The Pittsburgh Steelers aren't the only legendary football program in the Steel City. In fact, for a long time, until the 1970s, the football situation there was roughly the equivalent of basketball situation in North Carolina, Indiana, and, until recently, the San Francisco Bay Area: Great for high school and college, lousy for the professional ranks.
The University of Pittsburgh opened their season last Saturday, defeating Albany (the State University of New York at Albany) 33-7 at Heinz Field. This Saturday night at 8:00, they will play their biggest rivals there. No, not the "Backyard Brawl" against West Virginia. This one is intrastate: Penn State.
Before You Go. Pittsburgh is at roughly the same latitude as New York City, so roughly the same weather can be expected. As always, check out the newspaper website (the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) before you head out. They're predicting low 70s for the afternoon, high 50s for night.
Pittsburgh is in the Eastern Time Zone, so you won't have to adjust your timepieces.
Tickets. Unlike most college football teams, the Pittsburgh Panthers no longer have an on-campus football stadium. Certainly, it saves them money on construction and maintenance. But not owning their own stadium forfeits the one thing a football team owner (which, in this case, the University is) loves even more than money: Control. The Steelers, not the Panthers, have first dibs on scheduling football games and other events at Heinz Field.
Having "their" stadium not being on campus hurts the Panthers another way: It's harder for students to get there. Maybe not much harder, but harder enough that, last season, they averaged only about 33,000 fans per game. Only twice did they top 40,000 at the 68,400-seat Heinz Field. (So if you hear someone from Pittsburgh call it "a drinking town with a football problem," you know they're only talking about the NFL.) So, ordinarily, getting tickets shouldn't be a problem.
The Penn State game is different, though. This is the biggest rivalry in Western Pennsylvania, because it's not just intrastate, it's intraregion. This is bigger than Steelers-Browns, Steelers-Eagles (which isn't intradivision and thus doesn't matter as much), Steelers-Ravens, Pirates-Reds, Pirates-Phillies, Penguins-Flyers, Penguins-Blue Jackets or Penguins-Capitals. This is serious hate. The last time it was held at Heinz Field, 2016, it drew 69,983 -- sellout and standing room. Indeed, the Pitt ticket website is already saying it's sold out. You may need to "know a guy." Or even "know a guy who knows a guy."
For any other Pitt football home game, lower Level (100 sections) seats are already sold out for the season. Upper Level (500 sections) seats are $37 in midfield, $30 down the sidelines, and $27 in the end zone. If it helps, the West Stand gives you a view of downtown, whereas the East Stand doesn't.
Getting There. I'm not going to kid you here: There's only one way to do so, and that's by car. You do not want to fly, because you'll end up spending over a thousand bucks to go less than 400 miles, and Pittsburgh International Airport is out in Imperial, Pennsylvania, near Coraopolis and Aliquippa, so it's almost as close to West Virginia and Ohio as it is to downtown Pittsburgh.
The Amtrak schedule doesn't really work. The
Pennsylvanian leaves Penn Station at 10:52 AM, and doesn't get to Pittsburgh's station of the same name until 7:59 PM, a minute before kickoff. And there's no overnight train that would leave at, say, 11 PM and arrive at 8 AM. And going back, the
Pennsylvanian leaves at 7:30 AM and arrives back at 4:50 PM. And while New York to Pittsburgh is usually cheap by Amtrak standards, not this time: $261 round-trip.
Greyhound isn't much better, but at least you have options. There are 14 buses a day between Port Authority Bus Terminal and Pittsburgh, but it's a bit expensive considering the distance, $226 round-trip (though advanced purchase can get it down to $119). The Greyhound station is at 55 11th Street, across Liberty Avenue from the Amtrak station.
The only sensible way is by car – especially if there's more than one of you going and you can take turns driving. It's 373 miles from Times Square in Manhattan to downtown Pittsburgh.
From the City, you'll need to get on the New Jersey Turnpike. Take it to Exit 14, to Interstate 78. From elsewhere in New Jersey, taking Interstate 287 should get you to I-78. Follow I-78 west all the way through New Jersey, to Phillipsburg, and across the Delaware River into Easton, Pennsylvania. Continue west on I-78 until reaching Harrisburg. There, you will merge onto I-81. Take Exit 52 to U.S. Route 11, which will soon take you onto I-76. This is the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the nation’s first superhighway, opening in 1940.
You'll be on it for another 3 hours – Pennsylvania is huge compared to a lot of Northeastern States. The political consultant James Carville, who got Bob Casey Sr., father of current U.S. Senator Bob Casey Jr., elected Governor in 1986, says, "Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with Alabama in the middle." He wasn’t kidding: Between Philly and Pitt, it is very, very rural, hence the nickname "Pennsyltucky." It certainly explains the State's love of football: The Philadelphia Eagles, the Pittsburgh Steelers, Penn State and high school ball.
You'll take the Pennsylvania Turnpike to Exit 57, the signs showing I-376 and U.S. 22 – the same Route 22 you might know from New Jersey, which I-78 was designed to replace – and the sign will say "Pittsburgh."
There will be several exits on I-376, the Penn-Lincoln Parkway, into the city of Pittsburgh. Most likely, if your hotel (which I hope you've reserved before you left) is downtown, you'll take Exit 71B, "Second Avenue."
From anywhere in New York City, allow 6½ hours for the actual driving, though from North Jersey you might need "only" 6. I recommend at least 2 rest stops, preferably after crossing over into Pennsylvania around Easton, and probably around either Harrisburg or Breezewood. So the whole thing, assuming nothing goes wrong, will probably take about 8 hours.
Once In the City. Pittsburgh has, by American standards, a long history. It was settled by the French as Fort Duquesne in 1717, and captured by the British in 1758, and renamed Fort Pitt, for Prime Minister William Pitt the Elder.
The General who captured it, John Forbes (for whom the Pirates' former park Forbes Field would be named), was a Scotsman, and he intended the town that grew around it to be named "Pittsburgh" -- pronounced "Pitts-burrah," like the Scottish capital Edinburgh. From 1891 to 1911, the H was dropped from the city's name, and this was reflected on the Pirates' uniforms, which sometimes read "PITTSBURG," as seen on the famous 1909 "T-206" baseball card of Honus Wagner. But the Germanic "Pittsburg" went back to the Scottish "Pittsburgh," while keeping the Germanic pronunciation. (There is, however, a town named Pittsburg, no H, in Kansas.)
