Cheering on the black and gold

For nine seasons the squad was on the sidelines of Forbes Field and Pitt Stadium, where the Steelers played at the time, bringing their energy and trying to get the crowd fired up.

One of the rules was you had to be enrolled at Robert Morris to be on the squad, and since it was a two-year junior college, most of the Steelerettes only cheered for one year.

One of those members was Noreen Modery, who spent one season on the squad, in 1964, and has a lifetime of memories from it.

“I was there in 1964, and you had a few women that were there for two seasons because they came in a little later and were able to be there for the full two seasons,” recalled Modery. “Eleanor Lineman was one of the first ones in 1961, and then she became like the director of it for a couple of years after that. And then we had another lady, Diane Battiste-Zinkham, who was there the same year as me in 1964, and then she stayed on, and she became the director for the next four or five years.

“They helped the ladies with their cheering and the selection and everything.”

While some of the women, like Modery, were already football fans, there were others who learned the game as they cheered.

But the bottom line was, they all loved what they were doing.