I'm not from Pittsburgh. I do get a lot of crap from people, including "You're not from Pittsburgh?? Then you're not a real Steelers fan!" This is where I, and people who know me, always call bullshit. While from Saranac Lake, NY(Bandwagon Central. Just trust me on this one.), I've been a Steelers fan since I was probably nine or ten (I'm 21 now). My dad, born and (partially) raised in Pennsylvania, - family would later move to Ithaca, NY - is a Steelers fan. I actually inherited his old hat - it's been in this family for probably 30 years now, and, before I got it, had been sitting in my grandmother's house for awhile. Anyway, I digress. I call Saranac Lake "Bandwagon Central," because most of the kids I went to school with liked one of three teams: the Cowboys, the 49ers, and the Packers. Needless to say, I took a lot of heat after Super Bowl XXX and then right up til graduation, after the playoff losses and all. There was this one kid who was a 49ers fan. He used to rub it in my face all the time. "My team's so much better than yours!" Needless to say, he said nothing when I saw him over spring break last month. I didn't say anything either - didn't need to. My Super Bowl Champions shirt said it all. One last thing about him and 49ers fans in general...many of them didn't appreciate what they had when they had it. Which brings me to why I love the Steelers. For me, it comes down to loyalty, integrity, and family. When Steelers fans see each other on the street, it's almost like old friends running into each other. The Rooneys are the best ever. Two coaches in almost 40 years - that's loyalty for you. I see owners like John York and the Ford family, etc., and I'm grateful for what we have. The Rooneys stay with the team as is, win, lose, or draw, as the fans should do. I shudder to think that my old high school is filled right now with Steelers fans who aren't fans at all. And I'm afraid of what will happen next year if we don't make it back to the Super Bowl. That's the hardest part of a playoff/championship loss to me - seeing all the "fans" jump off the bandwagon. Someone said to me last year, "You're still wearing your Steelers coat??" I'm just like, "Well, duh"
I'm always accused of being a bandwagon fan myself. Anyone from some random 12-year-old kid to some random adult on the street. All I have to do is rattle off names like Mike Tomczak and Dermontti Dawson - the kids are like, "Who?" and the adults are like, "...oh..."

I'd say I've been a Yankees fan for only slightly longer than I've been a Steelers fan. Probably has to do with little more than the idea that baseball is sometimes easier to understand than football. I'm a New York native. And before you ask "Why not the Mets?", let me explain. Yeah, the Yankees have 26 championships. The ultimate dynasty. But for me, it's the history, the tradition. Guys like Lou Gehrig, Roger Maris, Yogi Berra, Babe Ruth, and Mickey Mantle, going down in history before I was even heard of. Like the stories of the Steelers from my father, I heard stories of the Yankees from my grandmother and my uncle. As for my grandfather, my dad, and my bro, they are Red Sox fans for reasons unknown. It kind of begs the question of how can you get away with loving the Red Sox here in NY, but you can't get away with being a Yankees fan in Boston? We may have 26 titles, but I'm not a bandwagoner - if I were, I'd be gone already. Other than Derek Jeter, whom I love, there doesn't seem to be much loyalty around. I can't stand Steinbrenner. He's the man behind the reason why people hate the Yankees so much. People are like, "You win all the time! You buy your players!" Um...we haven't been winning much of anything lately. And as for buying our players...we may have started it, but we're not the only ones doing it. Players come and go, but some, like Derek Jeter, stay. And some fans, like myself - we stay, too. Because we're supposed to. We don't sign the multi-million dollar contracts for four years. We sign the contracts for life. With no guarantees. It's what we do.

All that aside, there is something else. This whole betting on sports thing? I don't know if I mentioned this, but the day after the Super Bowl, one of my professors mentioned how her son won, like, $100, because the Steelers won the Super Bowl. She said to me, "You look happy...how much did you win?" I had this to say: There is no amount of money that could make me happier than I was when the Steelers won the Super Bowl. What was at stake? A reputation. Just over ten years of pride. That's worth more than all the money in the world right there. Lou Gehrig said upon his retirement that he considered himself "the luckiest man on the face of the earth." February 5, 2006 - I was the luckiest girl.
Good things come to those who wait. The Steelers finally got their fifth ring. And if I have to wait for the Yankees to get #27...then I will.

Pinstripe pride. Black and Gold pride.