Pittsburgh Steelers

The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They are members of the North Division of the American Football Conference(AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). The Steelers are the oldest and most championed franchise in the AFC. The team has appeared in six Super Bowls and, along with the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys, is one of three teams to have won the Super Bowl five times. They have appeared in 13 Conference Championship Games and have hosted more conference championship games than any other NFL franchise. They are the only team in NFL playoff history to win a Super Bowl after being seeded sixth in the playoffs, winning three consecutive games on the road followed by a Super Bowl XL victory in Detroit on February 5, 2006 against the Seattle Seahawks. They are also the only sixth-seeded team in NFL history to advance to a conference championship game as well as win one.
Originally named the Pittsburgh Pirates, the team joined the NFL in 1933 when owner Art Rooney Sr. paid a US$2,500 franchise fee to the league. However, the Steelers are the heirs to the first-ever pro-football team, as Pittsburgh hosted the world's first pro game in the 1880s. That early franchise, however, fell victim to the state's strict blue laws that, prior to 1933, prevented sporting events from taking place on Sundays when most NFL games were scheduled.
The franchise was reformed and renamed the Steelers in 1940 based on the city's prominent position in the steel industry. A fan suggested the name in a contest held by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the team.
The Steelers have one of the NFL's largest fan bases, with notable fans being actors Adam Sandler & Michael Keaton, singers Hank Williams, Jr., Charlie Daniels, & Snoop Dogg, professional wrestler Kurt Angle, and conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, among others. (Keaton and Angle being Pittsburgh natives, while Limbaugh once worked at Pittsburgh radio station KQV in the early 1970's.) A 2007 survey also determined that the Steelers also have the largest female fan base in the NFL. The team has sold out every home game since 1972, second to the Green Bay Packers for the longest such streak in NFL history.

The Pittsburgh Steelers first took to the field as the Pittsburgh Pirates on September 20, 1933, losing 23-2 to the New York Giants. Through the 1930s, the Pirates never finished higher than second place in their division, or with a record better than 0.500 (1936). Pittsburgh did make history in 1938 by signing Byron White, a future justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, to what was at the time the biggest contract in NFL history, but he played only one year with the Pirates before signing with the Detroit Lions.
During World War II, the Steelers experienced player shortages. They twice merged with other NFL franchises to field a team. During the Steagles1943 season, they merged with the Philadelphia Eagles forming the "Phil-Pitt Eagles" and were known as the "Steagles." This team went 5-4-1. In 1944 they merged with the Chicago Cardinals and were known as Card-Pitt. This team finished 0-10, marking the only winless team in franchise history.
The Steelers made the playoffs for the first time in 1947, tying for first place in the division at 8-4 with the Philadelphia Eagles. This forced a tie-breaking playoff game at Forbes Field, which the Steelers lost 21-0. That would be Pittsburgh's only playoff game for 25 years, though the Steelers did qualify for a "Playoff Bowl" in 1963 as the second best team in their conference, though not considered an official playoff.
In 1970, with the assimilation of the American Football League into the National Football League, the Pittsburgh Steelers were one of three old-guard NFL teams to switch to the newly-formed American Conference (the others being the Cleveland Browns and the Baltimore Colts). This restructuring was necessary to equalize the number of teams in each of the two conferences following the AFL-NFL merger.
