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February 02, 2006
GO STEELERS!!!!!
As the Super Bowl approaches, the WSJ column "The Daily Fix" has devoted today's column to their favorite Steeler-themed articles. Because the column is for subscribers only, I have taken out chunks that link to my favorite of their favorite articles. Enjoy.
Since 1969, the Steelers have had exactly two coaches: Mr. Noll and Mr. Cowher. That's typical of the Rooneys' quiet approach to their franchise, as Ira Miller notes in the San Francisco Chronicle:
"There are 456 pages in the Steelers' media guide," he writes. "Conspicuously absent from those pages is a biography or photo of the team's owner. Most owners can't wait to lead the parade, to make the most noise, to become the most prominent. Not Rooney.
The feel-good story will be Mr. Bettis. The running back, a 13-year veteran, will be looking to check out on top of the world -- a scenario that couldn't have seemed less likely as the 2004 AFC Championship Game ticked away to nothing with Pittsburgh beaten badly at home by the New England Patriots and Mr. Roethlisberger and Hines Ward in tears on the sidelines.
"[T]hrough the tears and his mumbled apologies, Roethlisberger made an emotional, completely irrational promise," writes Greg Garber on ESPN.com. " 'I said, "Jerome, if you give me one more year, I promise" -- I can't believe I said it, because I don't like making promises I can't keep, and I didn't know if I could keep it -- "that I'll get you to a Super Bowl in your hometown." ' "
Looking down from the stands will be Mr. Bettis's parents, Johnnie and Gladys. That's nothing new, as the Detroit Free Press's Mitch Albom writes: "Through high school, through college, through 13 years of his NFL career, Jerome Bettis' parents have not missed a game he has played on American soil."
And, finally, Pittsburgh radio personality Scott Paulsen has written a wonderful piece on how the end of an era created something lasting.
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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