Marci Cottingham on the Religious Passion of Steeler Nation

Against the Rules with Michael Lewis

Pushkin Industries

Business, Society & Culture, Sports

4.6 • 9.8K Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2024

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Is there a difference between fandom and religion? In Pittsburgh, it can be hard to tell. Fans of the city’s football team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, seem to have a cradle-to-grave devotion, complete with a golden relic, the “terrible towel.” Michael Lewis talks with sociologist Marci Cottingham, a native of Steeler Nation, about her work studying the religious overtones of fandom, and why the positive experiences of sports fans should get more scholarly attention.

For further reading: Marci Cottingham’s Practical Feelings: Emotions as Resources in a Dynamic Social World

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Pushkin.
0:07.0	Why is Miami, what does the heartbreaking fate of the Cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children?
0:16.1	Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports?
0:19.6	I'm Malcolm Gladwell.
0:20.7	In my new audio book, Revenge of the Tipping Point, I'm returning to the subject of
0:25.0	social epidemics and the dark side of contagious phenomena.
0:30.6	Find Revenge of the Tipping Point wherever you find audio books out now I'm Michael Lewis and this is against the rules. This season of the
0:48.4	podcast is all about the rise of sports gambling in the United States, but none of it would be possible if we didn't have
0:54.6	such seriously emotional fans, in particular football fans, which leads us today to the Pittsburgh
1:00.8	Steelers.
1:05.0	Steeler Nation is so deep and so wide that fans can pick from any number of fight songs.
1:12.0	From a polka themed one by Jimmy Pole
1:19.2	to a hometown tribute by Pittsburgh native Wiz Khalifa.
1:24.0	And of course there are countless other songs as well.
1:29.0	The Steelers have been around and owned by the same family since 1933.
1:35.2	Where their fans go, other franchises follow. In the 1970s, Steeler Nation starts to
1:41.1	wave golden rally towels in the air. They call them terrible
1:45.2	towels. Soon every team has its own towel. But those other towels, they're not terrible.
1:51.6	It's just not the same. Pittsburgh is the crucible of modern
1:55.8	fandom. So that's why I had to call up Marcy Cottingham. She's an associate professor of sociology
2:02.4	at Kenyan College in Ohio,
2:04.4	but she comes from Pittsburgh, and from this gravitational center of football,
	...

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