How Sports Can Bring Us Together | Steelers Morning Rush

0:00Hey, folks. Good morning and welcome to something completely new. I am very, very proud to present the first episode of the Pittsburgh football show. You know, we're going to go with the because we can't just give things like that to Ohio. We can be pretentious about our articles as well. And I am so excited to bring you guys this show. I have been thinking about this and working about on this for so long. And last week we were all set to debut this show. And then well, Mother Nature had some other plans as I did not have any electricity last Friday. And well, you do sort of need that to do this. But we are going to talk on this show about the Pittsburgh Steelers. Of course, you spend most of your time interacting with me on this platform or another platform talking about the Pittsburgh Steelers. But we're going to go way beyond that as well. We're going to talk college football. We're a tight little pit, a little Penn State, a little West Virginia. Maybe we'll talk about Ohio State. I don't know. We'll see how they do this Saturday.

1:03We are going to talk about some high school football. We're going to bring in some guests, some players involved in some of my pals from the media. Look at this run down over here on the right hand side. We've got Donnie Chedrick from 937, the fan and KDK radio. We've got central Catholic cornerback in West Virginia, commit Zachary Gleason. We've got Nick Fairboff and Penn Live. We've got Peter cornerback, Rashon Murray is an Obamac grad. We've got Brennan How from Pittsburgh sports now and Steelers now. We're going to talk about the pit Panther some more. We got Zachary Smith in his six pack of standalone topics. We got Chris Carter, the man in the middle legend Carter critiques from the post Gazette and from locked on stairs. He's going to talk with me about our college football polls, which both he and I are doing for the first time this year. We've got Bob Karnarski, Bart Betts talking some gambling. We've got Jordan Hill from a rotoball are talking about fantasy football. We got Joe Smeltzer from Nittany sports now, talking about Penn State, Mike Astie from West Virginia sports now and the grand finale.

2:06It's going to be me and Joe, I'm sorry, Jack Hill Grove at the end of the show three hours of football talk right here from Pittsburgh as we get you through your Friday morning through what is going to be a glorious weekend of football. We've got week two of college football, a full slate of games and it looks like some fantastic ones. And then we've got week one of the NFL season, which I mean for me is one of the best weekends of the year in sports. It's right up there with, you know, the first weekend of March madness in terms of the level of excitement of the sporting community for this week is off the charts. And I really, really am excited to take in some of those scenes. Of course, I will be not like you guys flipping through red zone. I'll be in the press box at Acrester Stadium 1 p.m. kickoff for Steelers Falcons. And so we are going to talk about that, especially when we get Nicky and here later in the nine o'clock hour. But, you know, I've been so excited about the show and I've been working so hard on the show for a very long time.

3:09And the first segment of this show every week is going to be a monologue that is going to sort of replace what I normally do on Steelers morning rush on Monday through Friday. If you aren't familiar with that show, somehow you found this one without finding that one here on the YouTube platform. You can find and on audio platforms, you can find it every weekday. And I think, you know, I've been so excited, so working, working so long, and I did not have a monologue written. I don't normally write my monologues, but I didn't have a monologue written. And then I started to get into it last week. And I sort of outlined some things about what I want to talk about. And then I moved things forward to this week. And I realized that that last week's cancellation meant that this show is debuting on the 25th anniversary. Of the September 11 terrorist attacks. And I thought, man, you can't just, you can't just let that pass. You have to talk about that one of the defining moments of my lifetime, certainly.

4:13And probably in our entire countries. And I wanted to tie in the things I had written for last week with today's moment. Because for me, I think one of the things that I think about on September 11th is not just the horrifying scenes that we watched unfold in New York and Washington DC and in Somerset County. But also the way that we as Americans responded to those acts. And I do think there was a togetherness, a sense of community in some of those moments. I think about things like, you know, the New York City fireman, getting a standing ovation at PNC Park in the first baseball game back there after the attacks. I think about things like President Bush throwing out that first pitch in New York.

5:13For me, one of the greatest sporting moments of my lifetime is the 60 mile an hour pitch thrown by an aging man wearing a bullet, provest. And I think the reaction that we had as a country, the togetherness that we felt in those moments is something that we can look at as this is what sports does for us as a community and a society is provide us this platform. That is greater than the individual sports. And I think that's what's so special about sports. It is a way that brings us together, even though we might want to fight one another sometimes over those sports and we're going to argue about sports all the time. And here on this show too, but it is, I think, at its core community building. And I think that's what we love about it. And that's why I think it's so special. And I think for me, when I think back, those are the moments that really stand out to me in my memory. And so I know that Spinney and I on afternoon drive, we talk, we have a story time segment where I talk about things that happened a long time ago, because Spinney's a lot younger than me.

6:28And some of our audiences more his age and they're probably not aware of things that happened back in my day, which I'm not that old. I shouldn't have a back in my day, but it seems that I do. And for a lot of people, September 11th is back in my day. And I hope that young people who aren't familiar with the events of the day, who are going to spend the day learning about or being reminded of things that happened. I hope you get some of this stuff that I'm talking about too, because there were some of those moments that to me, I'm really most proud of as Americans the way we responded to some of those things. Certainly, we haven't gotten everything right. But when I think about what's happened more recently, you know, I think people that try to attack our country now, they do it in insidious ways to divide us. That was a horrific attack, but it also united us. And I think sports can can be a vehicle for that. The other thing that most of this monologue was written about is the football town documentary that was produced by NFL films ahead of the draft.

