ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 28, 1996 TAG: 9601290036
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
WHEN PITTSBURGHERS migrate to Virginia, they bring their football loyalties with them. Just check out the back room at Chi-Chi's.
Why does somebody living in Roanoke root for a football team in Pittsburgh?
``I think it's because we were brought up with the Steelers,'' said Paul Miller, who still works in Pennsylvania. ``And being brought up with the Steelers, it's hard to lose the enthusiasm.''
Miller, 49, spends weekdays at his job as chief information officer at a hospital in Somerset, Pa., and commutes home to Roanoke on the weekends.
He used to live in Pittsburgh. He and his wife spent the first day of their honeymoon at a Steelers game, in fact. His daughter, Amy, 20, who goes to Penn State, and his son, Bradley, 13, have been raised Steelers fans. Last summer, the family went to the Steelers training camp to get photos and autographs.
This evening, when the Pittsburgh Steelers face the Dallas Cowboys, the Millers and a lot of other Steelers fans will be at Chi-Chi's Mexican Restaurante at Valley View Mall.
That's because they belong to the Star City Steelers, about 150 Steelers fans in the Roanoke Valley - mostly people relocated from the Pittsburgh area - who get together to watch every game.
Club President Chip Klink is from Franklin, Pa., about 70 miles north of Pittsburgh. He moved to Roanoke 11 years ago, and, gradually, he said, ``I got sick of watching the Redskins on TV all the time.''
Klink, a sales representative for a chemical company, had a friend who moved to Richmond and started a Steelers fan club there. So, in 1993, Klink tried it in Roanoke.
The club started off with about 10 members who met on Sundays during football season and watched all the Steelers games by satellite. As word of mouth spread, the club grew, and now more than 100 people show up for each game.
``It seems like everybody kind of likes Pittsburgh, whether they're a die-hard fan or not,'' Klink said. ``They're just a blue-collar team. They're not the type to spend lots of money on famous players. They just work their guys hard and make good ballplayers out of them.''
The Star City Steelers have officers and a newsletter, ``The Terrible Gazette,'' published once a month during football season.
The club gives members a chance to talk Steelers lore, make business contacts or meet a new golfing partner. And, for the Northerners, it provides some reminders of home - such as the ``Terrible Towel,'' from which the club newsletter takes its name.
During the 1970s, the ``Steeler Dynasty'' years when the team won four Super Bowls, Pittsburgh sportscaster Myron Cope came up with the towel - a gold, dishcloth-sized rag that fans carry to games like a security blanket.
When Pittsburgh scores tonight, look for all the gold waving around in the crowd. It's the Terrible Towel. Then there's Iron City Beer, a Pittsburgh brew that the club occasionally gives away as prizes. ``If you're from Pittsburgh,'' said club Vice President Jim Greer of Rocky Mount, ``it's probably bigger than the Terrible Towel.''
In tonight's game, the Steelers are 12- to 13-point underdogs. But that's OK, said Jim Greer, club vice president. Pittsburgh fans are used to being underdogs, here in Redskins country, anyway.
``I don't feel too bad about that,'' said Greer, a state tax agent who was raised in Pennsylvania and went to St. Vincent College, where the Steelers train. ``These people grew up rooting for the Redskins and, had I grown up here, I probably would have rooted for the Redskins, too.''
Besides, he said, ``All the Redskins fans are rooting for us. Their rivalry with Dallas is an old one. It's kind of like ours with the Cleveland Browns. We play each other twice a year and it's for bragging rights as much as it's for our division."
Husband-and-wife Steelers fans Brian and Kelly Akers are originally from Wheeling, W. Va., about 60 miles south of Pittsburgh.
The club gives them a chance to ``hoot and holler'' a little, said Brian, who works as a lumber buyer. ``There's all kinds of fans,'' he said. ``The calm, passive types and the wild, crazy types who like to wave the towel and dress in black and gold. I'm more the wild, crazy type.''
Kelly Akers, a business school teacher, said she's a Star City Steeler because ``I watched the games when I was growing up, because my parents watched them and that was the team.''
The Akerses now take their 2-year-old son, Cody, to the games. ``He has the Steelers coat, jogging suit, hat and football,'' his mother said proudly.
Though the club's membership is mostly male, Trenna Bloom, a computer-science instructor at Virginia Western Community College, said it gives her a chance to dispel the notion that women can't enjoy football.
``Being a woman, people say, `You just like watching their rear ends,' but really, I don't think I ever noticed the pants are snug. I really just love the game and the rules.''
Bloom also dispels another myth about Steelers fans - that they're all from Pittsburgh. She's a native of Charlottesville who moved to Roanoke four years ago. ``I'm a tremendous fan,'' she said. ``But I've only been to Pittsburgh once, and that was last year on a business trip.''
She became interested in football because of her older brother, who played in school. ``If I wanted to hang around with him, I really needed to learn football, so I learned the fundamentals when I was 3.''
Bloom, now 28, remembers the Dream Team - Franco Harris, Terry Bradshaw and Lynn Swann.
``When I was learning the sport, it was a natural for me to get interested in them, and as I grew up, they were the powerhouse,'' she said. ``Later, even when they lost, I stayed with them.
``Now they're back. History has a way of repeating itself. That's what I've been telling people for the last 10 years.''
LENGTH: Long : 107 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DON PETERSEN/Staff. Star City Steelers, from left toby CNBright, Kelly and Brian Akers, their 2-year-old son, Brian, Chip
Klink, John Worley and Jim Greer are geared up for today's game.
color.