With this long history, a great architectural diversity, and a dramatic skyline with lots of neat-looking skyscrapers, Pittsburgh looks like a much bigger city than it actually is. While the metropolitan area is home to 2.7 million people, the city proper has only 306,000, having lost over half its population since the nearby steel mills, coal mines, and other factories closed starting in the 1970s.
The reduction of blue-collar jobs led people to take comfort in their sports teams, especially in the 1970s. Either the Pirates or the Steelers made the Playoffs in every year of that decade, both of them did so in 4 of those 10 years, and the University of Pittsburgh had an undefeated National Championship season in 1976. The Pirates won 2 World Series in the decade, the Steelers 4 Super Bowls in 6 years.
Calendar year 1979, with spillover into January 1980, was an
annus mirabilis, in which the "Steel Curtain" won Super Bowl XIII in January, the "Bucs" (or "Buccos," or "Lumber Company," or "Family") won the World Series in October, and the Steelers then went on to win Super Bowl XIV, with the Pirates' Willie Stargell and the Steelers' Terry Bradshaw being named Co-Sportsmen of the Year by
Sports Illustrated and the city government advertising itself as the City of Champions.
(It was also at that time that, in order to ride the Pirates/Steelers bandwagon, the NHL's Penguins switched their colors from navy blue and yellow to black and gold, but it was several more years before they became a championship contender.)
While the loss of industry did mean a sharp, long-term decline, the financial, computer and health care industries opened new doors, and Pittsburgh is very much a now and tomorrow city. And they love their sports, having won 16 World Championships in 21 trips to their sports' finals (which gives them a .762 winning percentage in finals, the best of any city of at least 3 teams) -- and that doesn't count the 9 National Championships won by Pitt football, the Negro League Pennants won by the Homestead Grays (10) and the Pittsburgh Crawfords (4), or the 1968 ABA Championship won by the Pittsburgh Pipers.
Pittsburgh has numbered streets, moving east from Point State Park, where the Allegheny River to the north and the Monongahela River to the south rivers merge to become the Ohio River -- hence the name of the former Pittsburgh sports facility, Three Rivers Stadium. North-south streets start their numbers at the Monongahela, and increase going north.
There is a subway system in the city, and it's free within the downtown triangle. But outside that area, a one-zone ride is $2.50, and a two-zone ride is $3.75. A 75-cent surcharge is added during rush hour -- in other words, on your way into the Thursday and Friday night games, making the charge $3.25 instead of $2.50. These fares are the same for city buses, although they're
not free within the downtown triangle.
The sales tax in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is 6 percent, and Allegheny County (including the City of Pittsburgh) pushes it to 7 percent. ZIP Codes for Pittsburgh start with the digits 15, and for the rest of Western Pennsylvania 16. The Area Code for the city is 412, and for the suburbs 724, with 878 overlaid for both. Pittsburgh does not have a "beltway." Duquesne Light Holdings is the city's electric company.
The old
Pittsburgh Press, once the 2nd-largest newspaper in Pennsylvania behind the
Philadelphia Inquirer, went out of business due to a strike in 1992, before the city's remaining daily, the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, brought it back in online form in 2011. That strike gave Richard Mellon Scaife, the current head of the legendary Pittsburgh metals and banking family, a chance to turn a local suburban paper into the
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, spouting his right-wing fanatic views. It may be that the
P-G brought back the
Press to give the city 2 liberals voices against the 1 nutjob voice.
The city's population was 88 percent white in 1950. By 2010, that had dropped to 65 percent. It's 26 percent black, 4.4 percent Asian, and, surprising me, only 2.3 percent Hispanic.
Compared to most big cities, Pittsburgh has had hardly any civil strife. There was the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, in which the U.S. Army suppressed a bunch of guys complaining about a tax on booze. And there was the Homestead Strike of 1892, where coal mine owners hired a private army to suppress organized labor. (UPDATE: There has since been the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018.)
Pittsburgh is a very education-minded city, and a very science-minded city, including medicine, with research tying it all together. Duquesne University is downtown, while the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University (known as Carnegie Tech from its 1912 founding until 1967) are adjacent to each other in the Oakland neighborhood, east of downtown. Carlow University is also nearby, and there are also 5 separate campuses (campii?) of Penn State in the immediate Pittsburgh region.
The Pitt campus is dominated by the Cathedral of Learning, a 42-story, 535-foot Gothic Revival tower that opened in 1931 at 4200 Fifth Avenue at Bigelow Blvd., about 2 1/2 miles east of downtown. Several buses reach the site.
It is the tallest educational building in the Western Hemisphere, and the 4th-tallest in the world. In many pictures of Forbes Field, former home of the Pirates and Steelers, it can be seen looming over the 3rd base stands. Its main lobby was designed to look like the interior of a cathedral as well.
The University of Pittsburgh is the oldest continuously chartered institution of learning west of the Allegheny Mountains, founded in 1787, as Pittsburgh Academy. It was renamed the Western University of Pennsylvania, or WUP, in 1819; was nearly wiped out in Pittsburgh's Great Fire of 1845; absorbed the Western Pennsylvania Medical College in 1892; and was renamed the University of Pittsburgh in 1908.
UP is known for its law, social work and engineering schools, and for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and its adjoining medical school. There are satellite campuses, all in Western Pennsylvania, in Bradford, Greensburg, Johnstown and Titusville. Pitt graduates include:
Baseball: Dick Hoblitzel, 1st baseman who won the 1915 and 1916 World Series with the Boston Red Sox; Cumberland "Cum" Posey, an early player in all-black pro baseball and basketball leagues who founded and owned the Negro Leagues' Pittsburgh Crawfords, and a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame; George "Doc" Medich, a pitcher whose career included both New York teams and later a doctor.
Basketball: Chuck Hyatt, 3-time national Player of the Year in the late 1920s, before pro basketball really caught on, member of the Basketball Hall of Fame; and Steven Adams of the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Track & Field: John Woodruff, Gold Medalist in the 800 meters at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin; and Roger Kingdom, Olympic Gold Medalist in the 110-meter high hurdles at both Los Angeles in 1984 and Seoul in 1988.
Sportswriting: Murray Chass, Class of '60.
Literature: Hervey Allen, Class of 1915, author of
Anthony Adverse; Gerald Stern '47, Sharon Flake '78, Michael Chabon '84, Chris Kuzneski '91, Terrance Hayes '97. (John Irving attended, but did not graduate.)
