Pittsburgh Steelers fans are recognized all around the world by the waving and twirling of the most iconic such item in all of sports, The Terrible Towel. To honor the history of it, the team has unveiled The Terrible Towel Wall in Heinz Field’s Great Hall.

“The Terrible Towel Wall is a great way to display and preserve the many versions of The Terrible Towel,” said team president Art Rooney II. “It makes a great addition to the Great Hall at Heinz Field, and I’m sure that our fans will enjoy recalling at the history of The Terrible Towel.”

The new addition to the Heinz Field experience chronicles the origin and evolution of The Terrible Towel, as well as all of the different variations since its birth prior to the 1975 AFC Divisional Playoff game against the Baltimore Colts. Additionally, The Terrible Towel Wall has a display of the many unique locations where The Terrible Towel has been photographed with fans.

The Terrible Towel was created by the late Myron Cope, who served as the Steelers’ color analyst for 35 years on the team’s radio broadcasts. Certain proceeds from The Terrible Towel have been able to benefit the children and adults at the Allegheny Valley School, a charity that had special meaning to Cope.

“The Terrible Towel’s long history and the spirit it brings to the Steelers Nation is phenomenal,” said NHS Allegheny Valley School’s Chief Development Officer Dorothy Hunter Gordon. “Since 1996, a portion of the proceeds from the sale of all officially licensed products supports the more than 900 children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities that we serve throughout Pennsylvania. We are so grateful for the legacy that Myron Cope entrusted to us, and we are thrilled that The Terrible Towel is being honored at Heinz Field.”

The Terrible Towel Wall will be on display during a dedication ceremony on Saturday, April 28, at 11:30 a.m. at the Steelers’ Fan Blitz, presented by Xfinity. Former Steelers’ linebacker Andy Russell and representatives from the Allegheny Valley School will be on hand at the dedication.

To purchase any of The Terrible Towels, fans are encouraged to visit www.steelers.com/catalog/TerribleStuff. For more history on The Terrible Towel, visit www.steelers.com/history/terrible-towel.html.

Terrible Towel Wall Photo Gallery

The Terrible Towel was designed by EchoArtz and fabricated/installed by Contemporary Design.

This article originally appeared in The Pittsburgh Business Times
18 November 2011

Patty Tascarella
Senior Reporter
Pittsburgh Business Times

The Terrible Towel proved itself the fabric of Pittsburghers’ lives, handily defeating Eat’n Park to win the Pittsburgh Business Times’ 2011 Pittsburgh Brand Madness competition.

The towel was created by late Steelers’ broadcaster Myron Cope in 1975; for the past 15 years, more than $3 million in proceeds from its sale have benefited NHS Allegheny Valley School. The school serves people with intellectual and development disabilities, including Cope’s son.

Dorothy Hunter Gordon, NHS Allegheny Valley’s chief development officer, believes the Terrible Towel appeals to so many because it unifies a worldwide fan base and carries the legacy of Cope.

“Over the past 10 weeks, NHS Allegheny Valley School has celebrated the Terrible Towel’s inclusion in — and weekly success with — Pittsburgh Brand Madness,” Gordon said. “This has provided us with the opportunity to continue to share the message that the children and adults with special needs served by NHS AVS benefit from Myron Cope’s incredible legacy. Every time the Towel and its story are shared, it brings awareness about NHS AVS and the individuals whose lives are enriched by the Terrible Towel. We are so grateful for the community’s support of the Terrible Towel.”

Pittsburgh Brand Madness debuted Sept. 9, pitting 64 popular western Pennsylvania brands against each other in a single-elimination tournament of online reader polls. In the final round of voting, the Terrible Towel received 6,618 votes, or 58.1 percent, compared with Eat’n Park’s 4,779 votes. In previous rounds, the towel beat the Clark Bar, Zambelli Fireworks, Sarris Candies, Primanti Bros. Sandwich and Kennywood to get to the final round. The brand was so popular that when it faced off against Primanti Bros. Sandwich, Primanti Bros. conceded the round before the voting closed.

