HERE WE GO!
>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.
>
> All right.
>
> 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. From
>Bangor, 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 and Kirkland 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.
>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.
>
> All right.
>
> 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. From
>Bangor, 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 and Kirkland 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.