Steelers Franco Harris transformed the NFL with his Italian Army

Harris inspires the creation of other NFL groups

Franco’s Italian army then gave way to player other non-ethnic player groups surrounding Steelers players such as Lamberts Lunatics, Banasacks Bunch, Frenchy’s Foreign Legion, and Gerela’s Gorillas.

Then other teams feeling left out felt the need to cash in with their team fan base. While some of these may have been partially media based, they tried to copy what the Steelers had already created. You know the examples such as Cleveland’s Dawg Pound, Green Bay Packers Cheese Heads, and Washington’s Hogetts.

Some claim these creations were to upstage the other in television airtime. There may be credibility in that claim. Nonetheless, Pittsburgh had a grassroots movement, and none of it was for television time. Ethnicities in Pittsburgh united in a common cause, a love for the Pittsburgh football team and for the love of the best running back in the NFL at the time Franco Harris. Ethnicities took pride in themselves as no other NFL team had before. You were a Steelers fan first; the rest of it was merely trivial.

Franco has a legacy beyond the “Immaculate Reception”, it is the fact that ethnicities could merge into a common cause larger than life itself and come together as one every Sunday afternoon in the hopes the Steelers would destroy whoever they played and that Franco would lead the charge and rush for a hundred yards.