Entertainment: Actor Regis Toomey '21, composer Leo Robin '22, composer Herb Magidson '28, actor-singer-dancer Gene Kelly '33, disc jockey and
Good Morning Vietnam basis Adrian Cronauer '59 (he just died in real life)
Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood actor (Mr. McFeely) David Newell '73, actress Allison McAtee '01, Miss America 1999 Nicole Johnson '07. (Fred Rogers, a native of nearby Latrobe who taped
Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood at WQED-Channel 13 in Pittsburgh, worked with the University for years, but got his degree from Dartmouth. Bill Cullen had to drop out of Pitt due to money issues, but went on to become one of the greatest hosts in the history of TV game shows.)
Business: Several members of the Mellon family, including right-wing publisher and scandalmonger Richard Mellon Scaife '57; Al Primo '58, TV news executive who created the "Eyewitness News" format used in many cities, including at WABC-Channel 7 in New York; and Pat Croce '77, entrepreneur, fitness advocate, and former owner of the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers. (Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, is a Pittsburgh native, started at Pitt, but transferred to Indiana University, and got his degree there.)
Politics, for Pennsylvania unless otherwise stated: Andrew W. Mellon 1874, Secretary of the Treasury from 1921 and 1932, and probably the person most responsible for causing the Great Depression of the 1930s; Senator David A. Reed 1903, Governor and Senator James H. Duff 1907, Representative Elmer "Bud" Shuster '54; Governor and U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh '57, Representative John Murtha '61, the 1st Vietnam Veteran elected to Congress; Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah '62, currently the President Pro Tempore of the Senate; Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland '64; Wangari Maathai '66, who in 2004 became the 1st African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize; Mahmoud Jibril '80, 1st post-Gaddafi Prime Minister of Libya; Tshering Togbay '90, current Prime Minister of the Asian nation of Bhutan; Clayton Morris '99, co-anchor of
Fox and Friends, a.k.a. the place where Donald Trump gets his morning briefing.
(The class dates for Thornburgh and Hatch are for their law degrees. Thornburgh got his undergraduate degree from Yale, and Hatch got his from Brigham Young University.)
Science: Nobel Prize-winning endochrinologist Philip Hench '20, television pioneer Vladimir Zworykin '26, U.S. Suregon General Jesse Steinfeld '45, MRI co-inventor Paul Lauterbur '62 (his PhD, undergrad at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland), Pentium chip architect Bob Colwell '77,
Concussion film subject Bennet Omalu '04 (med school, undergrad in his native Nigeria).
Going In. Having the working name of Art Rooney Field during construction, the new Steeler and Panther stadium's naming rights were bought by Pittsburgh corporate leader H.J. Heinz & Company, and so it opened in 2001 with the name Heinz Field.
(UPDATE: In 2022, the naming rights ran out. Heinz Field was renamed Acrisure Stadium. Acrisure is a Michigan-based insurance company.)
From most of downtown, the complex that includes Heinz Field and the Pirates home of PNC Park is within a mile's walk, crossing the 6th Street Bridge, now the Roberto Clemente Bridge, over the Allegheny River, shortly before it joins with the Monongahela River to form the Ohio River.
There are local buses (including the Number 14) that go from downtown to the ballpark. The subway/light rail system's Blue Line has now been extended to Allegheny Station, at Reedsdale & North Shore Drive, across from the northwest corner of the stadium.
The stadium is bounded on the north side by Reedsdale Street, on the east side by Art Rooney Avenue, on the south and west sides by North Shore Drive. The official address is 100 Art Rooney Avenue. (Three Rivers Stadium's address, famously, was 600 Stadium Circle.) There are several nearby parking garages, most of them charging only $5.00.
At the southwestern corner of the stadium, there's a West Ramp. At the southeastern corner, there's an East Ramp. Together, they form Gate A. Gate B is at the northeast corner, and Gate C is at the northwest corner. Don't ask me why, I didn't design the place.
The Steelers hosted the AFC Championship Game in the stadium's 1st season, 2001 (losing it to the New England Patriots, and again in 2004 (losing to the Pats again), 2008 (beating the Baltimore Ravens) and 2010 (beating the Jets).
The field has always been natural grass, and is aligned north-to-south. (Well, northwest-to-southeast, anyway.) A 2007 ESPN.com article named Heinz Field the best stadium in the NFL, tied with Lambeau Field in Green Bay.
On September 12, 2017, Thrillist had an article ranking all 31 NFL stadiums. Heinz Field came in 3rd, behind only Dallas (don't make me laugh) and Seattle (possibly):
No venue in the NFL better represents its city and team than Heinz. Its everyman, condiment-based moniker and 12,000-ton steel-reinforced construction is an ode to the “Stillers” and Pittsburgh’s smashmouth historical persona, while its aesthetic beauty and comfort embodies the modernity of both the city’s tech boom and the pass-happy offense...
The stadium has no artificial architectural noise enhancers, and its capacity of 68,400 ranks in the bottom half of NFL venues. No matter; the team’s current home sellout record (since 1972) is ensured in the raucous, towel-waving atmosphere. The sightlines -- 60 feet from the sideline to the first row, 25 feet in the end zones -- are superior.
On September 10, 2016, the renewal of the Pitt-Penn State rivalry, now labeled the Keystone Classic, set a Heinz Field attendance record of 69,983. Pitt won a thriller, 42-39. Heinz Field also hosted the 2011 NHL Winter Classic, in which the Pittsburgh Penguins lost 3-1 to the Washington Capitals. In 2017, it hosted an NHL Stadium Series game, in which the Penguins beat the Philadelphia Flyers 4-2. In the Summer of 2014, it hosted a soccer game, in which defending English champions Manchester City beat Italian giants AC Milan 5-1.
If you've never been to Pittsburgh, but Heinz Field still looks familiar to you, you may have seen it in the Batman film The Dark Knight Rises, where it stood in for the home of the fictional Gotham Rogues. They got a little cute for the game they filmed there: Steeler legend Hines Ward played the kick returner, real-life Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl played the opposing team's kicker, and, in place of the Terrible Towel, they printed up and handed out thousands of "Rogue Rags."
Food. Pittsburgh is a city of many ethnicities, and most of them love to eat food that really isn't good for you: Irish, Italian, Polish, Greek, and African-Americans with Soul Food and Barbecue. Yes, I did mean to capitalize those last two. They deserve it.
