Once upon a time, there was a tiny little man with a squeaky voice who somehow landed a job in radio. His name was Myron Cope. He had the looks for radio, but certainly not the voice, but he loved sports, he loved the Pittsburgh Steelers, and he knew the game, which earned him respect in a town that demanded a good work ethic. Somehow, even with his radio looks, he landed the TV broadcast post for the WTAE broadcast games too. In this town, he is a legend. Everyone knows who Myron was. He did alot outside of the broadcast booth too. He loved this town, and did alot of charity work, especially with Autism research. Now, a little about the Terrible Towel, as I remember it.
It started out in the mid 1970's during a playoff year for the Steelers, when Myron was asked to try to involve the fans a bit more with the broadcast. He came up with a crazy idea to wave a yellow or black towel to encourage the team, and fire up the fans. He asked people to bring a towel to the game. It worked. Eventually the towels were marketed as Myron Cope's Original Terrible Towels. Now back in the day when they first came about, they were just towels. I remember my Mom buying some yellow and white kitchen towels, and we drew our own Steeler emblems and wrote "Terrible Towel" on them with marker...long live the simple days! We'd run around the house waving our own version of the towel. My homemade version, I'm sure soon became dusting cloths for my Mom, but my hubby has managed to save two towels: one black, one gold, which are tucked away safely in his sports box. Now once playoff season starts, the towels can't be touched until the season is over. No exceptions! (My kitty, Emma, came dangerously close to touching the towels in this post, lucky for the cute kitty, she kept her paws off! We can't have a cat jinxing the team now, can we?) We didn't get them out by playoff season this year, so they can't be touched until next year. Steeler fans are pretty superstitious, and we can't afford to be the ones to jinx the team, that would be bad.
Now, all superstitions aside, it's only good sportsmanship to wish for a good competitive game on Sunday against the Packers. It should be a good game. Two old school, tough nosed teams duking it out for all the marbles. Now only if I could watch the entire game. My husband thinks I'm a jinx! Wishing a good, tough, safe game on Sunday. I'm happy for Green Bay to be at the Superbowl, but I'll be chanting "GO STEELERS!!!"
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