Why this gay Steelers fan is thrilled the 2026 NFL Draft is in Pittsburgh

The NFL Draft is in Pittsburgh starting Thursday. And for a gay boy who grew up in Pittsburgh in the 1970s, that hits home — literally — on so many levels. I grew right along with the Steelers, with one of my earliest memories being Franco Harris and the Immaculate Reception in 1972.

I was obsessed with the Steelers and still am, even though I haven’t lived in the city in 40 years, which seems incomprehensible, because the memories of growing up with the Steelers still feel fresh.

I was a kid who could rattle off Harris’s rushing yards, Terry Bradshaw’s passing yards and touchdowns, and Joe Greene’s sacks. Knowing the Steelers wasn’t just a hobby for me. It was a passion. It was the thing that made me acceptable to the world around me at a time when everything else about me felt dangerously unacceptable.

I didn’t have the language then for what I was, but what I did have was a reference of coach Chuck Noll and his belief that you built winners through the draft.

When Noll took over the Steelers in 1969, he inherited a mess. His first year the team went 1-13, continuing a history of losing seasons. But Noll had a philosophy that was almost radical in its simplicity: Find the right players, teach them the right way to play, and trust the process. 

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He believed in the draft the way the Pope believes in the Bible. In fact, Noll was often referred to as “The Pope,” particularly by legendary Steelers broadcaster Myron Cope. 

And build he did. And if you were a fervent Steelers fan, you followed forthcoming drafts like you were one of the team’s scouts.

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The 1974 draft alone was a line-up of future Hall of Famers and it validated beyond a shadow of a doubt Noll’s draft as a builder winning philosophy. Lynn Swann. Jack Lambert. John Stallworth. Mike Webster. Four players from a single draft class who would anchor four Super Bowl championships. 

It is, by most accounts — well definitely mine — the greatest draft class in NFL history. And I followed every pick with the obsessive devotion of a kid who needed something to be certain about.

An uncertain time for a gay kid

I was uncertain about so much.

Growing up gay in Pittsburgh in the 1970s wasn’t something you talked about, thought about too long, or let yourself feel too clearly. You found ways to put the confusion somewhere else. For me, it went into statistics. Into depth charts. Into the holy ritual of knowing, and I mean really knowing, your team. 

When the other boys talked about the Steelers, I didn’t just hold my own. I swamped them in my recall of stats, colleges, and in some cases their birthdays. And in that holding, I felt, briefly, like I belonged to something unambiguous.

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The losses in my life during that era made the Steelers feel even more essential. I lost my father toward the end of the decade, at an age when a boy needs his father most. He loved the Steelers too. My father had a very difficult life, and I relished watching him watch the Steelers win. I cherish those moments watching Steelers games with him.

The Steelers didn’t replace him, of course, but they gave me something to root for and to believe in. And I know for a fact I dove in even more with trying to know everything about them.

Memories

One of my earliest recollections, with my dad watching too, was Franco Harris’s Immaculate Reception in 1972. We also saw Franco’s record-setting 158 rushing yards in Super Bowl IX. We also saw Lynn Swann’s acrobatic heroics in Super Bowl X. 

He wasn’t around to see Terry Bradshaw’s back-to-back MVP performances in Super Bowls XIII and XIV. But I lived those heroic moments for him.

They really were an important part of my adolescence. And all of it came through the draft.

That’s what’s easy to forget now, when the NFL Draft has become a television and NFL marketing spectacle — players in custom suits, stylists engaged, a stage and venue built for a giant celebration. 

Back then, a draft pick found out he was a Pittsburgh Steeler the same way Terry Bradshaw did: the phone rang, and the voice on the other end was Chuck Noll, saying congratulations, you’re our first pick, or second or third and on and on. Same for Joe Greene. Same for Jack Lambert, Lynn Swann, Mike Webster. A rotary phone call.

There was something almost sacred in that simplicity.

This week, thousands of young football players will find out whether their dreams are about to come true, and they’ll find out in Pittsburgh, my Pittsburgh, the city of rivers and bridges, Point Park, and a city that loves its sports. 

For them, it’s the beginning. For me, watching from a distance, it’s almost like a return.

I will be thinking about that gay kid a lot this week. The one who memorized rosters to feel normal. Who wept privately when the Steelers won because joy from them was at times all I could realize. 

Who didn’t know yet that his life would be full of love and success, but who was being held together in the meantime by Chuck Noll’s faith in the draft, and four Lombardi Trophies,

I guess you could say that if not for Noll’s draft credo, my childhood would have been markedly different, and perhaps my adulthood too.

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