Family and Football

How the Steelers helped me stay close to my parents

by Barb Glozik
Like most kids, I couldn’t wait to grow up and move away from home, New Kensington, PA. I did just that when I went away to college in Chicago. After a rocky few years, I quit school, moved back to New Ken, and eventually got my degree at the University of Pittsburgh. By the way, I was there at the same time as Tony Dorsett and we were both on scholarship. I got $50/semester. I’m thinking he got a bit more.

During my senior year, I tried to figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up. After all, a degree in psychology with a minor in Russian didn’t prepare me for much except grad school, which I did not want to do. I don’t like being a student even though I like to learn. I didn’t want to work for Alcoa or US Steel or PPG or any of the other local industries, so I looked to a career in government. I took all the civil service and government agency tests I could and ended up getting hired by the Defense Department.

Since most jobs with Defense are either at military posts or in the Washington Metro area, I had to move away from home again. This time, it was to Maryland. It was 1974. I never much cared for football in high school or my first two years of college. I was more into basketball. But, that all changed with Franco and Mean Joe and Bradshaw and Lambert. I had just started to get into the Steelers and football in general when it was time for me to start my new life in MD.

It wasn’t too hard to catch a Steelers game on TV back then. After all, they were the dominant team and were frequently featured on Sunday afternoons. And, it was especially easy during the playoffs because they were always there. I managed to collect a couple of black and gold t-shirts and, of course, a Terrible Towel, but not much else. I was a fan, not a fanatic.

But a funny thing happened after the Colts moved to Indianapolis and the ‘Skins got better. The Steelers were on TV a lot less, and I started to miss seeing them. That’s about the time my mother and I began discussing the games during our weekly Sunday afternoon phone calls. She’d call me at half time, and, if the game was on in the DC Metro area, we’d do our own analysis of the first half. If it wasn’t, she’d give me a run down on what happened. Yes, my mother, not my father. Of course, part of that was because he’s not much of a talker when it comes to phone calls. I grew to look forward to those calls and missed them if the Steelers played a 4 o’clock game or were on Monday Night Football.

When I heard about the Steelers Fan Club of Baltimore, I joined. I’m member number 13 and have a card to prove it! That first year, I drove to Westminster, MD, about an hour from where I lived, to watch the games in the company of like-minded people. It was great not to have to listen to “Hail to the Redskins” or see the rude fans of a team named for birds that eat road kill, a team that used to be the Cleveland Browns. Plus, I knew that I could get a cold IC Light and not be bothered by non-fans. That changed as the club got bigger, so I stopped going and returned to my weekly calls home and our football analysis sessions.

I moved back to the Pittsburgh area 4 years ago to be closer to my folks and, frankly, to be able to watch the Steelers week in and week out. Those phone calls have been replaced by having lunch with mom and dad at their favorite restaurant followed by watching the game at their house. That was difficult to do last year. Mom was sick and in and out of hospitals and skilled nursing facilities. But, if she felt well enough, she, dad, and I would turn on the TV in her room and root for the Steelers. We’d cheer and do our own instant replay commentary, doing, at least in our opinion, a better job than Madden or any of those other talking heads that never seem to shut up. Mom’s doing much better now and is at home. I’m looking forward to watching and analyzing the 2008 season with her.