An End of Summer Tradition

Of the 32 years I’ve been a Steelers fan, I only had the joy of being a hometown fan for only 8 of those years (5 of which I was 5 and under so it doesn’t really count in my book).  My sophomore year of college, I moved to PA for 3 years.  I was thrilled to get to watch the Steelers on a weekly basis.  Unfortunately, this was during the Kordell Stewart, Tommy Maddox era, which wasn’t exactly the Steelers golden era of football.  I truly enjoyed watching The Bus in action each and every week.  Those were his glory days for sure!

Now, thanks to Direct TV’s NFL season ticket we get to watch our boys in black and gold every.single. week!! But, we still don’t really get that hometown feel.. especially living in the Baltimore area …When I step onto my back deck I am greeted with the icky colors of purple and black ALL OVER my neighbors yard.  

So,  we’ve begun making the trek to Latrobe, PA in August to watch the Steelers training camp at St Vincent’s College.  It’s our little taste of life as a hometown fan.  Since it is part way between my parents house and our place, we ended up finding a campground truly in the middle, making a weekend out of it and spending Saturday in Latrobe watching practice.   I always feel like Adam Sandler in “Fever Pitch” as we pack up to go and “check out the team.”  As if they needed us to scope out the new players.    This year Scott was especially excited to check out Baron Batch… a rookie RB he had read about that week who was apparently getting noticed on the practice field. 

Scott and I have now been 4 times… we’ve taken the kids 3 times… and even still, I get this rush of excitement as I look out and see the players in person.  It’s so different than on TV, they are so much bigger and it’s fun to watch them interact with each other. 

This year was especially fun b/c my oldest daughter was SO EXCITED about going.  She’s been asking all summer if we were going to go.. and since there was so much up in the air with the lock out, we honestly didn’t know if there’d even be a training camp to go to.  When we told her we were going, she packed her bag literally a week ahead of time.  She had her camera, Steelers pants, tee shirt, sweatshirt, hat, jersey, and her sign to hold up for the players, all packed into her Steelers drawstring bag.  I had to remind her to throw in a few pairs of underwear and socks too.  She couldn’t wait to see “the real Steelers players” play a game.    Yes, it warmed this Steelers lovin’ Momma’s heart! 

As we were walking back to our car I spotted Heath Miller sitting in a cart while Mike Wallace was signing autographs.  My parents had just given the youngest circus member his official Steelers jersey that morning… it was none other than 83 Heath Miller… so in true paparazzi style, I grabbed my baby and ran over to the now growing group of people surrounding his golf cart.  And then I froze.  He was literally right in front of me (just a few teenage boys begging for autographs between Heath and I) and instead of saying, “Hey Heath can you pose for a picture with my baby, he’s wearing your jersey!”  Instead, I said absolutely nothing.  As if I was waiting for Mr. Miller to look over and say, “Look, he’s wearing my jersey, want to pose for a picture?”    And so instead of getting a nice posed picture with this starting TE (who by the way is SUPER TALL in real life)… instead I stood there until the driver started the cart and then I rushed over and stuck my baby by his side while Scott snapped a picture.  Classy, huh?  I then kicked myself the whole way back for not opening my mouth and at least asking. 

Oh well… we got to see the Steelers play, we got to see 2 of them up close, and we all had a good time!!  The circus house is abuzz with talks of football season.  The first preseason game is tomorrow night against the Redskins!