Tag Archives: football

My Travels into the Steelers Nation

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If you’ve never had the opportunity to watch your favorite sports team play at an away game, you should make time to do that right now.

Two weekends ago, I visited my boyfriend in Buffalo, New York and we saw the Steelers play against the Bills. It was only my second time going to a Steelers game, I believe, and my first time seeing them away. You see, when I was younger, I was told the Pittsburgh Steelers games get really rowdy and there are too many drunk guys who get so worked up about an incomplete pass or a sack that it’s not morally a good decision to take young children to games. Not to mention that the tickets didn’t exactly sell like $12 Pirates tickets– so with limited funds and a straight moral compass, I just hadn’t gotten to go to many games.

But there I was in Buffalo, wondering what it would be like to wear my Steelers jersey. I told my boyfriend he had to defend my honor, even though he was a Bills fan. I was also thinking about the fact that my jersey was slightly out of date. Randel el officially retired this summer and is no longer on the team. But the good thing about being at an away game, I thought, was that few people would even realize this fact. So the jersey stayed on.

And good thing it did, because after we parked in someone’s front yard near the stadium, I saw almost as many Steelers jerseys and Terrible Towels as I did Bills fans. It was like I’d found long-lost family. With every interception the Steelers caught and every touchdown scored, the Steelers fans grew louder. After half-time, Bills fans left the stadium in droves and Steelers fans outnumbered them in their own city. You could look across the stadium and see crowds of black and gold with yellow towels waving proud. I was high-fiving the 7-year-old kid next to me and making bets with the couple behind us (all of us Steelers fans of course). You could hear “Here we go Steelers, here we go” resonating from the end zones. It was quite a sight.

But what was also amazing to see was the level of pride the Bills fans showed. Excuse my telling the truth, but we all know the Bills haven’t had the greatest track record. But despite the fact that they showed up to the game knowing they would inevitably lose, they did still show up, they wore their jerseys, they painted their faces, they cheered for their lone touchdown in the first quarter, and they brought their kids to pass on their pride to the next generation. They weren’t sore losers, they probably just left after half-time because the kids needed to go to bed (it was Kids’ Night, that’s why there were so many there).

There was a young man in the front of our section who started the wave. Now, I’ve been at sporting events where one wacked-out guy tries to start the wave (dude with the crazy wig at Penguins games, this would be you) and it never truly works. You get two or three sections that follow along but it’s always brought down by the people who are actually dedicated to watching sports and the people with so much food on their lap they can’t stand up anyways. But not at the Bills/Steelers game. This guy started this wave and the entire stadium joined in. I wish I could say every single person, but that’s probably not true–but it sure looked like every person if you saw it. It went around at least ten times, flawlessly. Granted, the Bills fans at this game were not interested in the game since they were already losing by at least two touchdowns. So it was seriously awesome seeing all of these people, who don’t know each other, who aren’t from the same city, and who probably wouldn’t like each other if we were all to meet, standing up as a single “wave.” There might have been a major play that occurred during this wave time and I’m sure not many people noticed. I sure didn’t, I was too enthralled with the fact that people really just want to be a part of something. And especially when their team fails them, it’s fun to be a part of this crowd, this “family,” for a few minutes. For a few minutes, doing the wave, we all had something in common.

Everyone was so into it, that when it finally died, this crazy wacko started doing a slow wave (kind of like a slow clap). And we all did it. It didn’t make it all the way around the stadium because I’m not sure the other side knew exactly what we were doing. But our side of the field raised our hands in slow motion and sat back down in slow motion and watched the next few sections to our right follow suit. Talk about crowd mentality. We’re all doing something just because all the people around us are doing it, but we like that sense of belonging.

As we left the stadium, I got high-fived by a couple other Steelers fans and heard all the ruckus they were making, in true Steelers-fan style. The Bills fans walked out calmly, not bitter, not angry at our celebrations, because they still had a good time. They still supported the team they grew up with and love, and they all did it together.

This is a Steelers nation and you will find Steelers fans across the U.S. in practically every city. And we are all proud and we all bleed black and gold. So I do think you should go see an away game. I think you should experience the camaraderie, the feeling that you’ve found family far from home, people that you can high-five and cheer with. And hopefully you’ll find great people from the enemy’s side, who also find that camaraderie, just in being at a football game. But if you’re going to a Steelers game, I wouldn’t recommend going to Cleveland–you’d probably have a whole different experience.

The Boys of Title IX

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As a girl who tried out almost every sport at least once before finally finding my niche, I must say that I owe it to Title IX. Not that I knew it at the time. Starting at five years old, I was introduced to organized team sports and I didn’t know any different. I thought all parents automatically signed their children up for t-ball and soccer when they turned five. Of course that’s not the case, but I couldn’t compare.

