My Team is going to the Super Bowl & Obama Inauguration - What a Week!!!!!

[RamboLiberal]

Pittsburgh's going to the Super Bowl!!!!!!! And there is an Obama connection. I know Obama will remain publicly neutral - but I bet he'll be secretly rooting for the Steelers and I'd love to see Obama welcoming them to the White House. Last time they went I couldn't watch cause it was Bush welcoming them.





On the night of Jan. 3, 2008, little more than two weeks after the Steelers were beaten up at home by Jacksonville and little less than two days before they were to confront the Jaguars again in the first round of the National Football League playoffs, the club's normally unruffled chairman found himself unable to sleep.

Around midnight, Daniel M. Rooney picked up the phone and rang his son Jim.

"This is the greatest speech I've seen since John Kennedy," Dan said into the phone. "This guy connects with people like no one I've seen since John Kennedy. He convinced me that this is more than just a good politician. I want to stand up and say something for this guy. I want to be involved in this."

Mr. Rooney, a lifelong Republican, had just finished watching long-shot Democratic candidate Barack Obama thank voters in Iowa, where the Illinois senator returned the opening kickoff of America's overlong, convoluted presidential campaign for a touchdown against political stalwarts Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards, in a state that's more than 92 percent white.

That his father would be eager to talk politics at odd hours or that he would be moved by the triumph of an African American against systemic or raw political obstacles did not surprise Jim Rooney -- the NFL doesn't call the requirement that NFL teams with head coaching vacancies interview a minority candidate the Rooney Rule for nothing -- but Jim knew almost instantly that what he was hearing on the phone from the family's North Side home that night was more than his father's basic chord structure.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08314/926590-176.stm

Steelers played a Monday night game against the Redskins election eve. I remember a story about Coach Tomlin getting back to town at 3am and staying up to be in line at 6am at his polling place to vote for Obama.

[Sheets of Easter]

1. This is already shaping up to be a great week.

Go Steelers and Gobama!

[redstateblues]

2. Congrats! Lucky they didn't have to play the Titans again

I am glad they beat the odious Ravens. Go Cardinals

[RamboLiberal]

3. Be fun - quite a few good coaches with Steelers lineage on the

Cardinals. Going to be a chess match and a hard-hitting game.

[tech3149]

4. Abso-freakin-lutely

I'm not that much of a feetball geek, but i do have my preference. Whoever wins, I'm sure it will be a great game.

[Cha]

5. Good, dude! Best of

Luck, Steelers!

[RamboLiberal]

6. Coach Tomlin is like Obama in that he remains cool

Great story here of Obama and Biden meeting Tomlin:

As we arrived at a Pittsburgh hotel for a "60 Minutes" interview, Mike Tomlin, coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, was waiting to greet the Democratic ticket.

Biden was first with Jill at his side; "Hey coach, I'm Joe Biden. I'm second string."

Biden grabbed Tomlin's wife by the arms and got real close to make a joke we couldn't hear.

I got TV audio, which revealed some interesting exchanges with the coach.

Tomlin introduced foursome to his three children Michael, Mason and Harlynn. Mason was shy and hanging back, Obama said with hand extended: "You going to leave me hanging like this? Aw, man, that's a shame."

They all posed for a family picture.

"If I didn't live in Chicago I'd be a Steelers fan," Obama said.

"You've brightened what has been a miserable day," Tomlin told Obama. "I had to cut 23 guys this morning. Hardest day of the year."

Obama told Tomlin, "Your owner has supreme confidence in you."

Tomlin told Obama opening day is "Next Sunday here in Pittsburgh."

"Good luck on the season," Obama said. "We're very proud of you."

Tomlin replied, "You have our support, our well wishes, our blessings and prayers."

"I'll be watching the games, I might even try to come to one," Obama said.

Tomlin said, "We're playing in DC the night before the election, but no pressure."

Tomlin signed a football for Sam Myers Sr.

Before Obama came out, Biden told Tomlin that after his wife and daughter were killed in 1972 and his sons were hospitalized, "Old Mister Rooney" had some players from then-world champion Steelers bring an autographed football "to the hospital in Wilmington, Delaware with a signed football for my sons" as a Christmas present, "and I have been a Steelers fan since that day."

"Not much has changed," Tomlin said.

"They are first-class, first rate people," Biden said.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/weblogs/bellantoni/2008/Aug/29/steelers-coach-said-obama-brightened-bad-day/

MIKE TOMLIN never played in the National Football League (NFL) but in the week America will inaugurate its first black president, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ head coach is two games from emulating Tony Dungy, the only black coach to win the Super Bowl. At 36, he would also be the youngest.

Barack Obama will be supporting Tomlin and his team against the Baltimore Ravens tonight. “We didn’t have our own football team when I was growing up in Hawaii so the Steelers were my team,” Obama revealed during his election campaign.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5537067.ece




4 months ago: Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama carries a football before members of the US Secret Service after meeting with the head coach Mike Tomlin of the National Football League's (NFL) Pittsburgh Steelers, Mike Tomlin, during a campaign stop with running mate Joe Biden on August 29, 2008 outside the Hyatt Hotel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

[democracy1st]

7. Here's your official Tomlin family photo with the President and VP

[RamboLiberal]

8. Thank you - I was looking for one n/t

[Cha]

12. Wow, thank you, RL!

I love that backstory..reminds me of when I use to live on Kauai, this Hawaiian woman always bet on the Steelers:)

I didn't know they had a Black coach until now.

[davidpdx]

9. Well RL know I'm rooting for your team

They aren't my team (and I won't say who my two teams are because frankly speaking both of them suck), but Ward is half Korean and I am currently living in Korea so maybe that's why I'm pushing for the Steelers a bit. Ok, well I don't like Arizona either, I admit it. Anyway, I hope to heck Ward gets healthy in time for the SB. If I was a betting man, I'd put money on the Steelers to win. Congrats on the win.

[RamboLiberal]

15. I think its pretty cool too that Ward took his Korean mother

Back for a visit to Korea after Super Bowl XL. And he's been doing a lot culturally to help the children of Korea who are biracial. I don't know how it is know, but I took 20+ years of Korean martial art from a Korean master instructor and I know those who are biracial faced a lot of discrimination. He's brought small numbers of these children to Pittsburgh for visits each year through his Helping Hands Korea Foundation. I heard that Hines is quite popular in Korea.

[JVS]

10. Go Steelers!

[snowbear]

11. Great post!

.
.

And good luck to your Steelers! ~~

[globalvillage]

13. My pics from the Steelers for Obama Rally

last April. Some of them are a little fuzzy, but I did get Bob Casey to sign one of them at a later event.

Go Steelers!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/globalvillage1/sets/72157604615777031/show/

[Bobbie Jo]

14. What? No DisneyWorld?

:-)

[Avalux]

16. Yeah Baby!

I've loved my Steelers since I was a kid in the 70's and I ABSOLUTELY love their support of Obama!

Here we go - Pittsburgh's going to the Superbowl!

:hi: