PITTSBURGH – Art Rooney II was standing on the pitch of the brand-new U.S. Steel Community football field, located on the sprawling 178 acres where the men and women who lived in the slopes overlooking Hazelwood Works labored in the mill.

It doesn't seem that long ago when those massive steel structures were churning out steel for over 100 years, playing a significant role in building this country.

Off in the distance stands the U.S. Steel Tower, the tallest building in Appalachia. Closer to the field are the skeletal remains, now repurposed to house Carnegie Mellon University and its innovators in robotics, advanced manufacturing and artificial intelligence, who are now remaking the city and country once again.

Even the old roundhouse, built in 1887 and used by the railroads to drive commerce, has been transformed into an innovation hub, attracting the world's top startups.

Rooney smiled as he took it all in. The buzz for the past few months had been about the NFL draft coming to the city. But the larger goal of positioning the city to be seen and experienced kicked off flawlessly last week in this often forgotten working-class neighborhood.

"Pittsburgh is just built different," Rooney said as he looked out at the convergence of a vivid black and gold field filled with young people from the neighborhood socializing with Steeler head coach Mike McCarthy.

The future of this region's potential is converging right in front of the world, Rooney said. He pointed to the innovators in robotics and AI at CMU, the U.S. Steel Tower in the city's skyline, and the young people, whose parents passed down a legacy of grit and hard work.

"Ten years from now, one of these kids could be drafted by the NFL, or working in AI, or on robots, or working in the trades at the mill," Rooney said.

Pittsburgh, football, grit and steel have been intertwined for well over 100 years. Rooney joked that the first draft for professional football likely came out of men such as his grandfather, Art Rooney Sr., going into the mills or the mines to find good, strong players.

"That's probably right," he said. "My grandfather, he had teams going back into the 1920s, which is when he first started to get teams organized and recruiting guys from all around different areas of the region." Most of those men worked in the mills and mines.

Art Rooney Sr.'s first team was Hope-Harvey, then along came dozens of other names, including the Rooney Reds, the Pittsburgh Glyceum and the Pittsburgh Pirates, eventually settling on the Steelers after asking fans for suggestions.

He went with "Steelers" because a large chunk of the fanbase was employed in the steel industry. Rooney said there were some ragtag teams in the early '20s that his grandfather had organized, and they kept growing into semipro teams.

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