What is a Steelers Fan?

[Preacher]

Originally Posted by Livinginthe past

What is a Steelers fan?

A Steelers fan just loves lengthy monologues espousing their poetic virtues with as many clich?s as possible!

The DNA of hardwork?

Please.

LITP...

Lately you seem to be more arrogant then usual toward the Steeler team and fans.

I admire your football knowledge. However, you are utterly clueless in what the Steelers mean to the city of Pittsburgh. You can and will never have an idea. It is not like your beloved pats... or almost any other team...

Being that I did not grow up in Pittsburgh, I didn't get it either for a number of years. They were just a favorite team. Then when I started to hang out with other fans, I caught a much deeper understanding of who and what the team itself, and the surrounding community is.

Years ago, when the mills and everything else was closing, when the very essence and personality of the city was in doubt, there was only one thing in Pittsburgh to give them any relief from the literal hell they felt every day. That was a resurgent Steeler team that dealt with football the same way Pittsburghers deal with life. Hard, ugly, full-force, regardless of what comes at you. The Steelers became the ONE thing that they could discuss that didn't involve A. Some one else being laid off, or another mill closing. B. Some one else losing their house or C. Someone else committing suicide because they lost it all.

Yeah... other cities were dealing with it... but they didn't have a team that they could invest all thier hopes into... and have it fulfilled, giving them hope for one more week. The team, and the city made it through. Today, the team is the beloved son of the city.

Today, I love the Steelers even more, because of the city. I have learned to love Pittsburgh as a city because of this history (and my own personal history with the Steelers... which when expressed, every Steeler fan seems to look at me with a knowing look... ).

You have not just posted some tripe. You have insulted a city, a people, and a history.

The saddest part about it... I doubt you have the ability to see what was posted above... and post something showing respectability.

Please prove me wrong...

Or you could just post telling me (and all Steeler fans) again to, "Get Bent." Which, BTW, is a lovely gesture... Telling someone to bend over and wait for someone else to sodomize them....

Lovely...

[alittlejazzbird]

I've been e-mailed this piece several times over the last couple years. I think it was particularly popular, and may even have been written, around Super Bowl time.

It's true that Western Pennsylvanians are a unique bunch, and as Preacher noted, people who don't come from there just don't understand the special brand of love/lunacy that we all feel toward our Steelers.

However, speaking as a native of one of those now-dead little steel towns along the Mon, and as someone who was growing up in the late 60s and through the 70s as the steel collapse was happening, I understand LITP's somewhat jaundiced view of the writer's highly romanticized recollections.

I appreciate and enjoy how accurately the writer captures the pride of place and our crazy love of our Steelers, but I can tell you first hand that my blue-collar life, just like the lives of all our friends, neighbors and family, was not particularly "easy" and definitely not carefree, and it's downright wrong to presume that people didn't know they lacked material things -- they most certainly did know -- or that they didn't want more. Everyone I and my parents knew aspired to more, and to a better life.

As any Pittsburgher who has moved away is aware, the particular brand of hometown pride that is practiced in Western Pa. may have produced a "salt of the earth" kind of people -- the type of no-nonsense, good-hearted people who look out for their neighbors and would give you the shirt off their backs -- but it has also produced a dismaying stubborn tendency to resist change or progress, and an unfortunate "that's the way we've always done it" sort of mindset that inhibits growth and, in my opinion, negatively impacts the region's quality of life.

One of my non-Pittsburgh friends remarked during a visit to my hometown a few years back, "I feel like I've stepped back into 1975." It's an interesing paradox; the very things that make the people and the region unique, are the very things that hold them back.

The writer of this piece has a quaint and romanticized view of that era, but it's a lovely little time capsule.

[RoethlisBURGHer]

Originally Posted by Livinginthe past

What is a Steelers fan?

A Steelers fan just loves lengthy monologues espousing their poetic virtues with as many clich?s as possible!

The DNA of hardwork?

Please.

Dude,have you ever been laid off from your livleyhood (sp)?I'm not talking a grocery clerk job...not some stupid little job you worked in high school and college.I am talking the job that supported you and your family.

