Do NOT Mess With the Terrible Towel

December 27, 1975: The Pittsburgh Steelers, the defending NFL Champions, host the Baltimore Colts in an AFC Divisional Playoff at Three Rivers Stadium. In the stands, fans wave yellow dish towels, which became known as "The Terrible Towel."

At the time, the flagship of the Steelers' radio network was WTAE, 1250 on the AM dial. Two weeks before this game, Ted Atkins, the station's general manager, and Larry Garrett, the station's president of sales, went to Myron Cope, the Steelers' main broadcaster, who also had a sports-talk show on the station. They suggested that a "gimmick" -- an unusual device or idea that seems to have little value, but would attract an increased amount of attention -- which would attract sponsors to Cope's show.

Cope, a Pittsburgh native born Myron Sidney Kopelman, was then 46 years old, and had already won awards for writing for Sports Illustrated. He began his talk show on WTAE in 1968, and became the Steelers' main announcer when Three Rivers opened in 1970. At first, he didn't want to do a gimmick, saying, "I'm not a gimmick guy."

It wasn't true: Like other broadcasters in town, including the Pirates' Bob Prince and the Penguins' Mike Lange, he was known for catchphrases. Being Jewish, something good made him yell the Yiddish word, "Yoi!" Sometimes it would be good enough to be a "Double Yoi!" which became the title of his memoir. If something bad happened, he would use the Yiddish word, "Feh!" Instead of, "Okey dokey," he would say, "Okel dokel."

He gave some Steelers nicknames: Linebacker Jack Lambert was "Jack Splat." In the next generation of Steeler players, Jerome Bettis became "The Bus," and Kordell Stewart -- said to be a quarterback/running back/receiver -- became "Slash." And he mocked opposing teams: The Cleveland Browns were the Brownies, the Cincinnati Bengals were the Bungles, the Dallas Cowboys were the Cryboys, and so on.

So he wasn't being fully honest when he said, "I'm not a gimmick guy." But Garrett told him that, if the gimmick worked, it would be good leverage when his contract came up for renewal. Hearing, this, Cope said, "I'm a gimmick guy!"

Pictured: A gimmick guy

So Cope, Atkins and Garrett started thinking about what kind of gimmick. Cope said it should be something "lightweight and portable, and already owned by just about every fan." Garrett though of a small towel. Cope gave it the alliterative name, "The Terrible Towel." It would be in Steeler colors: While black with gold lettering was experimented with, it was correctly decided that gold with black lettering would show up better.

Garrett was enthusiastic. Atkins was not: He thought that, if the Steelers lost the game, the Towel would be seen as the reason why, a jinx. So Cope asked the players what they thought. Linebacker Jack Ham said, "I think your idea stinks." Older linebacker Andy Russell, paralleling what Cope had already said, said, "We're not a gimmick team. We've never been a gimmick team."

But that wasn't true, either. Three years earlier, a group of employees at an Italian restaurant in Pittsburgh quickly took to Franco Harris, the team's half-black, half-Italian rookie running back, wearing Army-style helmets, and sitting behind a banner reading, "FRANCO'S ITALIAN ARMY." Similar groups copied them. A group of Polish fans honored Ham with "JACK HAM DOBRE SHUNKA FAN CLUB." "Dobre shunka" is Polish for "Good ham." Running back John "Frenchy" Fuqua had Frenchy's Foreign Legion. Lambert had Lambert's Lunatics. Kicker Roy Gerela had Gerela's Gorillas.

Knowing this, Cope went to the most visible player on the team, quarterback Terry Bradshaw, and asked him, "How do you feel about the Terrible Towel?" According to Cope, Bradshaw said, "Huh?" And Cope later said, "I check him off as a 'Yes.'... I reported back to Ted Atkins that the Steelers overwhelmingly approved of the Towel." A little white lie -- or a little black and gold lie.

As the Steelers took the field for their Playoff game against the Colts, the fans whipped out their Towels and waved them around. Cope thought there were 30,000 of them, in a stadium that then seated a little over 50,000.