7:35It was playing at the Carnegie Science Center. It's now over on the Steelers YouTube channel. And at 1205, if you still haven't gotten your football fix, go over there and watch it because it's fantastic. It's narrated by Pat McAfee, and he does a phenomenal job. And it also just does a phenomenal job of capturing what football means in Pittsburgh. I think that football and Pittsburgh are so intrinsically linked. I fight with fans who maybe care a little bit more about the other two pro sports teams in Pittsburgh than the Steelers all the time. And I'm sorry, but this is a football town. It is deep in our roots and our culture down to the very first professional football player ever from the north side of Pittsburgh. This is a city that is about football and football is a sport that's about Pittsburgh in a way that I'm not sure will ever change. Certainly, I'm not expecting you to in our lifetimes.

8:41And I think we spend a lot of time and a lot of energy talking about the Pittsburgh Steelers and they deserve it. They are the best franchise in the Super Bowl. There's a lot of Super Bowl era, no one's one more in the regular season, no one's one more Super bowls. I think that says most of it. They also generally are franchise that has done things the right way and that you all as fans and as members of this community should be proud of. They are an organization that you should be proud of the way they run things the way they do things the respect they have around the league and the in the sporting community at large is significant. And I think that does build that community. If you are from Pittsburgh, you're going to wear your black and gold on your sleeve. You know, I think that's probably going to be pretty hard for the Cleveland Browns fans right now. And it's not just about the success of the teams. It's about that feeling that you are a part of this. They are a part of you.

9:42And that is I think what we have in Pittsburgh, but it goes way beyond the Steelers. And when people tell me, oh man, if the Pirates could just win a couple more games, this would be a baseball time. I'm like, nope. And I love the Pirates and I love baseball. I played baseball as a kid. I think everybody did. But look at the participation and the in the attention that football at this, that all levels in this town gets. There are going to be more people at some high school games tonight than there were at some pirate games over the course of the season. What other town in America, can you say that about high school football is big in other places, certainly, but we are not a big place. This is a ton of 2 million people and we care a lot about football all the way. The pit panthers who have had one really, really good season, basically in my lifetime are going to put 50,000 people in the stands tomorrow afternoon and access or stadium.

10:43And they're going to do that while a third of the area roots for Penn State and is going to help fill happy valley next week with 108. Actually, I'm not sure what the new capacity is. Somebody update me on that. We'll talk to Smeltz about it a little bit later. But you know, the idea that this little town, the 28th largest city in America, punches so far above its weight. As we watch Larry Fitzgerald going into the Hall of Fame this year, Aaron Donald making an incredible comeback, the number of Hall of Famers, the number of players at all levels, the number of coaches that come from this area, football in Pittsburgh goes down to the roots. And I want to celebrate all of it. And so we're going to talk high school football in the show with Donnie coming up next and was Zachary Gleason. We're going to talk college football. We're going to talk about pit Penn State West Virginia every week. We'll talk about the national scene in college football.

11:43We'll talk about the Steelers. We'll talk about the national scene around the NFL as well. I'm super excited to bring you guys this show each and every week. I worked really hard about it. And there is going to be an opportunity for you all because the show is live. There's going to be an opportunity for you. Now you look, there's a lot of guests here. This is packed full. You can't get more than that in the three hours that we have. I know I tried. And honestly, I want to get some more in. But there is going to be time for some audience participation here very specifically the end of the show with Jack Hill Grove. There's going to be time for some questions. And they're going to be pretty rapid fire since we're going to have three hours with a comments build up. And what is going to be about a 15 minute segment with Jack who will be on the south side for this. So I'm excited about that should be pretty fun. So you know, you guys can get in here to leave your questions, leave your comments. Let me know also just in general what you want to see what I might not have thought of what I might not have for you that you want because this is going to be your show as much as mine. The only reason I feel like still is afternoon drive with me and smitty has been such a success is that we have the participation, the inclusion and and the love of the audience.

13:01And it doesn't go anywhere without that. So I hope you guys can be a big part of this show as well. I'm really looking forward to it. We are right now streaming live on YouTube, Facebook and on X that'll probably be the game plan every week. And then after the show is complete, I will upload some of the individual segments talking about the Steelers talking about pit, talking about Penn State time about West Virginia to the individual YouTube channels that we have for those shows. Of course, I can't not talk about our companies Steelers now.com Pittsburgh sports now, Nettany sports now, West Virginia sports now. We are doing it like nobody else is in terms of covering football in this area. We devote more resources to the sport from the bottom up than anybody else does. We are the only Pittsburgh outlet that has a full time West Virginia writer, a full time Penn State writer, a full time pit writer, full time Steelers writer, not to mention a staff of about 20. That is mostly just covering football. Obviously, we do cover the other college sports. But we are all about football. We're doing it at all levels. And like nobody else is. And I really hope that we can use this show to combine those efforts and make it sort of like an Avengers situation where we get the whole gang in here talking football every week.

14:24Again, really excited to keep doing this with you. Let me know football is back and so are the predictions who makes the playoffs, who wins their division, who takes home the title on call sheet. America's number one prediction market platform. It lets you trade those predictions in a live market. Maybe you like the Steelers in week two going to England. A hundred dollar trade pays out over three hundred dollars. If they pull out the upset win on the road against last year's AFC championship Patriots on call sheet. You're trading against peers in a live market, meaning there's no house. And as the probability changes, you can buy in and out of your position. Trade the traffic, the game and more on call sheet. Download the call sheet app and use code FFSN to get 20 dollars when you trade 20 dollars KALSHI call sheet trade on anything 18 and older only restrictions and eligibility required. The government's apply event contract trading involves risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Call sheet products are not available in all jurisdictions, prices, values and available markets may differ from those mentioned for more information. See call sheet.com backs last regulatory.