Enemies among us

They are the vegetarians at the cattlemen’s convention. The square pegs in a room full of round holes. The size-8 shoes on size-12 feet. They just don’t fit in.

But die-hard Steelers’ fans in the Seahawks-crazy Inland Northwest don’t care. They’ll be too busy waving their Terrible Towels today and rooting for the black and gold.

“The Steeler fans are the best fans,” says Mo Owen, a 33-year-old English and social studies teacher at Shadle Park High School. “I tell you what – Steeler fans are everywhere. Everywhere.”

How much, you ask, can one man love the Steelers?

Just ask Owen.

He made his wife promise to honor the Steelers, until death do they part. In their wedding vows.

And then he took her on a 45-hour drive to Florida for a Pittsburgh-Tampa Bay game on their honeymoon.

His recently deceased dog was named Jack Lambert.

He has a black and gold pool table. Helmets. Towels. Flags. Iron City Beer.

Memorabilia that didn’t fit in his house now takes over his classroom.

“They are Seahawks crazy at school,” he says. “It’s a little rough.”

But Owen, at least, is in good company. The Steelers have countless fans in Eastern Washington and North Idaho.

Many of them jumped on the team’s bandwagon during those glorious, quadruple-Super Bowl-winning days of the 1970s. And they stuck with them through the less-than-glorious 1980s and beyond.

Chattaroy’s Garrett Bron decided in 1974 that he would root for whichever team was smart enough to draft Lynn Swann, the University of Southern California’s All-American wide receiver. That pick, of course, was made by the Steelers.

Bron, who drives a cement truck for Central Pre-Mix, now wears a black and gold Steelers hardhat to work each day.

“There’s a lot of harassing going around,” he says. “But that comes with the game.”

At home, he has painted his fireplace and mailbox in Steeler colors. And he flies the team’s flag on his flag pole.

“When you walk in the basement, it just seems like you’re in Pittsburgh,” Bron says.

Spokane’s Brickwall Comedy Club, owned by Steelers’ fan Chris Warren, is becoming a “Steeler Support Center” for the big game today. (The party starts at noon at the comedy club at the Budget Inn, 110 E. Fourth Ave.)

They’ll be serving Sea-Chicken strips and Sea-Chicken burgers. And there will be cheap beer for Seahawks’ fans “so they can afford to pay off bets after the game,” Warren says.

Everyone has their own reasons for declaring themselves a Steelers’ fan.

Some grew up near Pittsburgh. Others admired a particular player. Ellen Kelly Miller’s love of the Steelers began out of spite.

As a high schooler, she watched her brother cheering on the Dallas Cowboys during Super Bowl 1978.

“I didn’t know anything about football at all,” she says. “(But) I was so mad at my brother, I started rooting for the opposing team just to get back at him.”

And she did. The Steelers won.

She has since been to every game the Steelers have played in Seattle. She has more than 50 pieces of team memorabilia, including a Terry Bradshaw rookie trading card and seven jerseys.

“I don’t know of anything made that I don’t have,” says Miller, an insurance agent.

There’s enough Steelers merchandise in the Inland Northwest, it seems, to decorate a dozen Pittsburgh bars.

Kennis Nicholls, a retired Air Force major living in Spokane, displays his Terrible Towels and Jack Lambert jersey in his home’s bay window. They hang in silent rivalry against his neighbor’s “Go Hawks” window sign.

Dwayne Dehlbom, an academic adviser at Washington State University, has downloaded Steelers’ fight songs to play on his work computer. He took his 12-year-old son on a road trip to Denver to watch the Steelers clinch the title.

Even his dog runs around the house in a Bettis jersey.

Pamella Estes of Spokane got hooked on the Steelers in the early ‘90s, courtesy of an old flame. The relationship died, but her love for the team only intensified.

“It just had to do with the attitude of the players,” Estes says. “They’re a fun team.

She’s married now. To a Seahawks fan.

He has decorated one window of the house with a Seahawks flag. She has adorned another with a Terrible Towel and blanket.

“We have really tried not to talk about football these last few weeks,” she says.

But Estes is prepared to handle any trash talk flung her way.

“It’s difficult being in the Northwest, rooting for the opposing team,” she says. “But I think every Steelers’ fan has that thick skin.

“We’ve been there. We’ve been defeated.”