As a part of Women's History Month, which is celebrated every March, we are highlighting the Steelerettes, the only cheerleading squad the Steelers had. The Steelerettes cheered for the team from 1961-69 at Forbes Field and Pitt Stadium, where the team played at the time.
Steelers Nation has never had a shortage of female fans and actually have one of the strongest female fan bases in the National Football League.
And it's not a new thing.
The support from the female fan base dates way back, including a special group from the 1960s.
The Steelerettes.
While the Steelers don't currently have cheerleaders, there was a time when the Steelerettes were on the sidelines supporting their favorite team as the first NFL cheerleading squad.
It all began in 1961, when William Day was the vice-president at Robert Morris Junior College, while also working with the Steelers to coordinate their game day entertainment. At the time, his school didn't have a football team, and he came up with an idea. Create a cheerleading squad for the Steelers.
And the Steelerettes were officially born.
For nine seasons the squad was on the sidelines of Forbes Field and Pitt Stadium, where the Steelers played at the time, bringing their energy and trying to get the crowd fired up.
One of the rules was you had to be enrolled at Robert Morris to be on the squad, and since it was a two-year junior college, most of the Steelerettes only cheered for one year.
One of those members was Noreen Modery, who spent one season on the squad, in 1964, and has a lifetime of memories from it.
"I was there in 1964, and you had a few women that were there for two seasons because they came in a little later and were able to be there for the full two seasons," recalled Modery. "Eleanor Lineman was one of the first ones in 1961, and then she became like the director of it for a couple of years after that. And then we had another lady, Diane Battiste-Zinkham, who was there the same year as me in 1964, and then she stayed on, and she became the director for the next four or five years.
"They helped the ladies with their cheering and the selection and everything."
While some of the women, like Modery, were already football fans, there were others who learned the game as they cheered.
But the bottom line was, they all loved what they were doing.
"It was amazing," said Modery, who cheered for the team while they were at Pitt Stadium. "We just had the best time. First of all, we got to know each other so well. I was always a Steeler fan. My family has always been Steelers fans. My dad was a huge Steelers fan. My mom was always interested in sports. We would listen to the games on the radio and my dad would sometimes travel to Cleveland on the train and go up and see them when they played the Browns.
"So, I was immersed in in sports and football. It was a good progression for me. It was just an amazing time.
"We were so young then too. I was 19 and most of the girls were 18 or 19 at the time, and I don't think we really realized what we were or who we were. We were just out of high school, and we were cheerleaders. I was a majorette in high school, so we just moved on to something else that was so fun and just different than anything we had ever done before. And we all like dancing. We all did some sort of gymnastics.
"It was just an amazing experience to be there down on the field. We would sometimes sit right along the sidelines. It's a wonder we didn't get run over by some of the players. But it was just a fantastic time."
Modery has a lot of fun memories from being a part of the Steelerettes, and they are memories she is able to keep alive through her relationship with the other women who were on the sideline with her.
The group has remained close, doing weekends getaways at Deep Creek Lake, having regular girls lunches and keeping in touch with family updates.
"There's about 12 of us in the Pittsburgh area that are still best friends and that we get together every month for lunch," said Modery. "We all still follow the team. We wear black and gold. We have t-shirts and sweatshirts and things we have made for the Steelerettes. I'm a big, huge fan. Some of the ladies are season ticket holders and they go to all of the games.
"We get together for lunch. We talk about a lot of stuff. We talk about team, we talk about the Steelers, we talk about our families. We have a good time. We try to keep the spirit of the Steelerettes alive.
"We go to some of the NFL cheerleading association conventions. We wear our colors and our names, and people come up to us and tell us we were innovators. We did dances, gymnastics, and we cheered and built pyramids. It's really nice to hear it when people come and talk to us. It's been a great boost."
