Steelers Throwback Thursdays: Pittsburgh renames football team from Pirates

Before the NFL officially gears up for the 2021-22 season, Steel City Underground will be taking fans back in time to feature events, special moments, and historical times in the world of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Steelers Nation. Join us as we revisit these moments in our “Throwback Thursdays”.

On March 3, 1940, the new name for the Pittsburgh football team was announced as the ‘Steelers.’ Art Rooney decided that he had enough of the copycat name of the ‘Pirates’ after the city’s baseball team and wanted to change the name. Rooney worked with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to run a contest to find a new name for the team. Several thousand entries were submitted before former coach Joe Bach led a panel that selected the name of ‘Steelers’ to pay homage to the city’s large steel industry.

There were 21 winners of the contest. Each winner received two 1940 season tickets. The tickets were $5.00 at the time, but would be $92.00 today. The first contest entry was received on January 2, 1940, and ran a few weeks. Some of the names included the Wahoos, Condors, Pioneers, Triangles, Bridgers, Buckaroos, or Yankees. Other more steel-centered names included the Millers, Vulcans, Tubers, Smokers, Rollers, Ingots, and Puddlers. One man submitted 65 names to the contest, where none of them included ‘Steelers.’ Entries came from as far as Wisconsin, where the 1939 Steelers trained in the offseason. There was only one woman who was one of the contest winners. Margaret Elizabeth O’Donnell was the only female winner. She was the girlfriend and eventual wife of the team’s business manager, Joe Carr.

The football Pirates had multiple losing seasons and were always confused with the baseball team, which is what prompted Rooney to make a name change. It is unclear as to who officially deserves credit for naming the Steelers, despite 21 contestants suggesting the name. At least one local high school was using the name at the time. It is suggested that Arnold Goldberg was the first person to suggest the name, who was the sports editor for the “Evening Standard” of Uniontown at the time.