Pittsburghers moved away to find jobs when the Steel industry collapsed in the 1970s and 1980s, the Steelers became a reference point for Pittsburghers who no longer lived in Pittsburgh. From these two factors emerged the Steelers Bar, ubiquitous in nearly every American city where the Steelers Nation dons the Black and Gold, twirls their Terrible Towels (if you don’t know what they are, I’m not going to bother telling you) and let’s be fair, drink copious amounts of alcohol.
Which brings me to the topic of the Hibernia – my Steelers Bar of choice in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen. The HB-HK is like “Carson Street on the Hudson.” Carson Street is the main saloon street on Pittsburgh’s South Side. There are all these sides and ends in Pittsburgh because city sits at the confluence of Three Rivers, the Allegheny, the Ohio and the Monongahela.
The Steelers have the most loyal fan base of any professional team in the United States. Routinely, Steelers fans invade opposing stadiums to watch their team play and to form a sizable part of the crowd. It’s Europe, again, where soccer fans will travel to support their team. To watch the Steelers at Hibernia, you’d better arrive early, probably a good hour and half before game time if you hope for any type of seat or viewing spot in a place that may not be more than 20 by 20 feet.
My view is that the Steelers loss to the Broncos actually occurred a few weeks earlier when the otherwise brilliant young coach Mike Tomlin decided to play Big Ben instead of resting him and letting him heal from the dreaded “high-ankle sprain.” By playing Ben in some regular season games, Tomlin was basically saying he had no confidence in his back-up quarterbacks or even his defense to win without Ben, which was certainly possible. I believe the defense would have risen to the occasion, and with a fresh Ben in the playoffs, the Steelers should have crushed Denver, which instead upset them, only to be massacred by the New England Patriots. The Steelers should have won against Denver and would have given the Tom Brady Bunch a much better run for their money.
In sales, they say, “it’s not the words, it’s the music.” Well, the Steelers are more than a team; they have a soundtrack. There is the Steelers Polka, and the “Here we go Steelers, Here we go” chant. Lately, Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yellow” rap song has become the Steelers national anthem. The announcer, the late Myron Cope’s voice is imitated often in reverence, but never duplicated. At the Hibernia, black and white people root together, connect with each other about going to school in Pittsburgh or being from someplace near Pittsburgh. When the Steelers score, the HB-HK rattles loud with either Ozzy Osborne’s, “TNT,” or “Hey, Ho, Let’s Go,” by The Ramones. “Hangman” by Styx is another staple at Hibernia and at Heinz Field.
Wait until next year when Steelers return to training camp this August at St. Vincent’s College in Latrobe, Pa., Arnold Palmer’s hometown.
Daniel Wiseman is an independent political commentator, who focuses on national and international affairs. He spent nine years as a professional journalist in Wyoming before working in fund-raising, non-profit management, and is now working in New York City. Wiseman focuses his writing on how to bring the United States back to its Constitutional moorings. He writes exclusively for Canada Free Press.
