It’s All Maya!

Okay this will be my last post about the Pittsburgh Steelers until next season maybe, but like most Steelers fans, after winning the Super Bowl, I just loved reliving the entire game the day after! I was looking on the internet and watching ESPN (Yeah, like how often do I watch ESPN?!) and I happened to catch an interesting documentary about Myron Cope and the creation of the Terrible Towels! It’s a great story! Afterall, every nation has a flag, and the Terrible Towel is the flag of Steeler Nation!

For anyone outside of Pittsburgh, Myron Cope was a Pittsburgh sports journalist, radio announcer and sportscaster for the Pittsburgh Steelers. If you’ve ever lived in Pittsburgh during the 35 years that Myron commented on the Steelers games, then I don’t need to tell you who I’m talking about! He didn’t have the kind of smooth talking, velvety, voice that made you want to listen to him,…. but listen to him you did! His colorful, raspy, somewhat nasally voice with a Pittburgh accent, speaking Pittsburghese, gave an exciting play by play action of the game, that anyone listening to him felt as though they were right there at the 50-yard line!

Back in 1975 during the playoff game with the Baltimore Colts, head honchos (Cope’s bosses) wanted Myron to come up with an idea, a gimmick, to get the Steeler fans excited. Cope himself wasn’t too excited about being picked to brainstorm and told them, “I’m not much of a gimmick guy”. His bosses menacingly reminded him that his contract was coming to an end soon and without missing a beat, Cope’s response was, “Hey, I can do gimmicks!”

In Myron Cope’s own words, …..”I said, what we need is something that everybody already has, so it doesn’t cost a dime. So I says, ‘We’ll urge people to bring out to the game gold or black towels,’ then I’ll tell people if you don’t have a yellow, black or gold towel, buy one. And if you don’t want to buy one, dye one. We’ll call this the Terrible Towel.” Cope went on air urging all the fans to bring their towels to the next game! “…… and it will wreak its powers terribly on the opposition.” he said. (That’s how he spoke!)

Game time came and they were worried that no one had brought a towel. Thousands of fans were sitting in the stands and not one towel was waving. Cope and his bosses figured the gimmick didn’t work. They handed out towels to the football team to carry them onto the field, but most of the players said, “I don’t think so!” and refused to carry them! As the players made their way on the field, however, all of a sudden there were thousands of towels waving! Cope himself asked, “Where were they hiding them?!” The Steelers beat the Colts that day and by the following week, Lynn Swann, one of the Steelers’ great players, came onto the field waving his yellow towel. The stadium exploded in a sea of yellow waving towels and it was the birth of the Terrible Towel!!!

Close to 7 million towels have been sold, but in 1996 Myron Cope signed over his copyright on the Terrible Towel to the Allegheny Valley School in Corapolis, Pa. where his autistic son Danny has spent most of his life.

People say there is magic in the towel and legend has it that anyone who disrespects the towel will end up regretting their actions. So far, that seems to be the case! In 2005, one of Cincinnati’s football players wiped his feet with a Terrible Towel after making a touchdown. Pittsburgh beat Cincinnati in the playoffs that year. A Ravens player jumped on the towel before a game and Baltimore ended up losing all three of their games against Pittsburgh! Most recently the mayor of Phoenix, Phil Gordon, pretended to blow his nose into the Terrible Towel and then threw it to the ground. Needless to say, Arizona lost to Pittsburgh in this years Super Bowl!

Maya Muses: Too bad I didn’t think of taking a picture of my towel when I was traveling all over the world! I could have had my Terrible Towel in front of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Leaning Tower in Pisa, on top of the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, at the Rock of Gibraltar, on top of the Eiffel Tower,…. well, you get the picture!

At least a lot of other people thought of bringing their towels with them while globetrotting! Best of all, Astronaut Michael Fincke didn’t forget to bring his Terrible Towel into outer space!!! To see some of the places where the Terrible Towel has been, and watch it floating around in space, click here.

Photo Credits: Google Images, and Personal Photos