Steelers Are Going to the Super Bowl!

I couldn't decide what to write about first...inauguration or the Steelers.

I've opted to go in chronological order. The game came first.

You know how I feel about the Steelers. I have a tattoo. I'll have a second (already planned) if they win next Sunday (sorry, Mom). The fact that this team, a team of men who I feel so accurately represent my home and the values of it, will get a chance to become the first NFL team to ever win six Super Bowls on Sunday is unbelievable to me.

If you live in a city that is passionate about one of its sports teams, you know how this feels right now. Then again, in fairness, there are truthfully very few cities as passionate about their sports teams as Pittsburgh is about its Steelers.

During the AFC Championship game last Sunday, I actually began to cry during the national anthem. Sure, it was a loaded anthem to begin with, coming just days before the country enters what we all hope - and hope is the key word because we've been without for so long - will be the beginning of a resurgence of our country. But as Martina McBride belted out the anthem, the cameras panned to the crowd, all waving their terrible towels. And even though I was thousands of miles away and across an international border, I felt home.

One of my dearest friends from high school emailed me after he read that I had said that. "You're so sentimental," he said. He's a dork. I bet he welled up, too.

I knew my brother was at the game. Sitting, the little jerk, on the 50 yard line. I knew he was freezing, but I also knew that he was waving a terrible towel and wishing for a win with all his heart, just like I was. And that Honeydunce and Ferris were in a bar. And that across the world, even, people I'd grown up with were staying up to watch the game and wish along with me.

This is what sports *can* do if it's done right. But you have to have a team that's done right. One that builds identity by having only three coaches in 40 years. By having players who have chosen the organization over higher salaries on other teams as their careers wound down, because it's that much of a family on that team. By having a team that recruits based on character and long term vision. You'd never see the Steelers trade for TO or Ocho Cinco in hopes of making a one-year run for the Super Bowl. They want to be a great team - consistently. The Steelers have been, for a very long time, a team that people can feel good about believing in. And so they do. They are not a team of perfect individuals, but as NFL teams go, they hold an edge on the moral ground.

They are a team owned by the man who created the rule whereby NFL teams were required to interview at least one minority candidate for coaching positions. Some would say that that rule changed not just the NFL but the ability to dream and imagine for an entire generation of minority youth. And the best thing about Mr. Rooney and that rule? When asked about it, he says, "The great thing about that rule is that some day the NFL may not need it."

It's a team that didn't even attempt to recruit two star quarterbacks who could, well, be stars when it had a chance to instead get one who could lead. It's like its city - it prefers substance and hard work to glitz.

It's a good team. It's a team that makes me proud. It's a team that can remind me of all of the values of my home state just by watching them play. They play like the game means something. Something bigger. So few professional athletes, let alone entire teams, do that anymore.

And I am so lucky to work in an industry where my employers understand the importance of game day if it's *your team*. I have a fantastic boss who didn't blink twice about letting me work remotely on the Monday after the game so that I could be home, watching the game in a sea of black and gold with my family. I have been smiling for days, thinking of how lucky I am that I will share a possible sixth Super Bowl with my brother and our friends, probably in some sports bar surrounded by Pittsburgh's odd mix of intellectuals and day laborers, all wishing just as hard as we are for one.more.Super.Bowl.ring.

I know I will cry next Sunday no matter how it ends. And probably there will be a 250 pound steel worker standing next to me, crying as well.

For the record, I think the following about the game:

I think that Arizona is a bigger threat than people realize, and I think that not because of the "puppies and Jesus factor." I think it because Arizona is without a doubt playing the best possible football that the Arizona Cardinals are capable of playing, period. And when a team is playing its best possible football, it means that there are many mental and physical intangibles that are simply clicking for the team that superior talent and well executed gameplans may not be able to compensate for.

But I also think that Pittsburgh is the more experienced team in simply willing themselves to a victory. If you have followed them this season, you have seen it. Impossible, last-minute, game changing drives or defensive plays simply willed to happen through sheer determination to win. If the game is close, this will be the difference factor. They will simply decide to win, and I believe that in that situation they will be so fueled by their uncanny determination, that they will.

And I can't take credit for this last one, it was pointed out to me by a co-worker from Dublin who writes lovely football pieces and whom I enjoy talking sports with because he enjoys the mythology and legend as much as I do. But as he smartly pointed out, Pittsburgh is a team that won't need to release a full blitz to put pressure on Warner, and that will free them up for better coverage on Fitzgerald. And that, I think, is an awfully big advantage.

And I think that this is my favorite article about the Steelers so far this Super Bowl season.

Unless you live in Phoenix or Seattle, I expect your full support this week.

That is all.