May 8, 2024 3 min read

We’ve just hit the merry month of May. It’s not officially summer yet or even Memorial Day weekend, but I’m already hearing a lot of people around our parts asking if it’s football season yet.

The Pirates gave us a glimmer of hope in spring training games and the first couple of weeks of the regular season that they might just have a scrappy good team this year. Then they plunged downward. Who knows what this baseball season will bring for Pittsburgh sports fans?

I’m not holding my breath, but hopefully we’ll get to go to a couple of games downtown this year. There are also fun Wild Things games to take in right in Washington without having to drive hardly at all.

In the middle of trying to get interested in the start of baseball season, along comes the NFL Draft to distract me. No sooner does the Super Bowl end than the NFL Combine happens, quickly followed by the draft. I always chuckle at everyone getting so excited and worked up over the draft. I know it’s a big business involving big money, but some folks take it so seriously, hanging on every word awaiting the announcement by each team of their next anointed superstar.

The reality is we won’t really know if any of these draft picks will pan out or be successful until a couple of years down the road. My husband can rattle off the names and college alma maters of many years of Steelers first round draft picks and can even remember which star (or bust) players were taken in each round of what year. I sometimes can’t even remember what I had for dinner two nights ago. It really is a special talent.

Despite my skepticism about how much people get invested in the NFL Draft, I still end up watching it every year. It’s entertainment TV at this point with watch parties and custom-tailored suits for all of the draftees-in-waiting. The panoramic camera shots of nearly 250,000 people crowded into the open-air venue in downtown Detroit to revel in each team’s pick was truly impressive.

Pittsburgh is said to be in the process of making a bid to host the NFL Draft in an upcoming year, and I wonder if I would actually go if it is held in Pittsburgh. Would you go? It might be fun to be among all of the rabid Steelers fans and those from other teams. Then again, I laugh thinking why would I want to fight for parking and be jostled around in that humongous crowd just to watch a guy read someone’s name off a piece of paper?

It might be fun. And it certainly would be an economic boom and great exposure for Pittsburgh if they could pull it off the right way.

Kristin Emery can be reached at kristinemery1@yahoo.com.