3MTA3
Footballguy
(Sorry about the spacing, it's a copy paste from an email)
Nation Building
January 18, 2006
Scott Paulsen
Think about this the next time someone argues that a professional sports
franchise is not important to a city's identity:
In the 1980's, as the steel mills and their supporting factories shut down
from Homestead to Midland, Pittsburghers, faced for the first time in their
lives with the specter of unemployment, were forced to pick up their
families, leave their home towns and move to more profitable parts of the
country. The steel workers were not ready for this. They had planned to
stay in the 'burgh their entire lives. It was home.
Everyone I know can tell the same story about how Dad, Uncle Bob or their
brother-in-law packed a U-Haul and headed down to Tampa to build houses or
up to Boston for an office job or out to California to star in pornographic videos.
Alright. Maybe that last one just happened in my family.
At this same time, during the early to mid-eighties, the Pittsburgh
Steelers were at the peak of their popularity. Following the Super Bowl dynasty
years, the power of the Steelers was strong. Every man, woman, boy and girl from parts of four states were Pittsburgh faithful, living and breathing
day to day on the news of their favorite team. Then, as now, it seemed to be
all anyone talked about.
Who do you think the Steelers will take in the draft this year?
Is Bradshaw done?
Can you believe they won't give Franco the money - what's he doing going to Seattle?
The last memories most unemployed steel workers had of their towns had a
black and gold tinge. The good times remembered all seemed to revolve,
somehow, around a football game. Sneaking away from your sister's wedding
reception to go downstairs to the bar and watch the game against Earl
Campbell and the Oilers - going to midnight mass, still half in the bag
after Pittsburgh beat Oakland - you and your grandfather, both crying at
the sight of The Chief, finally holding his Vince Lombardi Trophy.
And then, the mills closed.
Damn the mills.
One of the unseen benefits of the collapse of the value systems our
families believed in - that the mill would look after you through thick and thin - was that now, decades later, there is not a town in America where a Pittsburgher cannot feel at home. Nearly every city in the United States has a designated "Black and Gold" establishment. FromBangor, Maine to Honolulu, Hawaii, and every town in between can be found - an oasis of Iron City, chipped ham and yinzers. It's great to know that no matter what happened in the lives of our Steel City refugees, they never forgot the things that held us together as a city - families, food, and Steelers football.
It's what we call the Steeler Nation. You see it every football season. And when the Steelers have a great year, as they have had this season, the power
of the Steeler Nation rises to show itself stronger than ever. This week,
as the Pittsburgh team of Roethlisberger, Polamalu, Bettis and Porter head to
Denver, the fans of Greenwood, Lambert, Bleier and Blount, the generation
who followed Lloyd, Thigpen, Woodson andKirkland will be watching from
Dallas to Chicago, from an Air Force base in Minot, North Dakota, to a tent
stuck in the sand near Fallujah, Iraq.
I have received more email from displaced Pittsburgh Steelers fans this
week than Christmas cards this holiday season.
They're everywhere.
We're everywhere.
We are the Steeler Nation.
And now, it's passing from one generation to the next. The children of
displaced Pittsburghers, who have never lived in the Steel City, are
growing up Steelers fans. When they come back to their parents' hometowns to visit
the grandparents, they hope, above all, to be blessed enough to get to see
the Steelers in person. Heinz Field is their football Mecca.
And if a ticket isn't available, that's okay, too. There's nothing better
than sitting in Grandpa's living room, just like Dad did, eating Grandma's
cooking and watching the Pittsburgh Steelers. Just like Dad did.
So, to you, Steeler Nation, I send best wishes and a fond wave of the
Terrible Towel. To Tom, who emailed from Massachusetts to say how great it
was to watch the Patriots lose and the Steelers win in one glorious
weekend. To Michelle, from Milwaukee, who wrote to let me know it was she who hexed Mike Vanderjagt last Sunday by chanting "boogity, boogity, boogity" and
giving him the maloik". To Jack, who will somehow pull himself away from
the beach bar he tends in Hilo, Hawaii, to once again root for the black and
gold in the middle of the night (his time), I say, thanks for giving power
to the great Steeler Nation.
All around the NFL, the word is out that the Pittsburgh Steeler fans
"travel well", meaning they will fly or drive from Pittsburgh to anywhere the
Steelers play, just to see their team. The one aspect about that situation
the rest of the NFL fails to grasp is that, sometimes, the Steeler Nation
does not have to travel. Sometimes, we're already there.
Yes, the short sighted steel mills screwed our families over.
But they did, in a completely unintended way, create something new and
perhaps more powerful than an industry. They helped created a nation.
