On Super Bowl Sunday 2006, I was entering my final hour of broadcasting for the week on ESPN Radio 1250.
I had done multiple shows per day, every day, plus phone hits, television hits and interviews all over Detroit in advance of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ showdown against Seattle for Super Bowl XL.
I was tapped. By that point, I had covered every angle, every matchup, every potential scenario imaginable. I still had 60 minutes to go. So I just threw it out:
“What am I missing back in Pittsburgh?”
The Steelers were looking for their first Super Bowl win since the 1979-80 season. They were on a magical postseason ride. What was the mood back home? I’m done telling you what I think you should know about what’s happening in Detroit. I haven’t been home for a week. You tell me what’s happening on the home front.
Are people showing up in the stadium parking lots to tailgate? Are they nervous? Are they overconfident? Mentally preparing for a parade, or a wake? Are the bars already packed on Carson Street? Were priests saying prayers for the Steelers during Sunday mass?
That last question is what triggered responses on the phone lines. About a dozen people called claiming to have been at services where priests exchanged their usual wardrobes for black and gold attire. Men were wearing their Sunday best jackets over Jerome Bettis jerseys. Recessional hymns on the organ were replaced by the Pittsburgh Polka, and people were walking out chanting, “Here we go, Steelers, here we go!”
I mean, there was no way Seattle was going to win at that point. Obviously, divine intervention is what made it possible to spring Willie Parker on that 75-yard touchdown run, right?
Longest Run in #SuperBowl History
Sprung by a crushing, savage Alan Faneca block and a perfect seal block by Max Starks, the #Steelers' "Fast Willie" Parker takes it 75 yards to paydirt just after halftime in Super Bowl XL.
February 5, 2006 pic.twitter.com/7BFbhogjGX
— Kevin Gallagher (@KevG163) February 5, 2024
Those tales aren’t unique to the early 2000s. Lifelong Pittsburghers have stories like that going back to the glory days of the 1970s. But half a million people didn’t descend on Western Pennsylvania for Super Bowl Sundays. Those were holy days for our city-wide parish of Pittsburgh.
However, league-wide worshipers of the NFL will do exactly that for this week’s draft.
And the Pittsburghers I approached are hoping this week’s visitors walk away with an appreciation of what football means to the city.
“Steelers fandom is tied to the most important times of our lives,” said Andy Costigan, whose family lives on Pittsburgh’s North Side, a mile from Acrisure Stadium. “Some of the most precious moments of our lives involved the Steelers and not only the actual games. It’s not really optional.”
Costigan shared a photo of his son as a newborn, swaddled in his crib with a Steelers knit cap on his head. He also showed off pictures of himself and his wife displaying a Terrible Towel in Italy, on a ski lift in Austria, underneath a Swiss flag on a mountain top.
Costigan’s friend, Jayson Minehart (Brighton Heights), echoed those sentiments.
“Fandom is not a choice here; it’s something you’re born into. It’s a community we are privileged to belong to,” Minehart said.
Joe Matthews from Summer Hill described how all-encompassing the passion for the Steelers tends to be.
“We literally base our emotions on Monday morning on what happened on Sunday afternoon,” Matthews said. “Or … at least I do.”
Canonsburg’s Sandy Graper is a grandmother of four. She also shared a picture of her 3-year-old grandson wearing a Steelers cap, standing next to a suitcase before taking his first flight to Disney World.
“For me, football isn’t just entertainment, it’s part of our identity,” Graper said. “As a lifelong fan and season ticket holder, having the NFL Draft here feels like the National Football League couldn’t find a better stage. I think we should host a Super Bowl.”
Perhaps “Nike Site Nick,” a Steelers postgame show call-in regular, summed it up most succinctly, saying “Pittsburgh is the greatest city in the world. That’s why we’re No. 1 on all them lists. It’s a football tahn. Tradition.”
The best example I can remember of Pittsburgh as a football city wasn’t even in the city. It was in Detroit during that week of the Super Bowl.
Everywhere I turned, I saw a neighbor, an acquaintance, a familiar bartender, a guy from my softball team, the woman who manages the gym. There were fewer Pittsburghers in Pittsburgh during Super Bowl week than there were in Detroit. This city made that city its home for a week because that’s where its team had a chance to attain championship glory for the first time in a quarter century. And I’ll bet fewer than half the people there actually had tickets to the game. They just wanted to breathe the same air while it was happening.
Now this event is on their soil. And they’re hoping your team’s fans turn out the same way for the draft
Even if you’re from Baltimore, Cincinnati or Cleveland.