Twenty-eight years
have passed since they sat side by side in a tavern near Grant
Street and poured not only libations but a foundation for a
football eternity.
Twenty
years have passed since they last spoke, these two ordinary
people who anonymously made an enduring contribution to Pittsburgh
sports lore.
They
conceived the Immaculate Reception name, did Michael Ord and
Sharon Levosky. They christened it, introduced it to Myron Cope,
sent it on its merry way to national celebrity. Before them,
the Dec. 23, 1972 event they witnessed from the Three Rivers
Stadium upper deck was a monumental catch without a memorable
moniker. After them, it held a permanent eminence and an everlasting
symbolism for the Steelers' franchise, the now-closed stadium,
the entire NFL.
So
here they sat last week, side by side again in a tavern near
Grant Street, reunited.
Twenty
years melted like ice in an empty tumbler.
Twenty-eight
years.
"We
used to go to the airport and welcome the team back," Ord began.
"Oh,
yeah," Levosky added.
"You
remember the Reverend?"
"Reverend
Myers."
"Episcopalian?"
"Presbyterian."
"Nice
guy. Used to sit behind us, Section 653, Three Rivers."
"The
church is no longer there, Highland Park Presbyterian."
So
many things have changed since then. So much has passed.
She
pulled out a yellowing photograph of the two of them, circa
1970. She glanced at it through her dark-rimmed glasses, her
countenance a portrait of stoicism inside a short, blonde frame,
and she handed the picture to him. He perched a pair of pince-nez
reading glasses in the middle of his round, cherubic face, and
he seemed surprised to look back in time, long before the graying
hair. They were an attractive couple back then. Neither, it
should be noted, wore glasses.
Their
story all started in a simple leather shop on Walnut Street,
Shadyside. Ord was the owner. Levosky was an employee. They
began dating. One of their weekly rituals was the fall Sunday
get-together at the brand-new bowl on the North Side, tailgating
and a Steelers game followed by a tavern stop near Grant Street
-- the Executive Place, the Beau Brummel or the Interlude on
old Court Place.
"Where
the U.S. Steel Building is now," Ord began.
"USX
Tower," corrected Levosky, who works there.
Among
his nearly 10 Steelers season-ticket seats in the early 1970s,
Ord used to take his girlfriend/employee, his father, Barney,
and a bunch of friends to games. He still visualizes the amazing
play that buried the Same Old Steelers and gave rise to Super
Steelers of the 1970s, Terry Bradshaw to Jack Tatum/Frenchy
Fuqua to Franco Harris to history.
"We
were right at the 50. They were perfect seats. Everybody was
standing. When the ball bounced off whoever it bounced off of,
my father sat down and put his face in his hands. I'm sure a
lot of people didn't see the play, they probably all reacted
like my dad: The miracle season was over. Then, he heard everybody
cheering, and he asked, 'What happened? What happened?' "
Hours
later, at the Interlude, inspiration struck Ord like those Catholic-school
nuns who used to rap his knuckles " 'cause I wrote with my left
hand, and that's the devil's hand." He arose from his seat beside
Levosky, stood on his chair and announced to the crowded second-floor
bar: From here on, this day will forever be known as The
Feast of the Immaculate Reception. The bar crowd rejoiced.
Hours
after that, the couple repaired to the home of Levosky's parents
in Highland Park. They wanted to share their Interlude-induced
appellation with a Steelers Nation. They thought of relating
it to the Steelers' colorful commentator and WTAE-TV sportscaster,
but the thought didn't completely register until about 11 p.m.
-- the start of the station's newscast.
"I
remember thinking, 'We really should tell Myron,' " Ord began.
"And
I remember thinking, 'We're not going to get through,' " Levosky
added.
It
being the care-free 1970s, and it being such a sure-fire nickname,
both persisted. He wanted to make the call, but he considered
himself "overserved" and worried about slurring his words. No,
the public never would have embraced it so tightly if Cope had
translated the nickname as the Amalgamated Resurrection. So
Levosky dialed and did the speaking instead.
She
identified herself to the television-station switchboard as
Sharon Levosky of MARC Advertising, which, at that point,
she was. Next thing she knew, Cope's trademark warble was at
the other end of the rotary phone. "I couldn't believe it,"
she recalled. "When I told him 'The Immaculate Reception,' he
was laughing.
"
'I can't say that on TV,' he said.
"I
said, 'Sure you can.'
"He
said, 'I'll have to think about it.' "
Five minutes later,
the diminutive Jewish sportscaster was on TV screens across
Western Pennsylvania mentioning her name, the play's nickname,
and what a good Christian girl she was -- as if this made the
religious reference, well, kosher.
"He
said he asked her if she was Christian," Ord began.
"He
did not," add Levosky, who is Presbyterian. "He didn't know
if I was Jewish or what."
Funny,
but all her teachers figured Levosky for a Jewish name and always
wondered why she came to school on the High Holy Days.
Double
Yoi.
"The
next day, I got up, and it was everywhere," Ord began. "In the
newspapers, on the TV. It hit the wires. It was instant success.
It was incredible. We were featured in Time Magazine, I think."
"Sports
Illustrated," corrected Levosky.
"Anyway,
in that story, Sharon didn't even mention me. Maybe she was
mad at me. Were you mad at me?"
"Probably."
Harris
got a patent on the name, Franco's Immaculate Reception. The
leather-store owner sold his business to go into the car and
publication businesses, the leather-store employee went into
advertising, and neither of the originators earned a penny off
the Interlude inspiration.
"There
was never any idea to make money on it," Ord said. "It just
happened. I mean, I did get to meet Danny Rooney and his wife,
and I got to know Myron and some of the players. That was nice.
But what are you going to do? You got to go out and work."
"Just
watching the tribute to Three Rivers last week at the end of
the game and hearing it again ... it's always a kick," Levosky
added.
Ord
and Levosky drifted apart by the 1980s. She stayed near her
Highland Park roots, and he moved from Point Breeze to the North
Hills. He gave up his Steelers season tickets. He married. Time
passed. Before long, there came the celebration of the Immaculate
Reception's 25th anniversary. He was invited to the banquet
at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in 1997, but he would
only appear for a short time. You see, his wife, Patty Shabla,
was in the end stages of cancer.
Tunch
Ilkin introduced Ord and Cope to the banquet crowd, "we did
our little schtick, and I got home." A week and a half later,
the cancer consumed his wife. A month and a half after that,
his employer sold the business and handed Ord a severance check,
remarking that his services were no longer required because
he missed too much work tending to his dying wife.
Levosky
is an account supervisor with Market Place Print, Inc., a subsidiary
of MARC Advertising. Ord is president of an internet company
he helped to start, A Curb Above Productions. They didn't talk
for a generation until I found Levosky and asked if a reunion
was possible. She uncovered a phone number for Ord, and they
talked on the phone for an entire football game.
If
I delivered no other gifts this Christmas, at least I could
feel good about uniting them back at a Downtown tavern table,
side by side.
"In
this enlightened age, you can pull up all the information you
want on the internet about the Immaculate Reception," Ord began.
He looked at the handsome blonde woman sitting to his right.
He smiled. "We live on."
