[PRCo] Re: THEIR 6TH SUPERBOWL WIN!

[Dennis Fred Cramer]

The city and county are not the same and the economic variances across both 
the county and region are staggering.  It is one thing to found memories of 
what once was and another to live in the reality and see it day to day. 
Realize that the Steeler Nation exists because so many people had to leave 
this area to find meaningful employment and people feel a need to belong to 
a social group that has little rules.  Religion does not work as well today 
because there are expectations.  Belonging to a group in Facebook, MySpace, 
this group, or something as vague as Steeler Nation is comforting to many. 
We can do it from the comfort of our homes without necessarily having to 
make any commitments.

The Steelers won, not me or any of the other patrons.  We are the ones who 
had new sports stadiums shoved down our throats when we voted them down. 
The politicians like to talk about the incredible revenue teams bring to an 
area.  There were 10 regular season football games in Heinz Field played by 
the Steelers, one day of WPIAL high school playoffs and about 6 PITT games. 
Far too little usage for my tax money.  They should have let the Pirates go. 
They thought if they built a new park that everything would be 
wonderful--build it and they will come.  They never considered traffic to or 
from the games.  Watch other cities and see how there stadiums have parking, 
road, and many times rail access.  Pittsburgh is a nightmare when there is a 
sporting event and the Rooney's want public money to build an entertainment 
complex.

I do not spend money on sports and think there is far to much emphasis on it 
in the media.  Too many people want to live their lives through someone else 
than themselves.  We stopped at the Grove City outlets on the way home from 
Niagara last weekend and in this struggling economy, the Steeler store was 
jammed with people spending incredible amounts of money thinking they own 
the team.  It is a business and all professional sports owners & players 
realize that.  They have to meet a budget and try to get what they can. They 
sit on the couch and call themselves sports enthusiasts.

We have seen rude behavior by all sorts of people in all sorts of settings. 
Many times alcohol has a lot to do with it.  I remember playing at Three 
Rivers in the early '70's and seeing people being carried out because they 
were so drunk.  Many stadiums have built family zones and a few even have a 
district magistrate office in the stadium.  It is just as bad in high school 
sports.  I spent 40 years as a student and teacher in music programs 
directly involved in sports programs and many times the parents bring the 
wrong attitudes. Many fine coaches leave the profession, because of "expert 
parents" who gained their expertise by watching sports on TV, want to run 
the show instead of letting the professional teach.  Don't even ask about 
performance enhancing drugs given by parents to their kids to help them 
improve.

If their was as much time effort and concern actually spent on learning our 
educational system might not be the basket case that it is today.  Parents 
cannot afford to provide them with the basics needed to succeed, but they 
all have $80.00 team jerseys on their backs and a cell phone in their 
pocket.

Enough of the tirade, I am going to spend the day celebrating on of my 
favorite persons 200th birthday.




Dennis F. Cramer
      Trombone