Aramark, the successor organization to Harry M. Stevens, runs the concessions at Heinz Field. They have Goal Line Stand stands all over, with hot dogs (some "super dogs"), cheesesteak sandwiches (wrong side of Pennsylvania, guys), pizza, nachos, pretzels, popcorn and candy. The legendary sandwichmaking Primanti Brothers have a stand outside Section 110.
They also have Benkovitz Seafood (fish sandwiches, fish & chips) at 106; Quaker Steak and Lube (including wings and fries) at 112 and 136; Red Zone Express (hot dogs, pretzels and nachos) at 119, 129 and 425; Grid Iron Grill (various ethnic sausages) at 122, 132, 509 and 532; Nacho Zone at 227, 241, 522 and 535; and First Down Fries (garlic fries, also "super dogs") at 442.
Pub 33 Bar and Grill is on the lower level, in the southeast corner, named for the number on Rolling Rock bottles, not for any Steelers player who wore Number 33 (or for Honus Wagner of the Pirates, for that matter).
The number has many rumored sources: The Steelers having been founded in 1933, Prohibition having been repealed that year, the alleged proper Fahrenheit temperature to keep beer, the 33 degrees of Scottish Rite Freemasonry, Rolling Rock getting their brewing formula right on the 33rd try, 33 steps from their original brewery's floor to the brewmaster's office, and the 33 words in the beer's original pledge of quality that is still printed on the label of every bottle. In fact, the number 33 is from a racehorse that was owned by the brewery's owners, hence the racehorse pictured on the label -- but nobody seems to wonder about that picture!
Team History Displays. The Steelers have won 6 NFL Championships, and the 6 Vince Lombardi Trophies are on display in the Great Hall of Heinz Field. The Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Honor, including a display of their 2 retired numbers (Ernie Stautner's 70 and Mean Joe Greene's 75) is on the stadium concourse. A statue of the team's founding owner, Art Rooney, complete with his ever-present cigar and overcoat, is outside Gate A at the southwest entrance. But that's the Steelers, not the Panthers.
While Pitt Stadium had flags on the stadium's rim, displaying the 9 National Championships that the University claims, there is now a display on the Heinz Field concourse for them: 1915, 1916, 1918, 1929, 1931, 1934, 1936, 1937 and 1976. Some unofficial sources also credit them for 1910, 1917, 1925, 1927, 1933, 1938, 1980 and 1981; but these were not consensus choices, and so the school does not claim them as their own.
Pitt never played in a league until the Big East Conference was extended to football in 1991. They moved to the Atlantic Coast Conference for the 2013 season. They shared the Big East title with Boston College in 2004, and with Connecticut and West Virginia 2010. In addition, they've been awarded the Lambert Trophy as "the best college football team in the East" in 1936, 1937, 1955, 1976, 1979 and 1980.
Pitt has won 13 bowl games: The 1937 Rose Bowl, the 1975 Sun Bowl, the 1977 and 1981 Sugar Bowl, the 1977 and 1980 Gator Bowl, the 1979 Fiesta Bowl, the 1989 John Hancock Bowl, the 2001 Tangerine Bowl, the 2002 Insight Bowl, the 2009 Meineke Car Care Bowl, the 2011 BBVA Compass Bowl, and hte 2013 Little Caesars Pizza Bowl. (Since when is pizza served in a bowl?) That 1977 Sugar Bowl clinched them the 1976 National Championship and an undefeated season.
Pitt football has retired 10 uniform numbers: 1, Larry Fitzgerald, receiver, 2003; 13, Dan Marino, quarterback, 1982; 33, Tony Dorsett, running back, 1976; 42, Marshall "Biggie" Goldberg, running back and defensive back, 1938; 65, Joe Schmidt, linebacker, 1952; 73, Mark May, offensive tackle, 1980; 75, Jim "Jimbo" Covert, offensive tackle, 1983; 79, Bill Fralic, offensive tackle, 1984; 89, Mike Ditka, tight end, 1960; and 99, Hugh Green, defensive end, 1980. These retired numbers are shown on the Heinz Field concourse.
Dorsett is Pitt's only Heisman Trophy winner, having finished 4th in the voting the year before. Goldberg finished 3rd in 1937 and 2nd in 1938, Ditka finished 6th in 1960, Green 2nd in 1980 (the closest any defensive player has come to winning it in the post-1950 two-platoon era), Marino 4th in 1981, running back Craig "Ironhead" Heyward (a native of Passaic, New Jersey) 5th in 1987, and Fitzgerald 2nd in 2003.
Tony Dorsett
Green, playing in the same city at the same time (but not quite the same position) as the Steelers' Joe Greene, was naturally nicknamed "Mean Hugh Green." Goldberg won the 1947 NFL Championship with the Chicago Cardinals, Schmidt the 1953 and 1957 NFL Championships with the DEtroit Lions. May was one of the 1980s Washington Redskin "Hogs" that won 3 Super Bowls. Ditka not only played on the Chicago Bears' 1963 NFL Champions, but coached their Super Bowl winners in the 1985 season, including Covert.
Goldberg, Schmidt, Ditka, Dorsett, May, Green, Marino, Covert and Fralic and in the College Football Hall of Fame. So are 1910s end Hube Wagner, 1910s centers Robert Peck and Herb Stein, 1910s backs George McLaren and Tom Davies, 1920s end Joe Donchess, 1930s end Joe Skladany, 1930s tackle Averell Daniell, and 1990s guard Ruben Brown. Stein was a member of the 1925 Pottsville Maroons, claimants to the NFL Championship. Schmidt, Ditka, Dorsett and Marino are also in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Fitzgerald probably will be, and Goldberg and May probably should be.
Also in the College Football Hall of Fame are 4 of Pitt's head coaches: Glenn Scobey "Pop" Warner, 1915 to 1923, winning 3 National Championships, having previously coached the Carlisle team that included Jim Thorpe, and winning another National Championship with Stanford in 1926, and the founder of the youth football organization that came to bear his name; Dr. John Bain "Jock" Sutherland, a native of Scotland and a practicing dentist in the off-season, who played on the 1915 and 1916 National Championship teams, and was head coach from 1924 to 1938, winning 5 National Championships; Clark Shaughnessy, 1943 to 1945, one of the popularizers of the T formation; and Johnny Majors, elected as a player at the University of Tennessee, coaching Pitt from 1973 to 1976, winning the National Championship, returning to Tennessee to coach them, and coaching Pitt again from 1993 to 1996.
There are 2 statues outside Heinz Field. One is of Steeler founding owner Art Rooney. The other is a generic Panther statue, honoring Pitt.
