Pittsburgh and the Steelers and how I’d never even met Bill Cowher because I didn’t want to be in his presence, our conversation got livelier. I remember the discussion began with fans and emotions, which leads to fan behavior, fights in the stands, etc. And I remember telling them that I believed someone would eventually die at an NFL game and then all hell would break loose. (By the way, I’m kind of shocked that hasn’t happened yet given all that I’ve seen. And doesn’t the NFL have enough problems right now?)
We were discussing FIFA and World Cup and gentleman’s handshakes and players taking a knee at the 50-yard line after games in prayer. And then the conversation got to Pittsburgh and Baltimore and the new rivalry that he entered by taking the job to lead the Steelers.
Well, that’s when it became fun…
I think he playfully said, “I’m the coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. You’re a Ravens fan! I don’t want you to like me!”
Trust me, I definitely didn’t want to like him.
Once the trash talking began – and this was truly the genesis of our relationship – it became a competition of insults. But, somehow, we always wind up in these glorious debates about the world and we wind up laughing a lot.
So, over the last decade we’ve met for drinks and conversation with our wives (and sometimes with his kids) at the NFL Owner’s Meetings each spring and wound up embroiled in deep conversations about football, fans, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, officiating, Super Bowls, parades, couture, fashion, coaching and leadership.
And sometimes – well, a lot of the time – our conversations meander into various insults and dark humor that will remain “off the record” for fear of making you laugh too heartily.
Use your imagination. And it’s probably not too far off. Or just imagine what you say to the Steelers fan in your office. That’s pretty much the treatment that’s given – and taken – in our friendship.
Mike Tomlin loves baseball. He played baseball as a kid.
My wife had one Pittsburgh tourist request. She made him take us up the big hill on the other side of the Ohio River from Heinz Field right at the Confluence. We’ve always seen that Bayer sign and the lifts going up and down the hills to the west of downtown.
Turns out that is the Duquesne Incline. And we weren’t the only tourists in this frame.
Mike Tomlin hadn’t done this during his tenure as Pittsburgh Steelers head coach.
Afterward, Jenn had to use the restroom and Tomlin insisted that we could use his Steelers offices because we were in the neighborhood. Clearly, the notion of me using his toilet brought on the usual array of off-color jokes about reliving myself in the center of hell. I told him I’ve been urinating and defecating on the Pittsburgh Steelers for years – it was only appropriate that I do it in the center of the head coach’s office.
In the seven years of our relationship, I’ve had to congratulate him on winning the Super Bowl and deal with the smugness that comes with it. However, as I wrote in the closing chapter of “Purple Reign 2: Faith, Family and Football”, it was Tomlin who insisted that John Harbaugh join us for a celebration toast to the Ravens winning the Super Bowl in 2013.
When Jenn was diagnosed with leukemia on March 20, 2014, we were 48 hours away from going to the NFL Owner’s Meetings in Orlando. Word got around about Jenn’s diagnosis very quickly through league circles and Tomlin called her at the hospital on Monday morning. He continued to text with me over the next few months to see how she was doing. He also inquired during the season in Baltimore and Pittsburgh after the Ravens-Steelers games and wore a #JennStrong wristband.
By the spring of this year, Jenn was feeling great and we reconvened at the meetings in March in Phoenix, and Tomlin insisted that we stay at his house and that he be our celebrity for the game in Pittsburgh.
Since we weren’t really in need to spending a night in Pittsburgh, instead Tomlin picked us up at the airport at 9 a.m. on June 14th and insisted that I wear my Ravens cap. We rolled through the city looking like this.
He’s a better driver than I thought he’d be.
The Duquesne Incline. The giant mural of Pirates greats along a wall downtown. The Immaculate Reception site. The Clemente Museum.
We swabbed Pirates fans in front of the Willie Stargell statue. We ate hot dogs and wings. We had a few beers. We talked about baseball. We talked about football. We talked about cancer. We talked about life. He got swabbed for the bone marrow registry.
We did a TV hit with my pal Robby Incmikowski on Root Sports during the sixth inning of the game.
I can’t get a press pass for a Baltimore Orioles game on a baseball tour two blocks from my condo for a team I’ve loved my whole life and covered as a professional journalist for 21 years but I can get the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers to ask me if I want to drop by Dan Rooney’s house on the way to the airport and say hi.
Clearly, I lead a complicated existence…
* * *
AS MUCH AS THIS WAS A “baseball tour” it’s pretty clear that over the past two decades my best friends in sports have been made around football and the NFL.
I’ve always said that NFL coaches are my favorite people in sports. The other genre of my favorite people are the athletes, especially as we all get older together. People around the NFL and folks I’ve collected were among the most generous in regard to the #GiveASpit tour.
In my 25 years of doing sports radio, I’ve never had more fun than when I did national radio from NFL Films every Monday for two seasons with