“We’re fans (of the Terrible Towel) and we couldn’t vote against them,” said Lila Preziosoof Partners Ink, the agency for Primanti Bros, at the time.

Eat’n Park also found something to smile about.

“There are certain things that only happen to you if you grow up in Pittsburgh and people hold onto them,” Kevin O’Connell, senior vice president of marketing, said. “We just feel good about being in the company of the Terrible Towel in going down to the end and being considered the top two brands in the City of Pittsburgh.”

Local marketing professionals agreed that the Terrible Towel is a strong brand for Pittsburgh.

Mullen Pittsburgh President and Executive Creative Director Brian Bronaugh called the Terrible Towel “a symbol that resonates” across the country.

John Gatesman, president of the Pittsburgh Advertising Federation and of South Side-based agency GatesmanMarmion+Dave, emphasized that the Towel is part of the Steelers’ brand.

“The Terrible Towel is indicative of the power the Steelers have in this market,” Gatesman said. “The best brands form an emotional connection, and the Terrible Towel obviously does that.”

Tony Bucci, chairman and CEO of MARC USA, Pittsburgh’s largest advertising agency, believes the Terrible Towel symbolizes Pittsburgh. “That it started as a concept in Pittsburgh and spread nationwide really validates the power that this kind of tool can have,” Bucci said.

“Talk about making yourself a part of the community: Everyone in the United States knows about the Terrible Towel. People who come here want to take one home as a souvenir. It is representative of the spirit of the Steelers, who have made themselves — very smart of them, by the way — representative of the Pittsburgh community. You talk about the emotional connection and the power: There is no stronger connection than holding a brand as a symbol of pride that you as an individual have, linked into the whole community.”

Gayle Marco, associate dean at the School of Business and professor of marketing atRobert Morris University, focused on the Terrible Towel’s accessibility and versatility.

“Just look where it’s gone,” she said. “Everyone has one. You can carry it, stick it in your pocket, hold it up, pack it easily in your luggage, display it, tuck it into your backpack and if you need a towel — well, no one uses their Terrible Towel that way. It has a good price point. It fits everyone. Even if you don’t have a ticket to the game, you have a Terrible Towel to wave. And that it gives back to charity is a bigger win-win.”

This article originally appeared in The New York TimesBy JOHN BRANCH
Published: January 29, 2009

There is one Steelers fan in Pittsburgh ambivalent about the team’s success.

“It’s actually been really hard for me, with the Steelers going to the Super Bowl,” the 38-year-old Elizabeth Cope said. “Because I have to see the Terrible Towels everywhere. It’s great. But it hurts.”

The towels are a swirling reminder of her father, Myron Cope, a longtime Pittsburgh broadcaster credited with creating the Terrible Towel in 1975. Before he died last February at age 79, Elizabeth Cope watched last year’s Super Bowl with him in his hospital room. She draped his coffin with a quilt that a fan had made out of Terrible Towels.

But the great part comes from what each of those towels does for people like Danny Cope, Myron’s son and Elizabeth’s older brother.

Myron Cope left behind something far more personal than a legacy of terrycloth, a battle flag for a city and its team. In 1996, he handed over the trademark to the Terrible Towel to the Allegheny Valley School. It is a network of campuses and group homes across Pennsylvania for people with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities. It receives almost all the profits from sales of the towels.

Danny Cope is one of the roughly 900 people the school serves. He has been a resident since 1982, when he was a teenager. He was diagnosed with severe mental retardation when he was 2. He is now 41.

“He’s never spoken,” Elizabeth Cope said. “Which is kind of funny, because Dad is known for his voice. It’s almost like the Terrible Towel is Danny’s silent voice.”

Hundreds of thousands of the towels — trademarked as “Myron Cope’s the Official Terrible Towel” — are sold every year, for about $7 each. Through the Steelers, who handlethe marketing of the towels, the school receives a check every month, usually for tens of thousands of dollars.

A Super Bowl changes everything. The company that produces the towels, McArthur Towel & Sports of Baraboo, Wis., produced 450,000 of them last week, after the Steelers won the A.F.C. championship. The company expects to duplicate that this week before Sunday’s game against the Arizona Cardinals, its president, Gregg McArthur, said.

