On Friday, I made the trek over to St. Vincent's college in Latrobe, home of the Fred Rogers Center, where his show archives are kept. But I didn't come to reminisce about Mister Rogers.  I came to watch the Steelers practice at their training camp.

Like several other events I attended, I watched as the hordes of Steelers fans got out of the cars and made their way up the hill to the football field.

When I arrived, people were crowded around the autograph signing area shouting, "Ryan! Ryan! Over here!"   I assumed someone important named Ryan was around.  It was Ryan Clark, and he was signing autographs as he made his way down to the field.

Interns Jemel and Denny arrived shortly afterwards, and we got plenty of good pictures of fans watching the scrimmage.  I think the three of us, with the exception of the random nun we saw walking around campus, were the only ones not decked out in full sports attire, which may had been a good thing since Jerome is a Washington Redskins fan and probably would have been thrown out of the field had he shown up wearing a Redskins jersey. 

I'm not a football fanatic, but I am mesmerized by all of the fandom.  It's wonderful to see everyone come and support their local football team, just for the chance to get autographs and see their favorite player on the practice field.  Where I'm from, you either root for the Patriots, the Giants or the Jets.  There's no collective fandom, just heated rivalries.  Here, everyone agrees that the Steelers are number one, and no one likes the Cleveland Browns.  End of discussion.

As practice was coming to a close, the three of us found a good vantage point to get shots of the players walking up the steps.  We saw a lot of players, many of which I didn't recognize. However, I did see Charlie batch.  The last time I saw Charlie batch was at Ben Roethlisberger's summer camp, where he handed intern Alyssa his phone and asked her to get a photo of him and Ben.  Charlie didn't hand anyone his phone this time; he quietly made his way up the steps, much to the dismay of fans hoping for a signature.

Also missing was a kid offering Mean Joe Greene a Coke, but I think I'm 30 years late on that one.

We were standing next to fans that brought friends from Greece, and boy did they use that to get the players attention.  "WE'RE FROM GREECE!" they shouted at the top of their lungs, as they passed a number of terrible towels, hats, and pennants for the players to sign.

Oh, the number of terrible towels fans brought with them!  I think there were enough towels present to make Myron Cope cry tears of happiness. 

God bless Myron.  God bless America.  And God bless the Steelers for another Super Bowl victory.