PITTSBURGH \u2014 Pittsburgh\u2019s North Shore has transformed over the past 25 years, and that transformation has helped build a strong and lasting partnership between the University of Pittsburgh and the Steelers.<\/p>\n
Pitt and then-Chancellor Mark Nordenberg knew it was a tough decision to tear down Pitt Stadium and extend the campus to the North Shore and Heinz Field.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone once said to me that moving out of Pitt Stadium has to have been the hardest decision you\u2019ve ever made,\u201d Nordenberg told Channel 11\u2019s Lisa Sylvester. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t because we did know that something had to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was the mid-1990s. The Pitt football team was in a slump, and Pitt was in a slump of its own, crumbling and breaking down.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also brought in a new coach, Walt Harris,\u201d Nordenberg said, \u201cand one of the things that Walt said was that when it comes to recruiting, recruits buy with their eyes, and what they could see with their eyes at Pitt in those days, wasn\u2019t so good.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when the Pitt and Steelers partnership began, and with it, the move to the South Side and North Shore.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say that it was kind of a mutual coming together,\u201d Nordenberg said, \u201cthough I do want to say the two of the visionaries were Steve Peterson, our athletic director, and Freddie Fu, who was in charge of the sports medicine program here.\u201d<\/p>\n
UPMC signed off on a medical complex near the new joint practice facilities on the South Side. Construction began there and on the North Shore.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sitting in my office one day, and Dan Rooney calls, and he says, \u2018We\u2019re going to be looking at carpet samples for the east club. Would you like to come down and see them?\u2019\u201d Nordenberg recalled. \u201cNow, the truth is, I wouldn\u2019t look at carpet samples for a building on Pitt\u2019s campus, but that was a sign of how he wanted the partnership to work, which was incredibly generous of him.\u201d<\/p>\n
That relationship has grown, thrived and improved just as the North Shore has. <\/p>\n
Plus, the move to extend Pitt\u2019s campus from Oakland to the North Shore helped students explore Pittsburgh and expand their horizons.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had more students attending those games down at what then was Heinz Field than we had attending the games when they were on campus,\u201d Nordenberg said. \u201cThe students really came to view it as an outing, a chance to be involved in another part of the city.\u201d<\/p>\n
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