The Steelers' history of bad luck changed with the hiring of coach Chuck Noll for the 1969 season. Noll's most remarkable talent was in his draft selections, taking Hall of Famers "Mean" Joe Greene in 1969, Terry Bradshaw and Mel Blount in 1970, Jack Ham in 1971, Franco Harris in 1972, and finally, in 1974, pulled off the incredible feat of selecting four Hall of Famers in one draft year, Mike Webster, Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, and Jack Lambert. The Pittsburgh Steelers' 1974 draft has gone down in NFL history as the best ever, considering no other team has ever drafted four future Hall of Famers in one year. The players drafted in the early '70s formed the base of one of the greatest dynasties in NFL history, making the playoffs in eight seasons and becoming the only team in NFL history to win four Super Bowls in six years, as well as the first to win more than two.
The Steelers suffered a rash of injuries in the 1980 season and missed the playoffs with a 9-7 record. The 1981 season was no better, with an 8-8 showing. The team was then hit with the retirements of all their key players from the Super Bowl years. Mean Joe Greene retired after the 1981 season, Lynn Swann and Jack Ham after 1982's playoff berth, Terry Bradshaw and Mel Blount after 1983's divisional championship, and Jack Lambert after 1984's AFC Championship Game appearance.
After those retirements, the franchise skidded to its first losing seasons since 1971. Though still competitive, the Steelers would not finish above 0.500 in 1985, 1986, and 1988. In 1987, the year of the players' strike, the Steelers finished with a record of 8-7, but missed the playoffs. In 1989, they would reach the second round of the playoffs on the strength of Merrill Hoge and Rod Woodson before narrowly missing the playoffs in each of the next two seasons.
In 1992, Chuck Noll retired and was succeeded by Kansas City Chiefs defensive coordinator Bill Cowher, a native of the Pittsburgh suburb of Crafton.
Cowher led the Steelers to the playoffs in each of his first six seasons, a feat that had been accomplished only by legendary coach Paul Brown of the Cleveland Browns. Overall, Cowher led the Steelers to the playoffs in 10 of his 15 seasons, including an appearance in Super Bowl XXX on the strength of the "Blitzburgh" defense at the end of the 1995 season. However, the Steelers lost to the Dallas Cowboys. Cowher produced the franchise's record-tying fifth Super Bowl win in Super Bowl XL over the National Football Conference champion Seattle Seahawks ten years later. With that victory, the Steelers became the third team to win five Super Bowls, and the first sixth-seeded playoff team to reach and win the Super Bowl since the NFL expanded to a 12-team post-season tournament in 1990.
Cowher resigned from coaching the Steelers on January 5, 2007, citing a need to spend more time with his family. He did not use the term 'retire', leaving open a possible return to the NFL as coach of another team. A three-man committee consisting of Art Rooney II, Dan Rooney, and Kevin Colbert was set-up to conduct interviews for the head coaching vacancy. The candidates interviewed included: offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt, offensive line coach Russ Grimm, former offensive coordinator Chan Gailey, Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Mike Tomlin, and Chicago Bears defensive coordinator Ron Rivera. On January 22, 2007, Mike Tomlin was announced as Cowher's successor as head coach. Tomlin is the first African-American to be named head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers in its 74-year history.
For more information on the franchise's current season see: 2007 Pittsburgh Steelers season
Since the NFL merger in 1970, the Pittsburgh Steelers have compiled an overall record of 334-217-2 , reached the playoffs 22 times, won their division 17 times, played in 13 AFC championship games, and won five of six Super Bowls.