In the 1st quarter, Ham intercepted a pass from the Colts' Marty Domres. This set up a 34-yard pass from Bradshaw to Frank Lewis, which set up an 8-yard run by Harris, giving the Steelers a 7-0 lead. But the Colts led 10-7 at the half. Early in the 3rd quarter, Mel Blount intercepted a Domres pass, and took it to the Colts' 7-yard line. Rocky Bleier ran it in on the next play, giving the Steelers a lead they would not relinquish.

In the 4th quarter, Colt coach Ted Marchibroda replaced Domres with Bert Jones. He did no better: He got to the Steelers' 7-yard line, but was hit by Ham, and fumbled. Of all people to pick it up, it was "not-gimmick-guy" Russell, who ran 93 yards, for the longest fumble return in NFL Playoff history at that point. Sports Illustrated called it "the longest, slowest touchdown ever witnessed." It put the cap on a 28-10 Steeler win.

Steeler fan Lisa Benz wrote a poem about the game and the Towels, and sent it to Cope, who read it on the air. It concluded:

He ran ninety-three like a bat out of hell,
And no one could see how he rambled so well.
"It was easy", said Andy, and he flashed a crooked smile:
"I was snapped on the fanny by the Terrible Towel!"

So the gimmick worked. The next week, Gimbel's department stores all over Western Pennsylvania sold out of yellow and gold dish towels. Cope got rich off the idea. In 1996, he gave the rights to The Terrible Towel to the Allegheny Valley School in nearby Coraopolis, which cares for people with intellectual and physical disabilities. Cope's son Danny was autistic, and had attended the school. Proceeds from Towel sales have raised over $6 million for the school.

Having won Super Bowl IX the season before, the Steelers went on to win Super Bowl X. After 2 years of near-misses, they won Super Bowl XIII and Super Bowl XIV. The 2005 season, in which they went on to win Super Bowl XL, was Cope's retirement season. They won Super Bowl XLIII as well, a few months after Cope's death. They've also lost Super Bowl XXX and Super Bowl XLV.

A standard Terrible Towel, now bearing Cope's name, is 16-by-23-inches. It was the original sports-team gimmick, preceding the Cleveland Indians' "Hate the Yankees Hanky" by nearly 2 years, the Minnesota Twins' "Homer Hanky" by nearly 12 years, and the Atlanta Braves' foam Tomahawk by almost 16 years.

Because of their 1970s success, when they were frequently on television, the Steelers gained lots of fans in big cities whose teams weren't doing well at the time, like New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago. (This is also true of the decade's other successful teams: The Dallas Cowboys, the Miami Dolphins, and the then-Oakland Raiders.) As a result, Steeler fans are everywhere.

And as a result of that, Steeler fans have taken their Towels everywhere: The Vatican in Rome, the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the Great Wall of China, Mount Everest, the South Pole. Soldiers have taken them to war zones. Pittsburgh-born rapper Wiz Khalifa put one in a video. Pittsburgh-born astronaut Mike Fincke took one to the International Space Station in 2009.

Making it the most "far out" piece of sports memorabilia ever.

Don't tell me Alan Shepard swung a golf club on the Moon:
He did, but golf is not a sport.

Although the Rooney family, owners of the Steelers since their founding in 1933, is Republican, team president Dan Rooney gave a Towel to Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton when she campaigned in the 2008 Pennsylvania Primary. She won it, though she lost the nomination to Barack Obama.

In the general election, Rooney gave Obama one, and Rooney's ticket-splitting support may have made the difference in Obama winning the State. Obama rewarded him by appointing him U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, a post into which he was sworn in by Obama's Secretary of State -- Hillary Clinton. He served for 3 years.

Terrible Towels usually cost $10. I once attended a sports memorabilia show at the Wildwoods Convention Center on the Jersey Shore, and saw them for sale. I bought 2, keeping 1, and sending the other to a friend who's a big Steeler fan.

In 2011, some scenes for the Batman film The Dark Knight Rises were filmed in Pittsburgh. Three Rivers' replacement, then named Heinz Field and now named Acrisure Stadium, stood in for Gotham City's football stadium; and the fictional Gotham Rogues wore black and gold like the Steelers. Several real-life Steelers appeared, and the fans were given yellow towels with black lettering, labeled as "Rogue Rags."