Separated by 134 miles of Allegheny Mountains, Pitt first played Penn State in 1893. The Nittany Lions dominated the rivalry at first, winning the 1st 6 games on the way to a 12-3 lead by 1918. But Pitt then went 20-1-2 through 1938. In spite of some good Pitt teams over that stretch, Penn State found another period of dominance at the beginning of the Joe Paterno era, winning 10 straight from 1966 to 1975.
Conference shifts (Pitt to the Big East, Penn State to the Big 10) meant no games from 1993 to 1996, starting again in 1997, and stopping again after 2000, with the rivalry resuming again in 2016. Overall, Penn State leads this rivalry, now known as the Keystone Classic, 53-43-4.
Also compromised due to conference affiliation changes is "The Backyard Brawl," the rivalry between Pitt and West Virginia University, separated by 79 miles of Interstate 79. First played in 1895, the Mountaineers started off dominant, going 5-1. But then it was 10-0-1 Pitt from 1904 to 1921. It was 23-2 Pitt from 1924 to 1951. It was 8-4 West Virginia from 1961 to 1972, but 9-1 Pitt from 1973 to 1982. It was 15-7-2 West Virginia from 1983 to 2006. West Virginia has won the last 3, but the game hasn't been played since 2011. Pitt leads the rivalry, 61-40-3. They are scheduled to meet again, starting in 2022.
When it is played at all, Pitt vs. Penn State is usually played at the beginning of the season; Pitt vs. West Virginia, usually on Thanksgiving weekend. There is no trophy for the annual winner of either game.
The Panthers-Mountaineers rivalry is mean! (How mean
is it?) I
n 1994, the public-address announcer at Pitt Stadium announced, "There is no smoking allowed inside Pitt Stadium, and that includes corncob pipes!" He later announced, "There is a tractor in the parking lot with its lights on, West Virginia license plate EIEIO!" (As if great swaths of Pennsylvania aren't rural as hell, hence the term "Pennsyltucky.")
Stuff. Since the Steelers own and control Heinz Field, they control the merchandising. The Steelers Pro Shop is inside Gate B at the southeast corner, and it may contain some Pitt Panthers items. Otherwise, your best bet is to go back to the Pitt campus, to The Pitt Shop, inside The University Store On Fifth, at 4000 Fifth Avenue at Thackery Avenue.
In 2014, David Finoli published When Pitt Ruled the Gridiron: Jock Sutherland's Five-Time National Champions, 1929-1937. To cover the program as a whole, Sam Scuillo published The University of Pittsburgh Football Vault in 2008.
During the Game. As a visitor to Pitt football, your safety should not be an issue. Just don't do much praising of Penn State or West Virginia. Or insult the Steelers. Or, should you see one, show any disrespect to a Terrible Towel. Or make fun of the Pittsburgh accent, with their habit of saying the second-person-plural, which is "youse" in New York, as "yinz." They also tend to drop some consonants: "Downtown" becomes "Dowtow," and "South Side" becomes "Souside."
I have heard conflicting reports on how the shortened name "Pitt" is treated. On the one hand, I've heard that Panther fans don't like it, much as people in San Francisco hate being called "Frisco." On the other hand, the helmets usually say, "Pitt," and their old facility was named Pitt Stadium. So I don't know what to believe.
The Panther was adopted as the school's mascot in 1909. It was indigenous to the region, it was alliterative, and its light brown coat resembled the old gold which, along with blue, was the school's color. There are several panther statues on and near campus, including the aforementioned one outside Heinz Field. Another is outside the William Pitt Union, at 3959 Forbes Avenue, between the Cathedral of Learning and The University Store On Fifth.
Pitt has had a costumed Panther since the 1950s, but it was only in the 1990s that he was given an official name, Roc, in honor of a longtime University official who had played for Jock Sutherland, Steve "The Rock" Petro. For a reason I haven't been able to discover, the costumed mascot wears uniform number zero, 0, for basketball games; and double zero, 00, for football games.
The University of Pittsburgh Marching Band has been renowned for nearly 100 years. Since 1975, it has been fronted by blonde baton twirlers called the Golden Girls -- a name which may confuse people when Pitt goes to play ACC (and former Big East) opponent Miami. In 1986, they added a color guard named the Navy Ladies, in honor of the other half of the school colors.
Okay, they're not all blondes,
and their uniforms have as much navy as gold.
The band begins playing two hours before kickoff, with The Panther Prowl: The football team walks from a nearby hotel and must pass in front of the gate to Heinz Field. The band forms an arc in front of the gate, and plays the university fight songs for the team and fans as they proceed to the locker room. The band then moves to the riverside concourse to play the music for the day's halftime show.
After these concerts, the band proceeds to play several concerts to the various pregame groups, such as the student tailgate at Roberto Clemente Memorial Park, a group at Grille 36, and for the Pitt Band Alumni Council tailgate before lining up to parade back down North Shore Drive and into Heinz Field. The band then performs their traditional pregame show in the stadium.
The Pitt Band pregame is always announced by the Herald Trumpets. This is followed by a performance by the Pitt Drumline near the student section. After this, the entire band enters the field for the pregame show.
The band enters the field from two tunnels flanking the north endzone of Heinz Field. As the band enters, the two tunnels are engulfed in a white cloudy smoke to appear as though the band is emerging from the smoky entryway. The band forms a large block.
The entire pregame show consists of "Hail to Pitt," the "University of Pittsburgh Alma Mater, "The Star Spangled Banner," the "Victory Song," and "The Panther Song." During the latter two songs, the band moves from their block formation and ends in the "Script Pitt" formation, a takeoff on Ohio State's "Script Ohio," except Ohio State doesn't put "Ohio," script or otherwise, on its helmets, while Pitt has a script "Pitt" on theirs.
The chant, "Here we go, Steelers, here we go!" (Clap, clap!) is heard about 100 times at every Steelers game. You may also hear it at Pitt Panthers games. And at Pirate games. And at Penguin games. This overuse bothers some locals. But #HereWeGo has become the Steelers' official Twitter hashtag.
After the Game. There are attractions near Heinz Field, but most of these are museums, such as the one dedicated to native Pittsburgher Andy Warhol, and will be closed after the games. (The next bridge over from the Clemente is the Andy Warhol Bridge. As far as I know, Warhol never painted a portrait of a Steeler, or was even interested in football.)
Between PNC Park and Heinz Field, across from where Three Rivers Stadium used to be, is Jerome Bettis' Grille 36, named for the Steeler legend and his uniform number. It's at 393 North Shore Drive.