A Steeler Nation.
Nation Building
January 18, 2006
Scott Paulsen
Think about this the next time someone argues that a professional sports
franchise is not important to a city's identity:
In the 1980's, as the steel mills and their supporting factories shut down
from Homestead to Midland, Pittsburghers, faced for the first time in their
lives with the specter of unemployment, were forced to pick up their
families, leave their home towns and move to more profitable parts of the
country. The steel workers were not ready for this. They had planned to
stay in the 'burgh their entire lives. It was home.
Everyone I know can tell the same story about how Dad, Uncle Bob or their
brother-in-law packed a U-Haul and headed down to Tampa to build houses or
up to Boston for an office job or out to California to star in pornographic videos.
Alright. Maybe that last one just happened in my family.
At this same time, during the early to mid-eighties, the Pittsburgh
Steelers were at the peak of their popularity. Following the Super Bowl dynasty
years, the power of the Steelers was strong. Every man, woman, boy and girl from parts of four states were Pittsburgh faithful, living and breathing
day to day on the news of their favorite team. Then, as now, it seemed to be
all anyone talked about.
Who do you think the Steelers will take in the draft this year?
Is Bradshaw done?
Can you believe they won't give Franco the money - what's he doing going to Seattle?
The last memories most unemployed steel workers had of their towns had a
black and gold tinge. The good times remembered all seemed to revolve,
somehow, around a football game. Sneaking away from your sister's wedding
reception to go downstairs to the bar and watch the game against Earl
Campbell and the Oilers - going to midnight mass, still half in the bag
after Pittsburgh beat Oakland - you and your grandfather, both crying at
the sight of The Chief, finally holding his Vince Lombardi Trophy.
And then, the mills closed.
Damn the mills.
One of the unseen benefits of the collapse of the value systems our
families believed in - that the mill would look after you through thick and thin - was that now, decades later, there is not a town in America where a Pittsburgher cannot feel at home. Nearly every city in the United States has a designated "Black and Gold" establishment. FromBangor, Maine to Honolulu, Hawaii, and every town in between can be found - an oasis of Iron City, chipped ham and yinzers. It's great to know that no matter what happened in the lives of our Steel City refugees, they never forgot the things that held us together as a city - families, food, and Steelers football.
It's what we call the Steeler Nation. You see it every football season. And when the Steelers have a great year, as they have had this season, the power
of the Steeler Nation rises to show itself stronger than ever. This week,
as the Pittsburgh team of Roethlisberger, Polamalu, Bettis and Porter head to
Denver, the fans of Greenwood, Lambert, Bleier and Blount, the generation
who followed Lloyd, Thigpen, Woodson andKirkland will be watching from
Dallas to Chicago, from an Air Force base in Minot, North Dakota, to a tent
stuck in the sand near Fallujah, Iraq.
I have received more email from displaced Pittsburgh Steelers fans this
week than Christmas cards this holiday season.
They're everywhere.
We're everywhere.
We are the Steeler Nation.
And now, it's passing from one generation to the next. The children of
displaced Pittsburghers, who have never lived in the Steel City, are
growing up Steelers fans. When they come back to their parents' hometowns to visit
the grandparents, they hope, above all, to be blessed enough to get to see
the Steelers in person. Heinz Field is their football Mecca.
And if a ticket isn't available, that's okay, too. There's nothing better
than sitting in Grandpa's living room, just like Dad did, eating Grandma's
cooking and watching the Pittsburgh Steelers. Just like Dad did.
So, to you, Steeler Nation, I send best wishes and a fond wave of the
Terrible Towel. To Tom, who emailed from Massachusetts to say how great it
was to watch the Patriots lose and the Steelers win in one glorious
weekend. To Michelle, from Milwaukee, who wrote to let me know it was she who hexed Mike Vanderjagt last Sunday by chanting "boogity, boogity, boogity" and
giving him the maloik". To Jack, who will somehow pull himself away from
the beach bar he tends in Hilo, Hawaii, to once again root for the black and
gold in the middle of the night (his time), I say, thanks for giving power
to the great Steeler Nation.
All around the NFL, the word is out that the Pittsburgh Steeler fans
"travel well", meaning they will fly or drive from Pittsburgh to anywhere the
Steelers play, just to see their team. The one aspect about that situation
the rest of the NFL fails to grasp is that, sometimes, the Steeler Nation
does not have to travel. Sometimes, we're already there.
Yes, the short sighted steel mills screwed our families over.
But they did, in a completely unintended way, create something new and
perhaps more powerful than an industry. They helped created a nation.
A Steeler Nation.
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