A Steelers victory would most likely lead to orders of at least 500,000 more for a pair of Super Bowl versions of the Terrible Towel, one with the score against the Cardinals, the other declaring the Steelers as six-time Super Bowl champions.

Before this season, Allegheny Valley School had received more than $2.5 million from the towels since 1996, said its chief executive officer, Regis Champ. Roughly $1 million of that came during and immediately after the 2005 season, when the Steelers won Super Bowl XL. This season is likely to top that.

“It’s an incredible help for us,” Champ said. “We’re a nonprofit organization, and our primary funding is through Medicaid. While Medicaid is very good to people with disabilities, it is limited in what it will cover.”

Champ said that Myron Cope wanted the money to go not for construction projects, but for individual assistance for residents. Recent purchases include high-end specialized wheelchairs and sensory programs that allow severely disabled residents, including quadriplegics, to perform tasks such as turning on lights or music with a movement of their eyes.

The money has also been spent on adaptive communication devices, computers that give voice to those who cannot speak. Danny Cope has one.

The checks are usually spent as they are received.

“Our needs are daily,” Champ said.

Elizabeth Cope receives none of the proceeds from the Terrible Towel. Her father (whose wife, Mildred, died in 1994) transferred the trademark out of gratitude to the school.

“He came into my office, and he had a pile of papers,” Champ said. “He threw them down on my desk and said, ‘Regis, I’m giving you the Terrible Towel.’ I said, ‘Myron, I have about 10 of them. I’ll take another one, but ...

“He said, ‘No, I’m giving you the rights, and you’ll be able to get all the proceeds from the Terrible Towels.’ I was speechless. I knew that this would be the legacy that outlived Myron.”

The idea for the towels came out of a 1975 meeting Cope had at WTAE, the Steelers’ flagship radio station where he was the voice of the Steelers. Executives wanted a promotional gimmick, something to raise the excitement level during the playoffs.

Pittsburgh’s blue-collar fans were not the pompom types. But towels were far more utilitarian, useful for wiping the seats or protecting against the chill. Cope dubbed them Terrible Towels. On air, he encouraged fans to bring gold or black towels to the first playoff game against the Colts. It seemed too gimmicky, until about half the crowd began waving them at the start of the game. The Steelers won their second consecutive Super Bowl, surrounded by a sea of swirling towels.

Soon they were trademarked and mass-produced. They have been imitated by other franchises, but usually they are handed out for free, and they feel both unoriginal and uninspired by comparison. Even the N.F.L. could not contain itself; it is selling a white “Trophy Towel” to fans of both the Steelers and the Cardinals.

“When I see other towels in other stadiums, I know they probably have no personal story behind them,” Elizabeth Cope said. She said she has “millions” of them at home, and recently donated some framed originals to a Pittsburgh museum. There is one displayed at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Myron Cope was treasured in Pittsburgh for his enthusiasm, nasally voice and quirky exclamations such as “Yoi!” and “Double yoi!” But he knew he would be most remembered for the towel. And he made sure that it would always be more than just something to cheer the Steelers to victory.

When Danny Cope arrived at Allegheny Valley School, Myron Cope told Champ that doctors said he needed 24-hour supervision and would never be able to work.

Danny Cope, who is also autistic, now lives in a supervised group home with four others in a Pittsburgh suburb. He shops and goes to sports events. He has a paying job, packaging pretzels and snacks on an assembly line.

“Myron said that he was thankful for the life his son had,” Champ said.

The connective threads are strong. Many of the Terrible Towels go through a workshop in Chippewa Falls, Wis., similar to the one where Danny Cope works. About 80 employees with severe disabilities help fold, tag and box the shipments, McArthur said.

Come Sunday, when the Terrible Towels are swirling around Raymond James Stadium, they may also be swirling around Danny Cope. His friends like to watch the games, and Cope understands the Terrible Towels mean something exciting is happening.

“But as far as the legacy his father left?” Champ said. “No, I’m afraid Danny doesn’t understand that.”