I hear an announcer say it at least eight times a year: "No one's fans travel like Steelers fans do. I think the Steelers fans might actually outnumber the home fans, Vern!"
This is, of course, complete bullplop. Steelers fans may travel well, but a good many of those fans woke up in their own beds on game day.
Is this because they're front-runners? Sure, some of them. More likely they're displaced Pittsburghers. There are large pockets of them in every major city. The numbers are truly astounding: when the steel industry collapsed in the 80s, Pittsburgh shed 150,000 jobs and over half (!) of its peak population. They scattered across the country and raised families. They are a "nation" in the looser meaning of the word: a body of people of common origin who may or may not be in the same location. They are, in other words, the lost tribe of Pittsburgh. And what connects them are the sports loyalties of their forbears. That's why their provincialism about the Steelers can seem a little...much sometimes. The ties run deeper than merely football.
It is unique. Or rather, it was.
As I look at the Saints prepare for their first Super Bowl, something looks familiar. A different sort of calamity hit New Orleans, a far faster and more devastating one. Its people scattered across the country and haven't returned. And now you see it: the lost peoples of that particular nation are stirring. They're seeking one another out and gleefully commiserating. They finally have something happy to share, the word "share" being more operative than even "happy." They're returning home, figuratively if not literally.
It's wonderful to see. I don't know that anyone could be as happy for them as this Steelers fan. I suspect that I know just how deep this joy is running.
You dat.