Football season doesn’t mean the same thing in the Latrobe area that it does in Pittsburgh.
In Pittsburgh, football season is a fall phenomenon. It is tailgating and Sunday afternoons, Monday nights and powering through games sometimes cold enough to freeze a Terrible Towel. It is months of fans living and dying with the game clock and the scoreboard.
In Westmoreland County, football season comes early. It arrived Wednesday.
In Westmoreland County, the Pittsburgh Steelers become the de facto Latrobe Steelers for three weeks during training camp at Saint Vincent College in Unity.
At camp, football is about the team working on its skills for the upcoming season, jelling the new players with the old ones as the coaches figure out how to balance strengths with strategy. The goal is not touchdowns. It’s learning, working and growing.
For fans, the focus is just as different.
They show up to see the team arrive for the joy of seeing the players. They come to the Friday night scrimmages not to see who wins because it’s the Steelers playing the Steelers. They know the Steelers will win. It’s a thrill just to see them take the field.
What is the same is the way the excitement that surrounds one of the most iconic teams in the National Football League translates into money.
The Steelers are a battery that powers the local economy. It is true in Pittsburgh. It is just as true in the Latrobe area.
For half a year, the fans pour their money into tickets, T-shirts, hotel rooms, food and drink on game days in Pittsburgh. For three weeks, the same thing happens in Latrobe and Unity. Restaurants and retailers see a substantial increase in business. The hotels fill up. So do houses through sites such as Airbnb.
“They kind of bank on when the Steelers come to town,” Greater Latrobe Athletic Director Zac Heide said.
Thousands of people will show up at Saint Vincent in the next weeks. They will support the team with their presence. They will overflow into the surrounding community and support the area with their money in a symbiotic relationship.
Are you ready for some football? Latrobe is.
