Terrible Towel Creator Donates All to Disabled

Feb. 6, 2009— -- If they gave out a Most Valuable Tchotchke award, it would have to go to the Pittsburgh Steelers' Terrible Towel. At any Pittsburgh Steelers game, if you don't have a Terrible Towel, you will be in the minority.

"If you ain't got a towel, you ain't got nothing," Steelers vendors yell to fans.

Legendary Steelers radio announcer Myron Cope, who died a year ago this month, came up with the idea in 1975.

"He wanted something that would be easy to carry," his daughter Elizabeth Cope said. "If it hit somebody, you know, there'd be nolaw suits. No one would get hurt."

The towel started as a block of gold terry cloth with black lettering used to intimidate the opposition.

"The team comes and peers in the tunnel for the introductions," Myron Cope said in his spirited voice in a 2007 interview. "From nowhere come, like, 30,000 towels. Yellow, black, gold towels.

"Bring a yellow, gold or black towel to the game will you. If you don't have one, buy one. If you don't want to buy one, dye one."

The Terrible Towel phenomenon took off during a 1975 playoff game against the Baltimore Colts.

"I just started waving the towel," former Pittsburgh Steeler Hall of Famer Lynn Swann said. "All of a sudden, they picked up their towels and started waving the towel."

And Cope's trademark rallying cry, "the terrible towel is poised to strike," was born.

Since then, the towel has taken on a meaningful legacy for more than Steelers' fans.

Cope gave the rights for "Myron Cope's the Official Terrible Towel" to the Allegheny Valley School in 1996.

"He said to me you need to make sure that you take care of this and that you protect the Terrible Towel," said Regis Champ, CEO of the Allegheny Valley School, which provides programs for children and adults with intellectual-developmental disabilities. "It means a lot to the city and it's going to mean a lot to Allegheny Valley School."