South of downtown, across the Monongahela River on the South Shore – or, as they say in Pittsburghese, the Sou'side – is Station Square, an indoor and outdoor shopping, dining and entertainment complex. This is a popular gathering place, although, as New Yorkers, you'll be hopelessly outnumbered. You might be better off returning to your hotel and getting a bite or a drink there. When I first visited Pittsburgh in 2000 (I saw the Pirates hit 4 homers at Three Rivers but lose to the Cards thanks to a steroid-aided mammoth blast by Mark McGwire), there was a restaurant with a Pittsburgh Sports Hall of Fame at Station Square, but as far as I can tell it is no longer there.
I searched the Internet for bars in the Pittsburgh area that cater to New Yorkers. Usually, I can at least find something that welcomes Giant or Jet fans on their gamedays, but I guess the Steelers are so ingrained in Western Pennsylvania culture that establishing an outpost for "foreign fans" is anathema to them. (Anathema? Didn't Rocky Graziano knock him out in Buffalo? No, wait, that was Quinella.)
The closest I could come was a suggestion that Carson City Saloon, at 1401 E. Carson Street, was a
Jet fans' hangout. Number 48 or 51 bus from downtown. When I did my piece for the Pirates in 2013, I was told by a Pittsburgh native that the Brillo Box was owned by a New Yorker, but, not having been to Pittsburgh since, I cannot confirm this. And one source I found to back it up calls it a "hipster" place. If you want to take your chances, it's at 4104 Penn Avenue at Main Street. Number 88 bus from downtown
Vento's Pizza is still open. If you, as they say, show the proper respsect, a Jet fan's money is as good as anyone else's. 420 North Highland Avenue, next to a Home Depot, about 4 1/2 miles east of downtown. Bus 71B.
If you visit Pittsburgh during the European soccer season, which we are now in, the city's leading soccer bar is Piper's Pub, at 1828 East Carson Street. No matter what club you support, you can almost certainly find its game on TV there. Bus 48. Unless you're a Liverpool fan, in which case you may prefer their outpost in the Steel City (Pittsburgh, not Sheffield): Cain's Saloon, at 3239 W. Liberty Avenue, 4 miles down the South Side. Red Line to Dormont Junction.
Sidelights. Pittsburgh is a great American city, including being a great American sports city, well beyond what its size would suggest.
UPDATE: On November 30, 2018,
Thrillist published a list of "
America's 25 Most Fun Cities," and Pittsburgh came in 24th.
In between Heinz Field and PNC Park, home of the Pirates since 2001, is the Fort Duquense Bridge. In between Heinz Field and the Bridge is Stage AE, a music venue built roughly where Three Rivers Stadium stood, as the home of both the Pirates and the Steelers from 1970 to 2000, and also the Panthers in 2000. The Panthers played a few other games at Three Rivers, including some games against Penn State, as it had more modern TV facilities than Pitt Stadium.
Three Rivers, the center of the sports world in the 1970s
The 1st home of the Pirates, Recreation Park, was roughly on the site of Heinz Field. The Pirates played there from 1882 to 1890. Exposition Park, home of the Pirates from 1891 to 1909, and the Pitt Panthers from 1900 to 1908, was nearly on the site of PNC Park.
This was also the site of the 1st football game played by an openly professional player. Yale University star William "Pudge" Heffelfinger was paid $500 (about $12,800 in today's money) to play for the Allegheny Athletic Association against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club, and scored the game's only points in a 4-0 Allegheny win. (Under the scoring system of the time, a touchdown was 4 points.)
Three Rivers, set up for football in its last years
There are historical markers in the complex for both Exposition Park (as one of the sites, along with the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston, of the 1st World Series) and Recreation Park (as the site of the first professional football game -- though the first all-professional game was in 1895 in nearby Latrobe).
* Senator John Heinz History Center, 1212 Smallman Street at 12th Street, a couple of minutes' walk from Union/Penn Station and Greyhound. It includes the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum, open daily from 10 AM to 5 PM. (Senator Heinz, of the condiment-making family, was the 1st husband of Teresa Heinz Kerry, who nearly became First Lady in 2004.)
* Forbes Quadrangle, intersection of Forbes Avenue and Bouquet Street. This set of buildings, part of the University of Pittsburgh campus, was the site of Forbes Field, home of the Pirates from 1909 to 1970, the Steelers from 1933 to 1963, the Panthers from 1909 to 1924, and the Homestead Grays of the Negro Leagues from 1929 to 1950.
The Steelers never won a title there, and indeed only hosted 1 Playoff game, which they lost. But the Pirates won 3 World Series while playing there, and the Grays won 11 Pennants and the 1943, 1944 and 1948 Negro World Series.
Forbes Field was also the site of the 3rd of the 4 fights for the Heavyweight Championship of the World between Ezzard Charles and Jersey Joe Walcott, on July 18, 1951. Walcott won, becoming, at the time, the oldest Heavyweight Champion ever: 37.
Included on the site is the last standing remnant of Forbes Field, part of the outfield wall, with ivy still growing on it. (Wrigley Field in Chicago wasn't the only park with ivy on its outfield wall.) Where the wall stops, you'll see a little brick path, and eventually you'll come to a plaque that shows where the ball hit by Mazeroski crossed over the fence to win the Series. A historical marker honoring Barney Dreyfuss is nearby.
Home plate has been preserved, in Wesley W. Posvar Hall, named for the longtime UP Chancellor. An urban legend says that, if it was in its exact original location, it would now be in a ladies' restroom; this isn't quite the case, but it’s still at roughly the same spot.
Pick up the Number 71 bus at 5th Avenue at Ross Street, and it will take you down 5th Avenue to Oakland Avenue. From there, it's a 2-minute walk to the Quadrangle and Posvar Hall.
The remaining outfield wall, still with ivy on it
* Petersen Events Center. The home arena for Pitt basketball, it was built on the site of Pitt Stadium, where they played their football games from 1925 to 1999, and where the Steelers played part-time starting in 1958 and full-time starting in 1964 until 1969. Part-time from 1970 to 1999, and full-time in 2000.
If you're a Giants fan, this is where they played the Steelers on September 20, 1964, and Giant quarterback Y.A. Tittle got clobbered by the Steelers' John Baker, resulting in that famous picture of Tittle kneeling, with blood streaming down his bald head, providing a symbolic end to the Giants' glory days of Frank Gifford, Sam Huff and quarterbacks Charlie Conerly and Tittle.
