The NFL Draft remained free to enter Friday but thousands who flocked to Pittsburgh’s North Shore dug into their wallets to snatch up Draft-themed T-shirts featuring the city’s iconic bridges ($49.99) or down an ice-cold IPA beer ($21.25 a can).
Ra’Dale Taylor was less interested in celebrating the Draft with merch than football — Madden Football, to be exact.
He didn’t make it out of the Madden video game tournament’s first round. But it didn’t matter to the Homewood teen.
“I thought, ‘Maybe I should try this out.’ And it turns out I’m rusty,” laughed Taylor, 15, after an opponent — Nyzer McDonald, 14 — used the Buffalo Bills to shut out his Baltimore Ravens 39-0 in the PlayStation match-up.
“But hey,” he added, “it’s the Draft, and now I’ve got something to do.”
Taylor was not alone. Groups of children, teens and adults filled a nonprofit group’s headquarters and its parking lots in Pittsburgh’s Hill District for a citywide tailgate event thrown by the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh.
Attendees were treated to free grub, from hot dogs to Italian ices to an arsenal of potato chips. But they also embraced a healthy dose of equity, the housing authority said.
“We know what’s going on this week and we know that not everyone can get down to the North Shore,” housing authority spokesman Chuck Rohrer said. “But it should be a celebration for them, too.”
The Centre Avenue home of ACH Clear Pathways, a nonprofit that serves children and families through the arts, was bustling during the four-hour Draft party.
412 Ice Cream appeared to be one of the biggest hits of the afternoon, offering treats from iced chocolate eclair popsicles and M&M-speckled ice cream sandwiches to orange creamsicles and king-size strawberry shortcake bars.
LaVette Wagner told TribLive she was excited to trek to the North Shore on Thursday afternoon for Draft festivities. The Penn Hills woman said it also was important, though, to celebrate the event in the Hill, the neighborhood where she grew up.
“I think this is great because it’s right here,” said Wagner, 64, clad in a Steelers jersey (Najee Harris, #22) as she dug a spoon into her cherry-flavored Italian ice. “I love that they do this in the neighborhoods.”
The woman on the other end of that Italian ice — 412 Ice Cream owner Annamarie Turi — was just as excited to help celebrate outside the NFL Draft footprint.
Turi launched 412 Ice Cream, revamping an old Ford truck into an aqua-colored, mobile ice cream dispenser, after she was furloughed from her food, beverage and catering job with Marriott at the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic.
“What makes it special is that we cater to all our neighborhoods — whether they can afford to go buy food at the Draft or they can’t,” Turi said.
Turi paused after handing a woman a vanilla ice cream cone topped with chocolate and crushed peanuts.
“We help the programs that give these kids something to do,” she said.
Others at the tailgate event kept their hearts closer to the NFL.
Tyeshia Morris, who served up hot dogs alongside her sister with Beyond Blessed Catering Co., doesn’t plan to go to the Draft this weekend. But she refuses to miss it in two years, when her son, North Texas safety Jason Cross Jr., hopes to make the leap to the big leagues.
“We’re from the Hill District,” Toshia Morris, 43, Tyeshia’s sister, added. “Just seeing all these people come out and enjoy it? It’s exciting for us.”
Others looked to the free event as a way to spread the word about services.
Inside an oversized trailer dubbed CyberBus 2.0, volunteers offered to help people apply for jobs or sharpen up their resumes at seven waiting computer stations. If further motivation was necessary, the trailer’s ultra-modern interior boasted its own refrigerator, Keurig coffee machine and cranked up air-conditioning.
Across the parking lot, volunteers pitched STEM education and computer coding from a second Cyberbus.
Taylor, the Homewood teen, refused to be distracted after being booted from the Madden tournament rankings, his shutout loss projected on two massive screens inside the nonprofit’s Elsie Hillman Auditorium.
If he couldn’t win a PlayStation 5 Pro by winning a Madden tournament, he said he’d simply find another way to win it.
“I’m probably going to try out that raffle,” he said, smiling. “I need that PlayStation!”