The Steelers Remain a Blue-Collar Team in a Blue-Collar Town; 'It Really is a Religion Out Here'
PITTSBURGH, Pa.—Jim Kelly forged his entire Hall of Fame career in Buffalo. He went to four Super Bowls with the Bills. He set NFL records in Buffalo and had his number retired there.But he grew up in Pittsburgh. His dad owns a Terrible Towel. And when his father moved to Buffalo this past year to be closer to his 13 grandchildren, "he did bring it with him," Mr. Kelly said, not one trace of pique apparent in his voice.
After all, that's Pittsburgh.
Nurses at the Oakbrook Commons cancer center tie the bright yellow, game-day waving Terrible Towels to the IV rods dispensing chemotheraphy treatments.
High school football players get more pumped for the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League championship, played on the Steelers' Heinz Field than they do for the state title game, out in Hershey Park.
Visitors at Pittsburgh International Airport have to pass side-by-side statues before leaving the airport. One is of George Washington, our country's first president and the official founder of Pittsburgh. The other is of Franco Harris, who caught a pass in a divisional playoff game.
"That's Pittsburgh," says Steelers backup quarterback Charlie Batch, chuckling.
The pass Mr. Harris caught, of course, was the legendary Immaculate Reception in the Steelers' 1972 franchise-igniting win over the Raiders.
Deflected off safety Jack Tatum, scooped by Mr. Harris, it was judged football's greatest play off all-time by NFL Films. The monument's place next to Mr. Washington, Steelers receiver Hines Ward said, "tells you all you need to know about football and this part of the country."
Although he's in his 13th year here, Mr. Ward is not a native. Mr. Batch, born and bred seven miles outside Pittsburgh proper in Homestead, is. He knows Pittsburgh, where the blood runs black and gold, where the legion of football Hall of Famers will likely never stop sprouting and where something is clearly in the water.
"No one knows what's in the water. That's the point. Have you seen that river?" Mr. Batch exclaims, pointing out the Steelers' practice facility toward to the brackish Monangahela. "It's all muddy and dark."
That is the point, of course. If ever a region was built in the image of this game, it would be here.
The city was borne of steel mills and manufacturing, and a blue-collar ethos that Mr. Kelly— whose father worked in a steel mill—said he often talked about sharing with fellow natives and Hall of Fame quarterbacks Joe Montana and Dan Marino.
"Nothing is given to you in Pittsburgh," Mr. Batch said, "and nothing is given to you in football either."
In the days of the steel mills and smokestacks, the Steelers and their lunch-pail nature were something everyone, rich and poor alike, could take pride in.
Today, as the industrial sites have been shuttered, the banks have moved in and events like the G20 Summit have landed in town, "Pittsburgh is still that steel mill town," native and former Jets tailback Curtis Martin said. "And the Steelers are still that blue-collar team."
George Novak coaches at Woodland Hills, whose six NFL players are the most from any one high school in the league. Jets linebacker Jason Taylor was a 6-foot-1, 165-pound home-schooled 11th grader outside Pittsburgh when Mr. Novak told him to come out for the team.
He was a safety. The next year he put on 15 pounds, and when he comes home with the Jets Sunday for this AFC title clash, he'll do it as a six-time Pro Bowler in his 14th NFL year.
"Jason was determined and very competitive," Mr. Novak said. "He learned that growing up in Western PA."
It's all tied together, from midget football to high school on through to the Steelers. Since the 1970s, when they won four Super Bowls, the Steelers have been a benchmark in the league. This Sunday they'll be looking for their eighth Super Bowl trip, and seventh Super Bowl trophy.
There's stability and there's success, and it makes Mr. Kelly rue what's happened in Buffalo, where he loves the Bills and hates that 14- and 15-year-olds have no personal recollection of the Bills as successful. No playoffs, few winning seasons and definitely no Super Bowls.
"When you keep winning as a franchise year in and year out, those kids, they continue to see the winning tradition," he said. "The passion automatically goes from parents to kids."
It's a passion that gives rise to the inane, like the Monroeville man who's painted the bricks on his house gold and black. Or the endearing, like the 80-year-old women who 24-year-old Steelers receiver Mike Wallace says regularly recognizes him at the grocery store. Or the occasionally tough, like the day after the Steelers' 2009 Super Bowl win, when Mr. Ward went to fill up gas.
"This woman says to me, 'Hey, we gonna win one next year?'" Mr. Ward said with a smile and a head shake. "I wanted to say, 'Let's enjoy this one for a minute.' It really is a religion out here."
Which is why religion is invoked in the names of the plays: Immaculate Reception. Immaculate Deflection (1996 AFC title game). Immaculate Interception (Super Bowl XLIII).
The lore is only part of the reason why nurse Susan Braun tied those towels to the IV rods at the cancer center this year.
"Terrible Towels are part of our culture here," Mrs. Braun said. "They're a sign of home and they stand for our strong city. I think it gives our patients some hope."
The weaving of that bond, Mr. Batch says, has as much to do with the Rooney family as it does the steel mills. Patriarch Art Rooney was the founding owner of the Steelers, an accomplished mediator who was unafraid to stand alone in opposition when the NFL considered moving another franchise to a then racially-tense Dallas in the early 1950s.
His son Dan took over day-to-day operations in 1974. Progenitor of the league's Rooney Rule, designed to increase interview opportunities for minority head coaching candidates, and a member of the Hall of Fame, Mr. Rooney is now ambassador to Ireland.
He's a man who still pays for his lunch in the cafeteria he owns, rides the team charter to away games and sits in coach.
"My first flight here, I was shocked. Not only was he not in first class, he was sitting in the last row by the bathroom, where you can't recline," Mr. Batch said, still incredulous all these years later. "He just said, 'I'm not playing a game tomorrow. I don't have to stretch my legs.' That's a Hall of Famer?"
That's how important football is here.
Maybe that's why Mr. Martin remembers having to rustle up 50 to 75 tickets every time the Jets came to town—"and how not only would those people not wear green, they'd be ready to fight with Jets fans," he said. "My mother was my only relative who didn't wish me ill will when I played the Steelers."
Maybe that's why picking an all-time all-Western Pennsylvania quarterback is impossible.
"Montana can start, Marino can come in after the half, and since I'm so good at the two-minute offense, I'll come in at the end," Mr. Kelly says.
But then what about Johnny Unitas?
"Johnny U can come coach us," Kelly says.
Right, except that Bill Cowher, Marty Schottenheimer, Packers coach Mike McCarthy and Bengals coach Marvin Lewis are all from Western Pennsylvania too.
"There really is no place like it," Mr. Roethlisberger said Thursday. "No one else matches their city like we do. We're blue collar, we're hard-working, we're good old guys and that's what this city is."
By ADITI KINKHABWALA
Wall Street JournalJanuary 21, 2011
