Steelers - A brief history of the Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers joined the NFL in 1933 as an expansion team, but at that time they were referred to as the Pirates. When Art Rooney bought the franchise for $2500.00 the team was renamed the Pittsburgh Steelers after the city’s prominent steel industry to reflect the blue collar worker.
Since the team formed 73 years ago they have had many coaches. The longest running coach is Bill Cowher, a native of this great city, who is still coaching the team today after 14 years. Coach Cowher lead the pro football team The Pittsburgh Steelers to the playoffs in each of his first six seasons, this feat was only ever accomplished by the legendary coach Paul Brown of the Cleveland Browns. Overall the Pittsburgh Steelers have been to the playoffs 10 out of the fourteen seasons that Coach Cowher has been with them. This includes appearances in Super Bowl XXX in 1996 and the record tying fifth Super Bowl win in Super Bowl XL on February 5, 2006. With the latest Super Bowl win it makes the Pittsburgh Steelers the third team to win five Super Bowls and the first sixth-seeded playoff team since the NFL expanded to a 12 team post season tournament.
The black and gold colors the Pittsburgh Steelers use have been the same colors since the 1950’s. The team originally had solid black helmets and black jerseys. These same colors are used in every professional sports, hockey and baseball, making it the official team colors for the city.
The logo was introduced in the year1962 and was based on the steel mark that was designed for U.S. Steel, by Cleveland Ohio based Republic Steel and now owned by AISI. It has the name and three asteroids. The original meaning for the asteroids is “Steel lightens your work, brightens your leisure and widens your world”, and later the colors would represent the ingredients of steel, the yellow represents coal, the orange and blue represent steel scrap. If you notice, the helmets only have the logo on the right side. It started out as a test but became popular and they decided to leave it permanently
The uniforms worn by the current Pittsburgh Steelers was designed back in 1960, gold pants and either white or black jerseys. In 1997 each player began to wear a patch with the logo on the left side of the jersey.
One more interesting fact I found out was about the Terrible Towel. Yes, I have many of these gold towels in my house but I did not know they started out as a gimmick created by Myron Cope, a broadcaster for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He wanted to get fans more excited about an up coming game against the colts, so he told fans to bring a yellow dish towel to the game.
To read more about the World Champions check out the numerous websites available on line. Congratulations to all who love the Pittsburgh Steelers.