Ed Morrissey: Steelers like family

Timothy McNulty | November 9, 2009

Here's a football-n-politics post, with the Steelers prepping for their first Monday night game of the season tonight in Denver.

We've been noticing that conservative blogger and radio talk show host Ed Morrissey, at Michelle Malkin's site Hot Air, mentions the Steelers a lot and leads football posts with pictures of a Steelers helmet. So in an amazing feat of investigative journalism (we emailed him) we confirmed that he is indeed a fan of the team, despite living in Minnesota and being raised in California.

Morrissey wrote back about why he's a Steelers fan, and addressed his feelings about fellow Republican Dan Rooney crossing over to support Obama last year:

Cheers I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I may be the biggest Steelers fan who was born in California!  I have been nuts about the Steelers since the Immaculate Reception, a game I watched as a 9-year-old nascent NFL fan.  Being partly of Italian descent on my mother's side, Franco Harris became a favorite for me, and since I hated the Raiders at the time (and still do), it was a natural fit. 

Why still?  I think the blue-collar nature of the Steelers and their hard-nosed approach to football has always appealed to me.  They have never gone the way of all flash.  The ebullience of Hines Ward, for instance, seems a lot more like the natural joy of playing the game than the self-congratulatory stylings of Terrell Owens or Deion Sanders.  They talk with their play rather than their mouths.  That seems to be a value that comes from the organization and the city, as it has remained more or less constant through decades of different personnel and coaching staffs.  The Rooneys have shown loyalty and faith in those coaches; I don't know of any other team that could only boast 4 coaches in 40 years, and just 3 in 36. 

Now, some of my conservative friends say that I should have abandoned the Steelers after the Rooneys supported Barack Obama, but I would no more do that than disown some of my family members who did the same thing.  When you love something, you don't toss it aside over a couple of boneheaded decisions -- or a few seasons of futility.  The Steelers are my NFL family, in that sense.  They may anger, frustrate, or disappoint me on occasion, but I won't ever cut them loose.  I'll just wait for them to recover themselves and show their championship spirit, as they always do.