Pitt Stadium had real grass through 1969. When Three Rivers, with its horrid pea-green carpet, opened in 1970, the University switched Pitt over to the plastic stuff as well, and it was kept until the stadium closed.
In 1994, when the new Rutgers Stadium opened, the local newspaper, now known as
The Home News Tribune, profiled all the other stadiums then in the Big East. It was not kind to the nearly 70-year-old Pitt Stadium: "Improvements are necessarily, preferably starting with a small nuclear device." 3719 Terrace Street, at Sutherland Drive.
From 1951 to 2002, before moving into Petersen, Pitt played basketball at Fitzgerald Field House. At 4,122 seats, it was very intimidating for visitors, but much too small for a major college basketball team, and most of their big-draw games had to be played at the Civic Arena. Building the Petersen Center allowed them a 12,508-seat on-campus arena. The old and new arenas are across Sutherland Drive from each other, a 5-minute walk from Forbes Quadrangle.
* Site of Greenlee Field. William Augustus "Gus" Greenlee was one of Pittsburgh's premier black businessmen -- but was both gangster and philanthropist. In 1932, he built Greenlee Field for the Negro League team he owned, the Pittsburgh Crawfords, named for another business he owned, the Crawford Grill.
Seating 7,500, it was the Craws' home from 1932 to 1938, when, for reasons beyond his control, he had to make changes that led to fans staying away, and he had to sell the team after the season, lasting 2 more years in other cities before folding. But, led by Hall-of-Famers Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Judy Johnson and James "Cool Papa" Bell, they won Pennants in 1935 and 1936.
Like Ebbets Field, it was on a Bedford Avenue. The Bedford Dwellings housing project is now on the site. 2501 Bedford Avenue, at Chauncey Drive (not Chauncey Street, like in Brooklyn), a mile and a half east of downtown. Bus 83.
* Site of Civic Arena, between Bedford Avenue, Fullerton Street, Centre Avenue and Washington Place. The official mailing address for "the Igloo" in its last few years was 66 Mario Lemieux Place. Built in 1961 for the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, it had a retractable roof before additional seating made such retraction impossible. It hosted the American Hockey League's Pittsburgh Hornets from then until 1967, and then the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins until 2010. It was officially known as the Mellon Arena from 1999 to 2010, when the naming rights expired.
The Pittsburgh Pipers, later renamed the Condors, played there, and won the 1st ABA Championship in 1968, led by Brooklyn native Connie Hawkins, who was named to the ABA All-Time Team. Larry Holmes barely hung on to the Heavyweight Championship of the World there, getting off the canvas to knock Renaldo Snipes out on November 6, 1981.
The Beatles played there on September 14, 1964. Elvis Presley sang there on June 25 & 26, 1973 and December 31, 1976. It was demolished in 2011.
The new arena and the old one, briefly coexisting
* PPG Paints Arena. Originally the Consol Energy Center, the name of the Penguins' arena was changed today. Opening on August 18, 2010, for a concert by former Beatle Paul McCartney, it seats 18,087 for Penguins and other hockey games, including the 2013 NCAA Championships (a.k.a. the Frozen Four); and 19,000 for basketball, for college tournaments and, in the unlikely event the NBA returns to Pittsburgh, the pros.
The building and opening of this arena means that, for perhaps the first time in franchise history, the Penguins' long-term future in Pittsburgh is secure. 1001 5th Avenue.
Pittsburgh hasn't had anything resembling a major league basketball team since the Condors moved in 1973. The new version of the ABA is officially "semi-pro," and has a team called the Steel City Yellow Jackets, who began play in the 2014-15 season. They play on the campus of the Community College of Allegheny County, at a building called the "A Giving Heart Community Center." 808 Ridge Avenue, across (or, rather, under) the elevated highway from Heinz Field.
On May 12, 2014, the New York Times printed a story that shows NBA fandom by ZIP Code, according to Facebook likes. The PPG Paints Arena is 134 miles from Cleveland's Quicken Loans Arena, but don't let that fool you into thinking that Pittsburghers toss aside their NFL-bred hatred of Cleveland to support the Cavaliers (even with the return of LeBron James): They seem to divide their fandom up among 4 "cool teams": The Chicago Bulls, the Los Angeles Lakers, the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat. The Philadelphia 76ers, only 309 miles away? Forget it.
It's unlikely that Pittsburgh will ever seek out a new NBA team. If they did get one, the metro area would rank 22nd in population among NBA markets.
* Roberto Clemente Museum. A fan group tried to buy Honus Wagner's house in nearby Carnegie and turn it into a museum, but this is the only museum devoted to a single Pittsburgh athlete, who was viewed as a supporting player on the 1960 title and the driving force behind the one in 1971, prior to his tragic death in a plane crash off Puerto Rico, trying to bring relief supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua on New Year's Eve 1972.
Clemente wasn't the 1st Hispanic player in the major leagues (white Cuban Charles "Chick" Pedroes played 2 games for the Cubs in 1902), nor was he the 1st black Hispanic player (Minnie Minoso debuted with the Chicago White Sox in 1949). But he was the 1st to really take hold in the public imagination, to the point where later Hispanic stars wore Number 21 in his honor, and there is a movement to have the number retired throughout baseball as was done for Jackie Robinson (but it is not likely to succeed). 3339 Penn Avenue at 34th Street. Bus 87 to Herron Avenue.
Pittsburgh has never hosted an NCAA Final Four. Duquesne University reached the 2nd Final Four (not that it was called that back then) in 1940, and Pitt did so in 1941. No Western Pennsylvania school has done so since.
In fact, Pittsburgh has never been a big basketball city: The Pittsburgh Ironmen played in the NBA's 1st season, 1946-47, and only that season, and are best known now for having had Press Maravich, father of Pistol Pete, play for them. The ABA's Pittsburgh Pipers, later the Pittsburgh Condors, won that league's 1st title in 1967-68, but that was it. (Connie Hawkins led that team, and was named to the ABA All-Time Team.) The most successful Pittsburgh basketball team may well have been the Pittsburgh Pisces in
The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh.
* Duquesne Gardens. Pittsburgh's original sports arena opened in 1895, and had an unofficial limit of 8,000 spectators. It hosted minor-league hockey teams from the beginning until its closing in 1956, including the Hornets from 1936 to 1956. It hosted the Duquesne and Pitt basketball teams, and the Pittsburgh Ironmen in the NBA's 1st season, 1946-47.
