Forged in Black and Gold: Pro Football Hall of Fame Unveils Pittsburgh Steelers Exhibit

CANTON, Ohio — The Pro Football Hall of Fame has unveiled a limited-time exhibit titled “A Legacy Forged in Black and Gold,”  featuring the history of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and with Steelers fans likely to make the quick trip out the Pennsylvania and Ohio Turnpikes to check it out, the staff at Steelers Now figured we would give them a preview.

For the month-long exhibition, the museum itself has done a phenomenal job at centering the museum around the Steelers during the exhibit’s stay. There are autograph sessions available to fans for an extra price during certain hours featuring Steelers Hall of Famers. This Saturday, it was Alan Faneca ($35) and Lynn Swann ($100). Interestingly, Swann, for whatever reason, didn’t allow football cards at his autograph signing. The autographs themselves were in theme with the rest of the museum, but not in the exhibit itself. It was in a separate room available only to those who paid for the autograph.

In addition to autograph signings, the Pro Football Hall of Fame also themed their cafe around Pittsburgh. They offered Iron City beer, pierogi flatbed pizzas, Primanti’s-style sandwiches and pretzels with beer cheese for the Pittsburgh theme.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emA_EpWiFSk&t=3s

To further go with the exhibit’s theme, a worker also passed out free Steelers themed towels at the exhibit and at the Super Bowl rings section, guests were able to try on a replica Super Bowl 43 ring. All the Steelers busts were also moved out of the busts section and placed together opposite the entrance to the section. It’s unknown if this was a uniquely Steelers decision or if this will be how the Pro Football Hall of Fame handles all their team-themed exhibits going forward. The Steelers’ busts were not in the exhibit due to there not being enough room.

It was smart to cater towards Steelers fans throughout the entire museum as opposed to just in the exhibit. Overall, about 90% of the people in attendance on Saturday dressed in black and gold. After the Steelers fans, there was a decent bit of Browns fans, a few Bengals fans, and a couple Dolphins fans that made the trip. It’s not surprising that the museum holding a Steelers exhibit would see mostly Steelers fans, but it was good to see that the museum itself essentially themed it’s entire building around the team.

The memorabilia in the exhibit was also really neat. The highlights included a seat cover from friends of Alan Faneca who used the seat cover as a good luck charm during the team’s Super Bowl 40 run and the elevator button switch from Three Rivers Stadium with the story being that Art Rooney took said elevator down to cheer up his team prior to the end of the Immaculate Reception game without realizing that the Steelers won the game while he was in the elevator.

There was a mix of the Steelers 1970s teams – Terry Bradshaw had two Super Bowl footballs in the exhibit – and modern day Steelers – Antonio Brown’s gloves from his 800th catch and a Ben Roethlisberger jersey from his 500-yard game against the Packers. While the dynasty eras of the Steelers were certainly the focal points of the exhibit, the TV screens did tell the full story of the Steelers from their founding to modern day.

There are 27 players primarily associated with the Pittsburgh Steelers that have been enshrined into the Hall of Fame. James Harrison and Hines Ward were semi-finalists for the class of 2024, but did not advance beyond that stage.

Which brings us to the only disappointment in the exhibit. It was really small. The exhibit itself was one small room featuring approximately five cases of memorabilia and four TV screens. With all the marketing being spent on the Steelers exhibit, I kind of expected a larger area dedicated to the exhibit. That being said, the museum itself has the Steelers littered throughout, so it’s not like there’s much that needed to be included in the exhibit to tell the Steelers story.

Again though, there’s plenty of Steelers history telling the story of the team’s early years throughout the entire museum. And those from Pittsburgh would certainly appreciate the Darrelle Revis section at the 2023 enshrinement exhibit and the Damar Hamlin memorabilia in the 2022 season recap sections, both of which will also be going away around the same time the Steelers exhibit ends in February.

Fans looking to check out the Steelers exhibit can do so until February 19. After that, the exhibit will change to one centered around Steelers’ rival Cleveland Browns in the second of a series set to tackle each NFL team.