So my story followed the path of a shy child, with flat feet, who couldn’t run if the world was ending. Naturally, I was signed up for soccer at age five and failed miserably. Age six– slow-pitch softball and I was afraid to catch the ball. I suffered through that sport for two years. The next year that I would have played was supposed to be fast-pitch and I refused to go back. For a few years in there, from about age five to age eight or nine, I did dance–ballet, tap and jazz. I took a few tennis lessons each summer, maintaining amateur level with my backhand. I signed up for a gymnastics try-out week. When they wanted me to do a flip over an 8-foot-high bar, I realized my fear of heights. My mom signed me up for an ice skating lesson–the only thing I learned was how to properly fall so that someone else skating by doesn’t slice your fingers off. Finally, at age nine, I joined the Hampton Dolphins swim club. And the rest is history. I swam for twelve years, three years varsity at a Division 1 college. I can’t say I loved every single minute. But I loved most of the minutes. So thank you Title IX.

The 40th anniversary of the passing of Title IX is tomorrow, hence my seemingly random thoughts about my many team sports failures. Once I learned, probably in middle school at some point, that Title IX was responsible for all of my childhood mishaps with soccer balls and balance beams, I became intrigued. Title IX became the subject of many school projects and papers throughout high school and college. I was curious because I couldn’t imagine a time when girls weren’t allowed to play sports. It boggled my mind. My parents always told me I could do anything I wanted to. So here we are, 40 years later, and girls can do anything. We have female wrestlers, football players, body builders. We have girls basketball, soccer, and softball teams. It is pointless for me to even list all the sports because girls have an opportunity in all of them. Even if it might be hard for a girl to get onto a professional football team, it is possible for her to try. So the evidence is clear that Title IX has done wonders. And not just in sports, because that is not the only reason why Title IX was passed, that’s just the most prominent thing that stands out to the public.

So why bring it up then? If it’s simply a fact of life now, then why keep talking about it? Because first of all, girls and boys are still not entirely equal in schools and in sports. Girls still have some ways to go in some parts of the country. Second of all, people continue to look at Title IX from the girls’ perspective. But what about the boys? What about the wrestler whose college team got cut right before his senior year when he is about to be voted captain? What about the schools that cut track and cross country because their football team brings in way more revenue than track teams could dream of? When looking at the big picture, people argue that boys teams have not been hurt overall. That there are other opportunities for them and that just because a few teams get cut does not lower the overall rate of boys in sports, and the gap between girls and boys in sports is still decreasing.

I think Title IX is a good thing. But I also sympathize with the boys whose dreams have been crushed or altered because of it. The big picture is beautiful, yes. But look at it from that one boy’s perspective.

As a swimmer, the effects of Title IX on boys teams has hit a little closer to home for me than for someone else maybe. When I was looking at colleges, I was trying to find a school where I could swim. One school seemed great; the team seemed fun, the academics were awesome–but they told me that was the last year for their boys team. I eliminated it from my choices. I wanted to swim with boys. Swimming is a co-ed sport and I had always swam with boys. They motivated me and made the team more interesting and I wouldn’t swim at a school without a boys team. So I may have been a great asset to that school, but they missed out. They shouldn’t have cut their boys team.

My boyfriend, whom I met on the swim team in college, told me that he had wanted to go to Rhode Island, that he was signed and ready to go to Rhode Island. They called him last minute, telling him they cut their boys team. (Thank God, or I wouldn’t have met him. Best decision Rhode Island ever made.) So he had to change his plans. He was in line for a scholarship from RI, but at Delaware, boys scholarships weren’t really available (they were saved for football). So I watched his dreams change as he adjusted to the consequences of Title IX.

During the spring semester in 2011, I had the opportunity of speaking with several of the athletes on the UD Track and Cross Country teams. I invited them on my TV show to talk about the fact that the school had just reduced these varsity teams to club status. There was outrage across campus about this decision. Students couldn’t understand why the football team (which wasn’t the best football team) couldn’t get slightly less funding. They couldn’t understand why the university couldn’t promote a girls club team to varsity status to make the participation equal. I’m sure it was a difficult decision for the school and they felt this was the best option. But when you talk to these kids, as individuals who were really great athletes, who had planned their lives to run track at UD, and you see their varsity-level team get swept out from under them with hardly any warning, then you wonder about Title IX. The track and cross country athletes had dinner with the president of the university to voice their complaints. They signed petitions and spoke to kids around campus. 

These are the boys who are affected by Title IX and just because their numbers may be small in terms of the bigger picture, their sport was important to them. Their individual stories will always be affected by Title IX.

There is no denying that Title IX is doing a great job of promoting sports for girls and enabling their involvement. However, there must be some other way to continue this progress without cutting boys teams in order be be in compliance. Talk to any boy whose team has been cut or downgraded to club status. I’m sure they have some ideas.