That is what happened to so many people from Western Pennsylvania.The mines and mills is what employed nearly the entire area.It's all the people knew.There wasn't another job to go get because every day another one closed.They few that weren't closing were laying people off left and right.

Of course,you'd know nothing about a connection like this with your team.The Patriots were nothing but a sports footnote in New England for most of thier existance.

So please,do me a favor.Don't ridicule the Steelers,thier fans,and the city of Pittsburgh.It makes you come off like a troll and a trouble maker.If you want to get banned by a moderator,just ask.Don't act like a small child,even if that's the maturity level you are at.

[Preacher]

Originally Posted by alittlejazzbird

and, in my opinion, negatively impacts the region's quality of life.


The writer of this piece has a quaint and romanticized view of that era, but it's a lovely little time capsule.

QUality of life?? In North NJ?

(My wife is from that area... Montclair/Clifton/Bloomfield, and loves it! I just had to give it a little poke!

[alittlejazzbird]

Originally Posted by Preacher

QUality of life?? In North NJ?

(My wife is from that area... Montclair/Clifton/Bloomfield)

I feel ya, Preacher. Believe me, I don't live here by choice -- hubby was transferred by his company. The writer of that piece got one thing absolutely right: Western Pennsylvanians are genuine, and in those terms, I'd take Pittsburgh's quality of life any day over the rat race and rudeness of metro NYC.

(no offense to anyone on this board from New Jersey!)

[The Duke]

Steelers fans are the best, plain and simple

[katk9]

Originally Posted by wedosesteelers2006

To be a Steelers' fan? Hmmmmmm
Now, I live a little south of the Pittsburgh, PA area here in western NC, but I know a little about hard work and not having much in life. I work 47 hours a week and make enough $$$ to supply my family of 4 with what we need. I come home from a 9 1/2 hour day 5 days a week and I thank the Good Lord above for the strength to be able to get out and earn a living, some folks arent in the right health to do that everyday. Now, I am not from the great town of Pittsburgh or even close in miles.. but ya know what?.... My blood is not red.... it is Black N Gold Baby.. and has been for close to 25 or so years. I love the Steelers and I love those folks that get out every day and make an honest living... not just trying to get a free ride.. (government style) there is folks that cant get out and work and God knows that. Live your life according to Jesus' Book and accept him into your life and he will bless you more than you will ever need. "I AM A STEELERS FAN AND PROUD OF IT"

Thank you very much for words well said.

[clarient]

Nonbelievers will never truly get it.

It's laudable to try and educate them on what being part of the Steelers Nation really means, but I don't think it's something they can understand. It's not just being a fan of a team, it's a sense that you have joined an immense brother- and sister-hood. I see a glimpse of the Black and Gold on TV and my heart leaps. I see a sticker or a jersey - in the middle of Cowboys country, in central Texas! - and it brings a smile to my face and a "How 'bout them Stillers!" to my lips. My Roethlisberger jersey hangs on the wall of apartment and my Black and Gold beads dangle from the rearview mirror of my car.

I may not have been there for the hard times and the Steel Mill closures and the general exodus from Pittsburgh, but I still feel the passion! We are not the same kinds of fans that other teams have. It's something very, very different that can't easily be explained.

[Livinginthe past]

Originally Posted by stillers4me

Ever worked in a steelmill or watched your dad after he came home from the mill or the look on his face when he comes home to tell the family he just got laid off, again.??

I thought not.

What?

I've been made redundant from my place of work once before and its due to happen again this Xmas - this will be the second factory I have worked in that has closed.

You'd think Pittsburgh was the only place on earth where the local economy hinged on a single industry.

Go ahead and pat yourself on the back, though.

[Livinginthe past]

Originally Posted by HometownGal

I suggest you stick to pie and chips, bubbles and squeak and hot toddies there LITP. You obviously need a good clout with the clue hammer regarding the history behind Pittsburgh and its people. As a Pittsburgher, I resent your insensitive diatribe above.

Thank you for the great read, Stlrs4life - excellent and right on the money!

As much as I love your use of British stereotypes to depict me in such a hilarious fashion im going to have to reserve my right to voice my opinion.

You are quite welcome to resent that opinion all you like.