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But do not mock the Terrible Towel, nor misuse it. There is a Curse of the Terrible Towel. No, I'm not kidding. During player introductions for the Steelers' 1994 Playoff game against the arch-rival Browns, Brentson Buckner came out waving one, and dropped it. The Browns' Earnest Byner stepped on it, saying, "We don't care about your towel! We're going to beat you this time!" They did not, and less than a year later, the original version of the Browns was moved, becoming the Baltimore Ravens.

You would think that opponents would have learned from this, but some didn't. In 2005, T.J. Houshmandzadeh of the Bengals celebrated a touchdown by wiping his feet on one. The Bengals won, but the Steelers went on to beat them in the Playoffs, and the Bengals didn't win another Playoff game for 16 years. They didn't even make the Playoffs again until 4 years later -- after Houshmandzadeh had left the team.

In 2008, Derrick Mason of the Ravens stepped on a Towel. The Steelers swept their Divisional games against the Ravens, and then beat them in the AFC Championship Game. That same season, Jacksonville Jaguars mascot Jaxson de Ville celebrated a Jags touchdown against the Steelers by taking a Towel and scratching his armpits with it. The Steelers came from behind to win, and the Jags lost 8 of their last 11 games.

The same season, the Tennessee Titans beat the Steelers, and LenDale White and Keith Bulluck celebrated by stomping on a Towel, and they ended up as the top seed in the AFC Playoffs, but lost at home to the Ravens, who then lost to the Steelers. They ended up losing 8 straight games, including their 2009 season opener against the Steelers and a 59-0 loss to the New England Patriots. NFL teams simply don't lose games by 59 points, but the Titans did. Head coach Jeff Fisher publicly apologized for the desecration of the Towel, bought a new one, had his players autograph it, and donated it to the Allegheny Valley School. Did that generous gesture remove the Curse? Apparently: The Titans won their next 5 games.

The same season, as the Arizona Cardinals prepared to play the Steelers in Super Bowl XLIII, Mayor Phil Gordon of Phoenix hosted a pep rally at City Hall, invited Cards mascot Big Red to the stage, and handed him a Towel. Big Red proceeded to use the Towel to scratch his armpits and blow his nose (beak). The Steelers won.

After 4 such incidents in 1 season alone, you'd think people would've learned. Alas, in the closing minutes of a 2009 game in Detroit, the Steelers led by 8 points, but the Lions were marching down the field in the hope of a tying touchdown. Lions mascot Roary found a Towel, stepped on it, and ripped it apart with his teeth. Result: 3 straight sacks and a Steeler win. That same season, the Indianapolis Colts tried to pay tribute, issuing blue and white "Terrific Towels." It almost worked: They did reach Super Bowl XLIV, but lost to the New Orleans Saints.

In 2014, Jaxson de Ville struck again. During a game with the Steelers in Jacksonville, he held up a Towel with one hand and a sign reading "Towels Carry Ebola" with the other. Not only did the Steelers win the game, but the Jags lost 13 of their next 17. In 2016, as the Steelers opened the season against the Washington Redskins, Washington punter Tress Way tweeted a video of his mother burning a Terrible Towel in a voodoo cemetery. The Steelers won.

Even other sports are not immune to the Curse. On February 7, 2016, the Penguins were visiting the Florida Panthers, and trailed 2-0 with about 6 minutes left in regulation. Florida's mascot, Stanley C. Panther, blew his nose into a Terrible Towel. The Pens tied the game and won it in overtime. 

The Jacksonville Jaguars are so dumb! (How dumb are they?) They're so dumb, they are a three-time loser when it comes to messing with the Terrible Towel. On October 29, 2023, they beat the Steelers, 20-10. During the game, several Jacksonville players took fans’ Terrible Towels, mockingly waved them around, and dropped them. The team proceeded to finish the season 3-6, which included a loss in their final game against the Tennessee Titans, 28-20. This not only eliminated the Jaguars from playoff contention, but gave the Steelers the final AFC Playoff spot.

So, if you don't want horrible things to happen to you, do not mess with the Terrible Towel. Leave it alone.