Once bigger arenas like the old Madison Square Garden went up in the 1920s, seating more than twice as many people, the Duquesne Gardens was obsolete. Yet it hung on until 1956. 110 N. Craig Street, at 5th Avenue, near the Pitt campus. University housing is now on the site. Also accessible via the Number 71 bus.
Demolition beginning in 1956
The University of Pittsburgh is on the town's East Side. Penn State is 139 miles to the northeast in State College. West Virginia University, Pitt's other big rival, is 76 miles to the south in Morgantown. Greyhound provides service to State College, while Megabus does so to Morgantown.
* Highmark Stadium. As I said, Pittsburgh doesn't have a Major League Soccer team. The Pittsburgh Riverhounds play in the United Soccer League (USL), the 3rd tier of American soccer. Their home field is Highmark Stadium, and it seats a mere 3,500 fans, about the size of the average high school football stadium in New Jersey. But its placement on the south bank of the Monongahela, across from downtown, gives it a view every bit as good as the one from PNC Park. 510 W. Station Square Drive. Subway to Station Square.
No President has come from Pittsburgh, or from anywhere near it. The only President from Pennsylvania has been James Buchanan, and he was a lousy one, and he was from Lancaster, much closer to Philadelphia.
The most notable historic site in Pittsburgh is probably Point State Park, where the "three rivers" come together at the western edge of downtown. It includes the Fort Pitt Museum, telling the city's story from the days of New France Onward. 601 Commonwealth Place.
The U.S. Steel Tower, at 7th & Grant Avenues, is the tallest building in Pittsburgh, at 841 feet -- although there are 3 buildings in Philadelphia that surpass it for the title of tallest building in Pennsylvania. Built in 1970, it surpassed the 1932-built Gulf Tower, on the opposite corner from U.S. Steel.
There haven't been many TV shows set in Pittsburgh. They include
My So-Called Life, Hope and Gloria, Queer as Folk,
Man with a Plan, the World War II-era period piece
Remember WENN, and
This Is Us, which bounces around between 1980 and the present day.
Mr. Belvedere, starring Christopher Hewett as a butler to a family led by a sportswriter played by ballplayer-turned-broadcaster Bob Uecker, was set in nearby Beaver Falls, hometown of Jets legend Joe Namath, but it was filmed in Los Angeles. The most notable TV shows actually taped in Pittsburgh, at the PBS station WQED-Channel 13, were
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and
Where In the World Is Carmen Sandiego?
Fred Rogers was from Latrobe, and in spite of his show's success, he never moved the taping to New York or Hollywood. He notably had Steeler receiver Lynn Swann on his show, to show that even a big tough football player (or, at least, a graceful wide receiver) could love ballet (which explained how Swannie got such nice moves in the first place). A statue of Mr. Rogers, sponsored by TV Land, is near Heinz Field, as is one of Steeler founder-owner Art Rooney.
A lot of movies have been shot in Pittsburgh, due to its varied architecture. Many have had sports scenes. You may have seen the 1994 version of
Angels in the Outfield, which involved the team then known as the California Angels. The original black-and-white version came out in 1951, and the downtrodden team they featured was the Pirates, and there's some nice shots of Forbes Field in it. Some nice shots of Janet Leigh, too. (Jamie Lee Curtis' mom -- no, unlike in some other films such as
Psycho, Janet doesn't flash any skin in this one, but now you know why Tony Curtis married her, and where Jamie Lee inherited the goods.)
The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh was a very silly, very Seventies movie, with Julius "Dr. J" Erving playing for the good guys and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar playing for the opposition.
Sudden Death had Jean-Claude Van Damme trying to stop an assassination attempt at the Stanley Cup Finals. Both featured the old Civic Arena. Van Damme also filmed
Timecop in Pittsburgh.
While most of
The Dark Knight Rises was filmed in New York (with a few CGI bridges added to the skyline to create the atmosphere of the fictional Gotham City), and its 2 predecessors were filmed in Chicago, the football game scene was filmed at Heinz Field, with the fictional Gotham Rogues wearing Steeler black & gold. Don't worry, no actual stadiums were hurt during the filming of the bombing.
One of Tom Cruise's first big films was
All the Right Moves, a high school football movie set in Pittsburgh. He returned to Pittsburgh to film
Jack Reacher. A movie with more life in it, the original 1968
Night of the Living Dead, was filmed in Pittsburgh. Its sequel
Dawn of the Dead was filmed at the Monroeville Mall in the eastern suburbs, and the concluding chapter
Day of the Dead back in the city.
Gung Ho, with Michael Keaton, spoofed the decline of Pittsburgh industry.
Flashdance, with Jennifer Beals, turned the declining Pittsburgh dream on its head.
Boys On the Side seemed to wink at it.
Groundhog Day starts in Pittsburgh before moving east to Punxsatawney. However, those aren't sports movies. (Although, with Jennifer Beals, Drew Barrymore and Andie MacDowell in them, there may be some heavy breathing.) PNC Park was used in the recent films
She's Out of My League and
Abduction.
In 1980,
Fighting Back: The Rocky Bleier Story became a CBS movie of the week, starring Robert Urich as the running back who played for the Steelers after being wounded in combat in Vietnam. The same year, Mean Joe Greene played himself in
Hey Kid, Catch!, based on his famous Coca-Cola commercial.
But the greatest movie shot in Western Pennsylvania was the 1977 hockey classic
Slap Shot. Nancy Dowd wrote it about her brother Ned's experience with the Johnstown Jets, who played at the Cambria County War Memorial Arena. That arena, and minor-league arenas in New York State's Syracuse, Utica and Clinton, were used as filming locations, even though the film's Charlestown Chiefs were said to be in the Charlestown section of Boston. After the real Jets moved out, the replacement team was named the Johnstown Chiefs in honor of the crew led by player-coach Reggie Dunlop, played by Paul Newman.
The 4,000-seat arena, built in 1950, still stands, and is now home to a team called the Johnstown Tomahawks. 326 Napoleon Street in Johnstown, 67 miles east of Pittsburgh. It's a 15-minute walk from the Amtrak station, and the museum honoring the Johnstown Flood of 1889 is along the way.
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Pittsburgh is a terrific city that loves its sports, and Heinz Field is one of the best of the new football stadiums. If you give your team your all, and respect the Steelers and their fans as opponents, you'll be all right. Just don't do anything to a Terrible Towel.
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