Steelers Now
The post Steelers vs. Giants a Family Affair in More Ways Than One appeared first on Steelers Now.
When the New York Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers get together, it always seems like a family reunion.
In many respects, it is a family reunion. The Rooneys and the Maras, the owners of the Giants, are stalwarts of the National Football League going back nearly 100 years. Both families were founding members of their respective teams, and both families still control those operations today. These two families, brought together by football, are now blood relatives through marriage. In fact, actress Patricia Rooney Mara, whose great-grandfathers were team founders Tim Mara and Art Rooney Sr., eschewed her first name in favor of her screen name, Rooney Mara.
Although they don’t play in the same conference, as they once did and play now just once every four years in the regular season, the two franchises have such an indelible place in the lore and history of the National Football League and also for many in their respective fan bases — there are plenty of families and friend groups that have passionate fans on both sides, that it is indeed a special occasion when the two teams meet.
It will be a special occasion again when the two teams meet this Monday night in Pittsburgh for the 79th time.
With this relatively rare — once every four years encounter happening this week — I thought it would be fun to share some perspective on what the Steelers-Giants rivalry means to another family: mine.
In the morning hours of Oct. 14, 1991, Edward Theodore Borzon, an avid New York Giants fan and longtime season ticket holder, along with two fellow Giants fans, walked down the street from his Cherry Lane home in Carle Place, Long Island, heading on a Long Island Railroad train that would take him to New York’s Penn Station, where he would get on an Amtrak to travel to Pittsburgh for the Monday Night Football contest that night between his beloved Giants and the Steelers at Three Rivers Stadium. To that point, Borzon had witnessed many of the games played between the two teams and could share many stories about those games in a series that went all the way back to 1933, when the Steelers franchise came into existence. The Giants and Steelers met 70 times to that point, with Big Blue holding the series edge.
This game between the Giants and Steelers took on special meaning because when the Pennsylvanian’ express pulled up in Pittsburgh, Borzon would step foot on to the platform and be greeted by his grandson, who was in his senior year as a student at Point Park College, majoring in Journalism and Mass Communications.
I was his grandson.
It was my Grandfather’s first and only visit he ever made to the Steel City.
Along with a couple fellow Giants season ticket holders , including a Catholic priest whom he worked closely with and started to attend Giants...
