By Robert Hightower
Former tight end Randy Grossman spent eight seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers using his hands to help the team win four Super Bowl victories. Now those same hands can knit a sweater like nobody’s business.
From 1974 to 1981, Grossman made 119 grabs for 1,514 yards while scoring five touchdowns including one in Super Bowl X in a 21-17 win over the Dallas Cowboys.
Now Grossman, who once battled the likes of bruising Hall of Famers such as Randy White and Jack Youngblood on the gridiron, enjoys knitting as a calming pastime.
He even has his customized wooden knitting needles bearing the black and gold colors that he used to don on the field.
“I don’t think I’m going to scare anybody walking in with them like a custom pool cue, but when I walk into a knitting shop they think I know what I’m doing,” said Grossman about the needles.
Grossman and his wife Barb sat down for an interview during a recent visit to Grossman’s mother’s house in King of Prussia.
Barb is the organizer of the upcoming Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Festival which Randy faithfully attends and is on hand to answer any questions about knitting — or football. By the way, Barb mentioned, attending knitting shows can have some personal benefits for men. For one thing, “it’s a great place for men to meet women.”
Grossman said the fact he engages in such an activity is something that should come as no surprise to people. Because of the brutal nature of professional sports — football in particular — Grossman said the barbaric stigma that all athletes aren’t versed in anything outside of their chosen sport is unfounded.
“One of the things that a lot of folks lose track of is that whether it’s a professional football player or basketball player, it’s something that they are really good at but it’s not the only thing that they do,” he said. “They are no different than anybody else other than that particular skill in the sport they are playing.”
Though Grossman’s mother, Florence, is an accomplished knitter and her skills have inspired him to push forward his with the craft, his foray into knitting came about from his daughter, Sarah. When Sarah participated in a knitting program while attending the Waldorf School of Pittsburgh, she started progressing as a better and better knitter and “she wanted to show me how to do it,” Grossman said. As a way to appease his daughter, he tried it and found it to be quite rewarding.
Now knitting on a consistent basis, Grossman decided to hold a class geared specifically toward teaching men the nuances of the craft with Sarah as his special assistant.
The class, in true Steelers form, was called the Terrible Scarf after the storied Pittsburgh mainstay, the Terrible Towel. Grossman served as the pedagogue to showing guys how to knit a scarf bearing the trademark gold and black colors of the team, although he said there was a Cleveland Browns fan in the class whom he allowed to knit the colors of brown and orange.
Of the 17 men that signed up, 15 actually showed. In an attempt to keep the class “manly,” the participants also received a case of beer each for attending.
Watching men knit for the first time was something that Grossman said he found to be comical on many occasions. “It was humorous with the guys struggling with it. Anybody starting out is going to make a lot of mistakes. You have to rip it out and start again. We had a lot yucks doing it. It was a good time.”
Grossman pointed out that he’s not the only pro football player who partakes in such work.
“Rosie Grier was a frighteningly good defensive lineman. He did needle point. I think people would have a hard time picturing a defensive lineman doing needle point.”
To Grossman, sports and knitting have many parallels. “One of the things that professional sports takes is a real high level of confidence, so I don’t think anyone has a problem doing what they want to do when it comes to doing anything,” he said.
