The institution of professional sports in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Steelers" football, Pirates" baseball and Penguins" hockey, has added much more to the city than a pleasurable pastime for the local sports fans; it has caused an increase in charitable works, a strong, amiable sense of community and union, as well as a source of role models for young, aspiring athletes.
The professional sports teams in Pittsburgh contribute thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours to charitable works annually. The players of all three major professional sports in the city, football, baseball and hockey, feel the responsibility to return their good fortune to the community that embraced them, and they fully realize that their work does not end as soon as they exit the arena. Quite to the contrary, in fact, for their work is only beginning as they leave. Each team allies itself with specific charities, many of which bleed over from team to team, to help the unfortunate families and ailing citizens of Pittsburgh. The charitable works of the Steelers, for example, are many, and are not limited to motivational speaking; Presents for Patients, a program that provides nursing home patients in the Pittsbugh area with gifts for the holidays; Race for the Cure, an event benefiting Breast Cancer research; the Make-A-Wish Foundation, an organization which links terminally ill children with their lifetime dreams; and Toys for Tots, a program that distributes toy donations to needy children. Numerous touching examples of the Steelers helping the Pittsburgh community appear frequently in the news, both through organizations, like the charities listed above, as well as individual efforts, such as the one made by safety Lee Flowers in the 2002-2003 season. Flowers pledged $91.01 for each tackle he made that season, and his wife Kara matched the contribution. The donation would have totaled $9,374.03 from each of them after Flowers had 103 tackles, but both decided to increase the amount to $10,000.
