The Bus Stops Here
12.15.05 (7:15 am) [edit]
I know the Steelers are all I write about anymore, but that's about the only exciting thing going for me at the moment. Anyway, here's a great article I came across while reading the Post-Gazette yesterday - it really captures the spirit of Steelers fandom here in the Burg - and throughout the world.
A Steelers fan in sunny California yearns to be freezing in Heinz Field
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
By David Hollander
SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- Eight years ago, I brought home a big lab puppy. Her father was a champion, a 110 pounds of muscle, her mother no less impressive. When my wife and I were coming up with names, I strongly lobbied for "Bettis."
My wife talked me out of it -- not because she wasn't a Bettis fan, but because the professional sporting world had rushed into a cynical age in which players like Jerome bounced from team to team. She simply did not want me to hate the dog if and when The Bus ended up in Dallas or Tampa Bay or Cleveland. I relented to this point of view and we gave the dog another name.
Last Sunday I sat on my couch with my 7-year-old son and my sleepy, now old and gray 8-year-old lab (Franny), and watched the Steelers play the Chicago Bears. After Bettis ran over Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher and dove into the end zone, my boy looked at me with alarm and asked why Daddy had tears running down his face.
It's hard to explain to a kid being raised in Southern California the meaning of loving a team as much as any kid from Pittsburgh loves the Steelers, harder still to explain that the game on Sunday was the epitome of why any Steelers fan feels for our team the way we do.
We love our Steelers because, at their best, our Steelers love the game. We love our Steelers because they play with power and joy and clarity, through pain and age and sore knees and contract negotiations and the changes that take place in every other city with every other team. We love Jerome Bettis because he is a Steeler through and through; he brings the kind of fearlessness, power and rawness to the game that can move a grown man watching the game from nearly three thousand miles away to tears.
So I cried a little bit when Bettis ran over Urlacher.
Because watching that run from sunny Southern California made me yearn to sit in the stands freezing and still drinking cold beer, because the Steelers have remained the Steelers, and because Bettis is one of the best to ever put on a Steelers uniform. I didn't say any of that to my son, however.
All I said was, "I should have named the damn dog Bettis."
(David Hollander is creator of "The Guardian," a CBS TV series set in Pittsburgh, which ran from 2001 to 2004. He is at work on a feature film and two TV pilots.)
A Steelers fan in sunny California yearns to be freezing in Heinz Field
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
By David Hollander
SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- Eight years ago, I brought home a big lab puppy. Her father was a champion, a 110 pounds of muscle, her mother no less impressive. When my wife and I were coming up with names, I strongly lobbied for "Bettis."
My wife talked me out of it -- not because she wasn't a Bettis fan, but because the professional sporting world had rushed into a cynical age in which players like Jerome bounced from team to team. She simply did not want me to hate the dog if and when The Bus ended up in Dallas or Tampa Bay or Cleveland. I relented to this point of view and we gave the dog another name.
Last Sunday I sat on my couch with my 7-year-old son and my sleepy, now old and gray 8-year-old lab (Franny), and watched the Steelers play the Chicago Bears. After Bettis ran over Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher and dove into the end zone, my boy looked at me with alarm and asked why Daddy had tears running down his face.
It's hard to explain to a kid being raised in Southern California the meaning of loving a team as much as any kid from Pittsburgh loves the Steelers, harder still to explain that the game on Sunday was the epitome of why any Steelers fan feels for our team the way we do.
We love our Steelers because, at their best, our Steelers love the game. We love our Steelers because they play with power and joy and clarity, through pain and age and sore knees and contract negotiations and the changes that take place in every other city with every other team. We love Jerome Bettis because he is a Steeler through and through; he brings the kind of fearlessness, power and rawness to the game that can move a grown man watching the game from nearly three thousand miles away to tears.
So I cried a little bit when Bettis ran over Urlacher.
Because watching that run from sunny Southern California made me yearn to sit in the stands freezing and still drinking cold beer, because the Steelers have remained the Steelers, and because Bettis is one of the best to ever put on a Steelers uniform. I didn't say any of that to my son, however.
All I said was, "I should have named the damn dog Bettis."
(David Hollander is creator of "The Guardian," a CBS TV series set in Pittsburgh, which ran from 2001 to 2004. He is at work on a feature film and two TV pilots.)