First off, can you let me know a bit about how the Steelerettes got started?
Bill Day was the VP of what then was Robert Morris Junior College – and he was also the Entertainment Director for the Steelers. He was good friends with the Rooney family. Back then the Steelers didn’t win a lot of games as you know – those teams from the ’40s through the ’60s we called the SOS – “Same Old Steelers”. Not a lot of people went to those games.
So, Bill Day had this idea to generate excitement for fans. He wanted us to be the first-ever NFL cheerleaders – he thought that would be a great idea to get fans excited at the games. He held tryouts at RMU. Cheerleaders were required to be full-time RMU students and to maintain at least a 2.0 GPA. That’s how we became the Steelerettes – we started in 1961.
What made him decide on who made the cut and who didn’t?
Well, those weren’t the uniforms you see today! We needed to be All-American girls – we couldn’t show any skin. And we had to have some form of athletic ability since we were doing handstands and cartwheels.
The year I tried out 50 girls tried out with me and 10 of us made it on the team. We had a ball – we became a very closeknit group.
Where did you practice?
The Manor House at RMU was where the men’s dorm was. We practiced behind it in the garden a lot of times, or at Schenley Park. One weekend we went to Erie to practice. 10 19-year old girls in two cars! We practiced on the beach and had a lot of fun!
What did they ask you to do as cheerleaders?
We were there to pump up the crowd. We had dance routines – we didn’t do high school cheers. We all split up at games – some of us were at the 50 yard-line, some on the sidelines and some in the endzone. I was the smallest of the group so I had had to stand at the endone, and during Cleveland games that was not fun. They would throw things at us – it was wicked!
Did you have any fun interactions with the team?
We weren’t allowed to interact at all with the players – that was grounds for firing!
But I do remember the weekend John Kennedy was killed. It was a big decision if they were even going to play the game. He died on a Friday and the game was Sunday. We didn’t know if they were going to play or even if they did if we would be there. It was all up in the air.
Saturday night we got the call that we should dress for the game but we would only sit on the bench. We couldn’t jump around. It was the most miserable Sunday – it was freezing cold and raining and snowing and we weren’t allowed to do anything to stay warm.
Mr. Rooney took pity on us and sent someone to the locker room to get us all jackets. We got to keep them – I donated mine to the History Center in Pittsburgh where you can see it today!
I remember walking into the stadium too and someone behind me had a radio. That’s how I heard that Lee Harvey Oswald was shot. Someone yelled “Oh my God they shot Lee Harvey Oswald!”
That was a wild weekend. I’ll never forget it and how Mr. Rooney took care of us.
What happened to cause the team to end the Steelerettes in 1969?
I wasn’t there that year but one of the cheerleaders went into Mr. Rooney’s office and tried to get him to allow them to shorten their skirts. She almost got fired – he was not happy. As I understand it as she walked out he yelled for his assistant to go fire her, but that never happened.
Mr. Rooney didn’t want us there in the first place. He was very conservative and very Christian and felt like women didn’t belong on the field. He tolerated us for nine years, but when the team moved to Three Rivers he just chose not to bring us along. That was an easy way for him to get rid of us, I guess.
How were the fans around the cheerleaders?
The fans were great – except for the Cleveland fans. We had no problems.
We didn’t really understand the significance of what we were doing when we were there, being the first-ever NFL cheerleaders. We now belong to the Professional Cheerleaders Association that exists for all professional sports cheerleaders to get together across the United States. I live in Jacksonville, Florida now and they had their big get-together here a couple of years ago so I got to go – that was fun. It’s in Boston in 2024. When we talk to cheerleaders of today’s teams, they are fascinated that the Steelers had cheerleaders!
All of the Steelerettes are so close now. We had a reunion the weekend of 9-11 – WTAE contacted us and filmed a sequence for us to go in their opening of Heinz Field celebration. They filmed it on Friday and then 9-11 happened. The home opener was a couple of weeks away so they canceled the celebration for then and didn’t show that segment and do the celebratory stuff until later in October.
But we’ve all stayed close. It’s one thing I miss about being in Jacksonville now – being able to see them all – we’ve been so close-knit. It’s been wonderful. Every year now we all go to Deep Creek, Maryland and rent a house. We don’t go anywhere- we stay in our pajamas and stay there. But every year we make sure the house we rent has a hot tub! We sit it in, reminisce and talk about our kids and whatever else we think of!