A Nation Needs Embassies
Left: There are hundreds of Steelers bars around the globe where fans feel right at home. The Locker Room in Charlotte, N.C., displays Steelers license plates, apparel and footballs.
These days, it's not uncommon to find a Yankees bar in Washington, D.C., or a Kansas City Chiefs bar in L.A. Plenty of teams, especially perennial champs such as the Dallas Cowboys or Green Bay Packers, attract out-of-town followers. But Steelers fans contend that only the Boston Red Sox approach their team's capacity for inspiring so many dedicated public houses. "I've never seen anything like it," O'Brien's co-owner, Teresa O'Brien, says of the people who populate her barstools and tables from late-summer through midwinter. "They are together to the bitter end."
Even those who study fan behavior, such as Miami University of Ohio psychology professor Beth Dietz-Uhler, a Churchill native, can't quite explain why Steelers fans gather together the way they do. If you ask people why they follow a particular team, she says, "The No. 1 reason is geographic location. No. 2 is that 'my parents followed the team.' And the third reason is the success of the team." Steelers Nation encompasses all that and more.
There's something unique about these fans - young and old, male and female, native and outsider - that gives rise to this stunning collection of crowded bars around the world. Even those at the heart of it, including Pelc and Horrigan and Niggle, can't explain it. But one phrase keeps cropping up: It's about home, they say - creating a home for their dedication, replicating the home they sorely miss, finding a home when forces propel them to unfamiliar ground.
It's still spreading, this exuberant hometown expansionism built upon a successful football team and the community it represents. The latest Super Bowl victory only made things worse. It's as if an army of black and gold is moving outward, claiming land, expanding a fervent empire to the farthest reaches of the known world.
Almost, you might say, like a dynasty. One built on empty pints and piles of chicken-wing bones, but a dynasty nonetheless.
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No. 1 Fan A World Away by ted anthony
If you're old enough to remember the City of Champions in that magical fall of 1979 when the Pirates won the World Series and the Steelers won the Super Bowl, then odds are you experienced it up close. I didn't. I had been dragged off to live in Beijing for a year by my parents, University of Pittsburgh educators whose kindly manner belied the truth: To the 11-year-old Pirates and Steelers fan who was me, they were the devil-incarnate. "You ruined my life," I told them, and at the time I think I meant it. You must understand: This was long before Steelers Nation, long before continuously updated scores and satellite-TV sports and hometown newspapers on the Web. Only a handful of Americans were living in China then, long before it sprouted the capitalistic tendencies that have turned its cities into shiny shopping malls. That left me, a forlorn speck of black and gold sitting in a foreign land populated with gray buildings and gray Mao jackets, suffering through an autumn of discontent as September ebbed into October. I couldn't get a Big Mac, couldn't watch the latest episode of "Eight Is Enough" and certainly couldn't watch the Bucs conquer the playoffs and the Steelers march toward the AFC championship every Sunday.
For the seventh game of the Series, I had a plan. A friend's father in our Beijing compound had a shortwave radio - technology's cutting edge in that time and place. I arranged to stop over early in the morning so that I could tune in to Armed Forces Radio and, 12 time zones away, hear my Bucs. So around dawn on Thurs., Oct. 18, 1979, I heard the crack of a bat 10,000 miles away and knew that Willie Stargell had done what he did best - smacked a piece of horsehide and clinched the World Series for the Pirates. For the Steelers, I wasn't as lucky; the friend's dad was away, so the Super Bowl was lost to me. Months later, someone mailed me a copy of the Sports Illustrated that featured Stargell and Terry Bradshaw staring out from the cover, grinning at their selection as "Sportsmen of the Year." I tacked it onto my wall and gazed longingly. Several months ago, after an absence of two decades, I moved back to Pittsburgh to help out my 80-something parents. The other day, I went over to their new apartment carrying one of those red Netflix envelopes. We sat together and watched the seventh game of the 1979 World Series. We watched Stargell, Dave Parker, Kent Tekulve, Bill Robinson - all suddenly young again - and we remembered. "You're forgiven," I told my parents, and we laughed. They hadn't ruined my life, it turns out. In fact, I went back to China on my own accord in 2001 and stayed for three years, even watched a Steelers game or two on satellite TV in a bar owned by a Pittsburgher. The irony never occurred to me.
They'll have it all at their fingertips. But you know what? I don't envy them at all. Because as great as it is to have something, wanting it can be even better. |
I can laugh about it now, spin it as a great little bar story about something cool that happened to me long ago and demonstrates my love for Pittsburgh, the city of my birth. Truth is, though, the whole thing was excruciating.
I was able to keep in touch in slow motion thanks to clippings mailed by my grandmother and others. Today, I leaf carefully through the yellowing Chinese notebook in which I pasted them, and the longing rushes back. "Stargell Belts HR in 11th as Bucs Top Reds in Opener." "Pirates Complete Three-Game Sweep to Snare N.L. Flag." "Series-Bound Pirates Sweep Reds."
China is in my blood, though, and I plan to drag my two young sons there one day. If the Steelers make the Super Bowl or the Pirates wind up in the playoffs, my boys will have enough technology at hand to make them feel as if they're right in Heinz Field or PNC Park - and enough Pittsburghers around to make it feel like home.Melissa Rayworth writes feature stories each week for The Associated Press and other news outlets. Her work has appeared in magazines and newspapers across the globe, including The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times. She lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and two sons.
Veteran journalist Ted Anthony has reported from more than 20 countries for The Associated Press. He moved back to his native Pittsburgh after a two-decade absence and lives in Allison Park.