Logo and uniforms
The Steelers have used black and gold as their colors since the club's inception, excluding the 1943 season when they merged with the Philadelphia Eagles and formed the "Steagles"; the team's colors at that time were green and white as a result of wearing Eagles uniforms. Originally, the team wore solid gold helmets and black jerseys. Unique to Pittsburgh, the Steelers' black and gold colors are shared by all major professional teams in the city, including the Pittsburgh Pirates in baseball and the Pittsburgh Penguins in hockey. These also are the colors of the city's official flag.
The Steelers logo was introduced in 1962 and is based on the "Steelmark," originally designed by Pittsburgh's U.S. Steel and now owned by the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI). In an ironic twist, it was Cleveland-based Republic Steel that suggested the Steelers adopt the industry logo. It consists of the word "Steelers" surrounded by three astroids (hypocycloids of four cusps). The original meanings behind the astroids were, "Steel lightens your work, brightens your leisure, and widens your world." Later, the colors came to represent the ingredients used in the steel-making process: yellow for coal, orange for iron ore, and blue for scrap steel. While the formal Steelmark logo contains only the word "Steel," the team was given permission to add "ers" in 1963 after a petition against AISI.
The Steelers are the only NFL team that puts its logo on only one side of the helmet (the right side). Longtime field and equipment manager Jack Hart was instructed to do this by Art Rooney as a test to see how the logo appeared on the gold helmets; however, its popularity led the team to leave it that way permanently. A year after introducing the logo, they switched to black helmets to make it stand out more.
Another distinctive feature of the helmets is that a player's number appears on both the front and back (the Steelers are one of only two teams in the NFL to this). The numbers traditionally do not appear on the helmet fronts during the exhibition season.
After the "Batman" uniforms failed with the fans (the team also finished 4-9-1, last in the short-lived NFL Century Division), the current uniform designs were introduced in 1968. The design was a modernized version of the pre-1967 home design and consists of gold pants and either black jerseys or white jerseys, except for the 1970 and 1971 seasons when the Steelers wore white pants with their white jerseys. The helmet is solid black with a gold central stripe and small white player numbers on the forehead. Last names were added to the jerseys in 1970, as part of a new NFL mandate resulting from the NFL-AFL merger (the AFL teams had last names on the back of their jerseys). In 1997, the team switched to rounded numbers on the jersey to match the number font (Futura Condensed) on the helmets, and a Steelers logo was added to the left side of the jersey.
The Steelers are one of a dwindling number of NFL franchises that strictly wears its team color jerseys at home, always opting for black. The Steelers last wore white at home on a regular basis in 1969, Chuck Noll's first season as coach and the last year the team played in Pitt Stadium. The team has done this for much of its history and has continued to do so as more NFL teams wear white jerseys in at least one home game. They are one of 13 teams since 1999 that have not worn white at home (14 if you count the New York Giants who wore white in their 2005 "away" game against the New Orleans Saints at Giants Stadium as well as their numerous "away" games against the New York Jets since 1984.), and are the only ones in the AFC North to practice this. The Cleveland Browns have traditionally had on again/off again periods of wearing white at home, while the Baltimore Ravens and Cincinnati Bengals, like some other NFL teams, wear white in their home opener before wearing their darker jerseys in their remaining home games.
Because of the team's unofficial policy of always wearing their black jerseys in home games, the team gained some notoriety when, as the designated "home" team for Super Bowl XL, the team elected to wear their white jerseys, becoming just the third NFL team to elect to wear white as the "home" team in the Super Bowl. But while the other two teams that have elected to wear white as the "home" team in the Super Bowl (Dallas and Washington) traditionally wear white at home, a variety of reasons were rumored as to why the Steelers elected to wear white in Super Bowl XL. Reasons included the fact that the team wore white in all three playoff victories that year (all on the road) to former head coach Bill Cowher's comments that since it wasn't at Heinz Field, it was a road game (a statement contradicted by the fact that ten years earlier in Super Bowl XXX, Cowher's squad was the "home team" and chose to wear their black jerseys away from Three Rivers Stadium, where they had played both playoff games). However, it should be noted though that the game took place in Detroit, which is only a five hour drive from Pittsburgh and with the league preferring to have the Super Bowl in subtropical or Mediterranean climates or in domed/retractable roof stadiums due to the winter weather, is likely the closest the Steelers would have to a home game in a Super Bowl in the foreseeable future. (Not surprisingly, there were also an overwhelming number of Steelers fans at the game compared to the number of supporters of their opponent, the Seattle Seahawks. One ESPN.com columnist suggested that Steelers fans outnumbered Seahawks fans by a ratio of 25 to 1.) Also, the Steelers were the designated "home" team in Super Bowl XIV and elected to wear black (also a season in which they played both their playoff games at home).
At a press conference on April 27, 2007, it was announced that the Steelers would wear a throwback uniform for two home games during the 2007 season, as part of the celebration of the Steelers' 75th Season. They were worn for the Steelers' home opener against the Buffalo Bills on September 16 and again during the Monday Night Football game on November 5 against the Baltimore Ravens. Both games resulted in victories. The jersey is black with the numbers, names and stripes all in gold and it also contains a 75th Season logo on the right side of the upper chest part of the jersey. The jersey is considered to be from the 1960 season. The pants are white with a single gold stripe running down the length of the outside of each leg, surrounded by thinner black stripes on either side of the gold stripe. The helmets are gold with the Steelers logo on the right side and a single black stripe running down the center from front to back. The helmet was worn during the 1962 season, which was the first year that the present Steelers logo began to appear on their helmets. The only two differences are that the logo on the original helmet read 'Steel', whereas Steelers appears on the helmet that the team will wear for the two games in 2007 and that the face mask on this version of the helmet is black, whereas the original face mask color on the gold helmet was gray.

Rivals
The Pittsburgh Steelers have three primary rivals, all within their division: (Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Ravens, and Cincinnati Bengals). They also have rivalries with other teams that arose from post-season battles in the past, most notably the New England Patriots, Oakland Raiders, and Dallas Cowboys.
They also have an intrastate rivalry with the Philadelphia Eagles, but the number of interconference games is limited so the teams do not encounter each other with any regularity. The two teams do, however, meet every year in preseason games, and are usually nationally televised on ESPN.

**WWW.WIKIPEDIA.ORG