Sales of towels to Steeler fans hardly terrible
The Pittsburgh Steelers faithful have long imbued the team's rally rag, the Terrible Towel, with power of mythical proportions. Some insist the bright yellow towel, ubiquitous at games, spurs the team to victory -- just as it did in the 1970s when a Pittsburgh wide receiver wiped his hands on the sacred towel, then made a spectacular one-handed catch to help the team advance in the playoffs. Other fans swear the towel has brought them personal good fortune.
With the Steelers in the Super Bowl this Sunday, there will be more Terrible Towels than ever. The team's resurgence has driven towel sales to the 1 million mark, up fivefold from 2004 sales of 194,600.
The team's official towel maker is taking orders from as far away as Mexico, Florida, and Arizona. They're selling golf towels, toddler towels, and -- unthinkably for a Pittsburgh winter -- beach towels. On eBay, fans even can buy 48 yellow Terrible Towel cookies, individually wrapped, with icing, for $119.99.
''The Steelers are going to be America's team pretty soon," said Gregg McArthur, president of McArthur Towel & Sports, the Wisconsin company that supplies towels to the Steelers. ''I can feel it coming."
With Terrible Towel sales surging, there already has been a bit of towel tumult. When the Cincinnati Bengals went up against the Steelers in the regular season, the Pittsburgh press accused one Cincinnati player of cleaning his football cleats with the Steelers' cherished cloth, and another of wearing it as a bib. Outraged, the Pittsburgh faithful denounced Cincinnati for ''disrespecting the towel."
New England fans aren't above towel insults of their own. Amazon.com put up two Terrible Towels for sale recently, and a Boston user who goes by the screen name ''Reality" posted a review of the items but said he had not purchased them. He explained why: ''I did come across a pair at the local Salvation Army. It looked like they had been used to wipe away tears."
Pittsburgh lore traces the roots of the Terrible Towel back to legendary broadcaster Myron Cope. In 1970s, the Steelers needed a lift to beat Baltimore in the playoffs, and Cope suggested that if fans brought a yellow towel to the game, it could do the trick. Daily, he appeared on the radio and television, intoning soberly, ''The Terrible Towel is poised to strike!" The Steelers went on to win the Super Bowl, and a tradition was born.
Cope later said that the towel is ''not an instrument of witchcraft." Instead, ''the towel is a positive force that lifts the Steelers to magnificent heights -- and poses mysterious difficulties for the Steelers' opponents only if need be."
Other teams have flirted with towels of their own, but none match the popularity of Pittsburgh's. The Patriots briefly made towels as an advertising giveaway -- they carried the Patriots' logo along with the Fleet Bank logo -- while the Carolina Panthers have offered ''prowl towels."
In Cincinnati, the orange ''Who Dey Hanky" gained a following this year. (''Don't ask me why -- that meant something in the Cincinnati market," McArthur said.)
Pittsburgh's Super Bowl opponent, the Seattle Seahawks, have their own rallying flag -- blue with the number 12 on it, which stands for 12th man. Car flags and house flags are especially popular, with thousands of sales in just the last two weeks.
''Everyone is driving around Seattle with them on their cars," said Shannon Burley, marketing director at sports store G.I. Joe's, which has a partnership with the Seahawks to sell gear. ''The whole city is behind the team."
If the Steelers win, the team plans a special Super Bowl Terrible Towel with the score of the game. That's on top of the 450,000 towels printed to celebrate the Steelers' victory in the AFC Championship. Terrible Towels cost about $7 and are sold by the team.
Sasha Talcott can be reached at stalcott@globe.com. 
