History of the Pittsburgh Steelers 1940, Rooney decided that he had had enough of the copycat Pirates moniker. He worked with the "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" to run a contest to find a new name for the team. Former coach Joe Bach led the panel which selected the name Steelers from amongst the The new name paid homage to the city's largest industry of It is unclear who deserves credit for suggesting the name (which was already being used by at least one local high school team), but it appears there were a total of twenty-one winners, and each received a pair of season tickets to the
2008 East Carolina Pirates football team 2000. Virginia Tech won that meeting and lead the head-to-head record 9-4. After a blocked field goal placed the Hokies up 16-13 over the Pirates, T.J. Lee would return the favor by blocking a Hokie punt and running it back for the game-winning touchdown, leading the Pirates to their first victory over Virginia Tech since 1992. This was the first time since 2002 that a Conference USA team had defeated a ranked BCS-conference team, and also made the Pirates the first C-USA team ever to defeat ranked teams in consecutive games (counting ECU's win over Boise State in last season's