TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Steelers Fans Love Team Owner

ADVERTISEMENT

By JOE HENDERSON

jhenderson@tampatrib.com

Published: January 30, 2009

TAMPA - People enjoy watching football in most places across this land, but Pittsburgh isn't like most places and Pennsylvania isn't like most states. Football isn't a diversion there, nor is it something to be lightly debated over the water cooler or simply enjoyed as one might enjoy a good dinner.

It is much more - part of the culture, embedded in the DNA of people for whom football is as much a part of life as washing down a Primanti sandwich with a cold Iron City beer. It doesn't really matter whether it's the Pittsburgh Steelers or North Allegheny High School, either. Since the Steelers are in town for the Super Bowl, we'll keep the focus there.

"It's not my team - it's our team. It's the town's identity," said Dominick Gambino.

He is 57, a lifelong resident of Pittsburgh, and after he sent me an e-mail this week to comment about a column on the Super Bowl, I asked him to please explain the phenomenon of western Pennsylvania football in general and Pittsburgh Steelers in particular.

Start with the owner: Dan Rooney, 74, son of Steelers patriarch Art Rooney. Most cities either hate the people who own their teams at worst, or struggle to tolerate them at best. Not in this case. Pittsburgh loves the Rooneys. Why is this?

"They are a Pittsburgh family," Gambino explained. "You have to understand that it's not just the game of football itself, but it's how that game relates to the people of the city that's the big thing. It's so ingrained and institutionalized in this city.

"I worked in the steel mills when I was in college; I know many people who did. That's the type of person who lives here. The Rooneys understand that because they're like us."

Indeed, legend has it that Art Rooney won $2,500 in long-shot bets one day at the Saratoga horse track in upstate New York. He used that money to pay the entry fee into the National Football League, and thus the Steelers were born.

You'll find nary a silver spoon here.

"I don't understand any other way, except to be a Steelers fan," Gambino said. "It's just the way it is. Things stop here on Sundays when they play. When you do go out somewhere, the women are talking about the Steelers as much as the men - maybe more."

Closed For Business

He's not kidding. Despite the economy and the need to make every nickel possible, many stores and restaurants are closing early Sunday so their employees can go home and watch the game.

Rays manager Joe Maddon is perhaps the country's most celebrated Arizona Cardinals fan at the moment, but as a child of Pennsylvania - he grew up in Hazleton, on the eastern side of the state - he understands the football culture. He played quarterback at Hazleton High School, and midget-league football there before that.

"It was like 'Friday Night Lights,'" he said. "There were pep rallies, people would talk all day about the game, and there would be a caravan to go watch. When we lost, it was like, 'Oh my goodness!' Old men would come up to me all week in town and ask what happened. If I fumbled, I had to carry a football around all day to class - and I'd better do it because someone would tell the coach if I didn't.

"If you're a big kid there and you didn't play football, no one would understand. You'd get stopped all the time by friends, teachers, basically everyone. It was pretty much expected that if you were able-bodied, you were playing football. Our town was very serious about it. It's that way all over the state."

A Public Trust

Dan Rooney is a humble man; for years, at his order, the Steelers' media guide does not include biographical information on him. But his influence is that of a giant. Not many men have a rule named after them, especially one as important as the Rooney Rule. It requires teams to interview at least one minority candidate for head coaching vacancies.

"We got this idea we should do more," he said.

Doing more to help people. What a concept.

In an era of great greed, Rooney agreed to privately finance nearly 40 percent of the cost to build Heinz Field, the Steelers' $280 million home. And the team that plays there is just as tough and grimy as the city it represents. They call that the "Steeler Way." It means a lot of things.

It is about excellence on the field and relationships off of it. And it means never forgetting where you come from and who you represent. For what that is, we return to Dominick Gambino.

"We may not always win - we don't mind losing, just as long as we hit the hardest," he said. "That's just who we are. We want the other team to know we were there."

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT