Category Archives: Guest Writer

The Archetypes of the Gridiron, and The Real Men on the Other Side

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USA Today Sports photo

This article is by guest writer Andrew Swensen, a man I have gotten to know through the Pittsburgh Music Alliance, a cohort of five organizations, including mine, which he put together. The more I get to know him the more I find out about the vast range of his interests and knowledge. We happened to be talking before a meeting earlier this year and discovered we were thinking along similar lines in regards to sports figures. Here are his thoughts:

We love to tell stories. It is in our nature, and we do it all the time – even when we are not aware of it. Our lives become stories as we look for cause and effect, a beginning, middle, and end. On a smaller scale, particular days become a story for us, and a day becomes “good” or “bad” because of the story that we have made from events. This quality has been rooted in our play and our work since the time when we gathered around campfires to pass on our tribal history, and we continue it to this day.

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Looking Deeper into The Heart of Steeler Nation: A Guest Article

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via Post-Gazette

Note from Rebecca—what follows showed up on Thursday as a comment to Ivan’s article, “The Heart of Hypocrisy? The Can of Worms Opened by the Michael Vick Signing,” which you can read by clicking here, if you haven’t already. I thought the author of the comment made some points which are very much worth making, and wanted to make sure more people saw it. 

I’ve always wondered why we not only have to hate other teams but their players, and have noted that the players themselves don’t hate each other, except for the sorts of normal dislikes one might take to another person in any walk of life. After all, many of them work out together in the off-season, work together as player union reps, and so on. Furthermore, they know they could end up as teammates. And the picture? William Gay, a man many in Steeler Nation derided because he refused to hate Ray Rice, a man accused of same crime which had killed Gay’s own mother. 

But my purpose here is not to write another article. Please read on:

[Ivan’s article is a] wonderful rant and while I agree with you on many levels, here’s my problem with forgiveness as it’s being shoved down my throat by Steeler Nation. (Wow, that sounds nothing like me.)

I really have no problem with [Michael] Vick. For reasons I might describe in a much longer comment, I was over that years ago. But here’s my problem with Steeler Nation. Or at least the visible parts of it on social media. Suddenly we’re all supposed to be about forgiveness, second chances, and redemption. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

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