Former Steelers assistant Kirby Wilson putting the ‘Pittsburgh’ in Pittsburgh Maulers
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Kirby Wilson grew up in Los Angeles and went to college at Illinois. Over a coaching career that’s spanned 37 years, he’s lived on the West Coast, in New England, the upper Midwest, the Southeast.
But in no one place during his adult life did he work longer than he did under Mike Tomlin with the Pittsburgh Steelers. And in no other place did he put down such roots.
“My family still lives there, 15 years now,” Wilson said by phone this week. “(At this point) I am from Pittsburgh now, you know what I mean?”
As such, don’t tell Wilson the Maulers are “Pittsburgh” in name only. He doesn’t care that the team he serves as head coach for is playing its home games roughly a 750-mile drive from the Golden Triangle, nor that only one of the 45 rostered players grew up in a residence with a 412 area code.
Set aside your punchlines about the United States Football League playing its entire 40-game, eight-team regular-season schedule in Birmingham, Ala. Perhaps for some of the other head coaches in this reboot of the 1980s spring football league, the city portion of the team name wouldn’t mean a thing.
Wilson insists he very much is putting the “Pittsburgh” in “Pittsburgh Maulers.”
“These players are very dialed in to the culture of Pittsburgh as a football town,” Wilson said. “They eat, breathe, live it every single day — because I am instilling them with that. I am sharing that with them.
“We really want to make this city proud. … We know that right now we are not there, but I tell these guys we’re a Pittsburgh team and that that means something.”
The @USFLMaulers open play in a new incarnation of the USFL at 8 p.m. Sunday against the Tampa Bay @USFLBandits on FS1. Like all USFL regular-season games in 2022, the game will be played in Birmingham, Ala. https://t.co/PJmZjJrLi4
— Tribune-ReviewSports (@TribSports) April 16, 2022
The Maulers open their season at 8 p.m. Sunday against the Tampa Bay Bandits. Although it will be played in north-central Alabama, the Maulers are designated as the “home” team.
Coincidentally, it was against Birmingham (the Stallions) that the original Maulers had their home opener against during their only season in 1984. At Three Rivers Stadium that early-March day, 53,771 showed up.
Few, if any, current Pittsburghers will be on hand Sunday at Protective Stadium. But Wilson is doing everything he can to get his players to represent the city anyway.
“I tell them all the time: The city of Pittsburgh will support you and embrace you if you play hard,” Wilson said. “But they will love you if you win. … You’ve got to play hard — and if we do, they’ll love us if we win.
“I told the guys, ‘Let’s make this the greatest spring league that’s ever been.’ And for us to do that the pride has to be there, and we have to make sure we show respect to not only this league but to this opportunity — and the football. If we do our thing on the field, everything else will take care of itself.”
Much like the #USFL and the Pittsburgh Maulers are getting a second chance, Kirby Wilson is extending his second chance on life. https://t.co/mhcPybwuL6
— Tribune-ReviewSports (@TribSports) February 9, 2022
Wilson said he and his staff and his players are comfortable the USFL will survive. With television deals with Fox and NBC, that sense of security seems reasonable — even if players and coaches from the past two spring leagues might warn otherwise. Neither the AAF (2019) nor the XFL (2020) finished one season before folding.
There’s a long way to go for the Pittsburgh Maulers to actually play in Pittsburgh. The league is hopeful to play home games at team sites in 2023, but a recent report suggested all franchises might not be in home markets until 2024.
Until that time comes, only Wilson and Tre Tarpley carry the black-and-gold flag: Wilson lived in Seven Fields while serving as Steelers’ running backs coach from 2007-14 (some family still lives locally), and Tarpley is a Jefferson Hills native who starred at Central Catholic.
In getting his first head coaching gig at the age of 60 after 23 seasons of experience as an assistant in the NFL, Wilson speaks with a palpable excitement about the opportunity.
“What I have told my family members and anyone else that I’ve talked to,” he said, “is that I am having the time of my life. … The greatest time of my coaching career is right now.”
Wilson is out to ensure his players feel the same way.
“I am proud of these guys,” Wilson said. “They are champing at the bit to go represent the 412 on Sunday night.”