Troy Polamalu Made this Middle Schooler's Week and Possibly His Life

Thirteen year old, Bailey Angle looked at his mirror and saw that after losing all his wrestling matches that week, he had a big cut on his lip from his braces. His dad was driving him home from a match when they went through a drive thru and his dad had some exciting news. Angle's father leaned over and showed him a text that confirmed tickets for the AFC Championship game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and their rivals, the Baltimore Ravens.

The eight grader could not contain his excitement as he winced a smile. The week went on and Angle lost another match on Friday before the game. Nothing could take away the happiness he felt as he knew this game would define whether the Steelers would go to the Super Bowl or not.

This was not his first football game; Angle and his dad had made several 5 hour trips out to watch Steelers games.

"My dad was a fan when they [the Steelers] were really good in the 1970s and he started foing to their games in the 90s," Angle said. "We would go to at least one game a year but that was my first championship game ever."

The Steelers had just trounced the Chargers and beat the Ravens in another game that season, but Angle still had his doubts.

"I thought it'd be awesome if we won but in the back of my head I thought it'd be too good to be true if I was there for that," Angle said.

Saturday morning came around and the five hour drive from New Kent, Virginia to Western Pennsylvania was fulll of jokes and football talk.

"We then hung out at the hotel all day that Sunday and got somefood around the city just to waste some time before the game," Angle recalls.

Just a few hours before the big game on Sunday, the pair was shipped in a hotel tram to Heinz Field. They finally made it inside the stafium with an hour to spare before kickoff.

"As the start of thegame inched closer and closer, the wave of Terrible Towels overwhelmed my eyes," said Angle. "I had been to Steelers games before, but nothing compared to this."

The game was a close tug of war between the Ravens and the Steelers when on the Ravens’ last chance to drive, Troy Polamalu returned an interception for a

touchdown that clinched the Steelers trip to the Super Bowl.

"After he crossed the goal line, my Dad and I hugged and screamed in excitement," Angle said. "I wasn’t just excited that my team had won, but that I was with my Dad to see it."

As Angle and his father made their way back to the tram, they saw fans rejoicing and people hugging in the streets. The two finished the night off by celebrating and eating dinner at Steak 'n Shake.

Now a Junior Multimedia Journalism major with a bright future in sports broadcasting ahead of him, Angle recounts this game as one of the most memorable events in his life.

"It was probably the combination of having fun with my dad, just the two of us and the weight that this game had on the season," Angle said. "It's also pretty spectacular that he [Polamalu] didn't get tackled because if the Raven's scored, they would have won."

Angle reccounts the intestity he felt among die-hard Steelers fans and the fireworks after they won but experiencing it all with his dad made it one of the best experiences of his life.

"Out of my whole family, we'd be the ones that most enjoyed the game," Angle said. " The Steelers went on to win the Super Bowl after this game."