The Terrible Towel Turns 50

Fifty years ago, an icon was born — out of the kitchen.

In late 1975, the legendary broadcaster Myron Cope asked fans to bring yellow dish towels to Three Rivers Stadium to wave during a divisional-round playoff game. The Steelers defeated Baltimore amid a sea of twirling towels; the next week, they edged out Oakland to win the AFC Championship.

By the time the team traveled to the Orange Bowl to face Dallas in Super Bowl X, fans were armed with the official version: A gold towel bearing the words “Myron Cope’s Terrible Towel” — so named because Cope’s daughter, Elizabeth, called her father’s promotional ideas “terrible.”

In 1996, Cope handed the rights to the Terrible Towel to Merakey Allegheny Valley School, a nonprofit organization that provides services to individuals with intellect