They are sitting on one of Saddam Hussein's thrones. They are in an igloo in Alaska. They are in full throat at Cincinnati's Paul Brown Stadium or Dallas' Texas Stadium or hurricane-prone Miami's Pro Player Stadium.

	Members of the 911th Air Force Reserve operating out of Pittsburgh International Airport, who have been serving in Iraq since December, show their loyalty to the Steelers and their hometown. Click photo for larger image.

They are everywhere: from Baghdad to Honolulu, from Anchorage to Mexico City, from London, England, to London, Ontario, to Ontario, Calif.

They are anywhere there is a big-screen television and a satellite signal and a reason to raise a Steelers glass in triumph.

"The arm of the Steeler Nation reaches far and wide," said Tom Kelly of Severn, Md.

The Steelers Nation is tens of thousands of people giving their arms and legs and hearts and minds to a football team that has captivated folks far removed from Pittsburgh, starting with those Super Steelers of the 1970s, and is in full bloom again this year.

Whatever the reason, these people magically come together on fall Sundays so their blood pressure can rise as one, particularly when the team is faring as well as this year's 8-1 version.

This helps to explain the worldwide popularity of a small-market team whose merchandise sales rank No. 5 among all NFL teams, whose hat sales rank No. 4, whose rookie quarterback's jersey sales rank No. 2 behind only the Giants' Eli Manning (and three-fourths of those purchases came from outside Pennsylvania).

This helps to explain the national popularity of a team that is drawing double-digit ratings in other NFL markets. True, such ratings success may be attributable to the team's resurgence more than the its widespread fan base. Nevertheless the Patriots-Steelers Halloween evening game attracted a then season-high audience of 21.3 million viewers -- bigger than 17 of 26 baseball playoff and World Series broadcasts on Fox.

This helps to explain the 10,000-plus Steelers followers chanting "Duuuuuuuuuuce" and drowning out the host Cowboys fans Oct. 17 in Dallas.

"It looked like a Steelers home game," said Tim Campion, a Minnesota native who wound up the vice president of the Southern Steel Fan Club in north Texas. The faithful gravitated to Texas Stadium from the New Mexico Steelers club, from old Mexico, from the Tulsa, Okla., club, from even Florida and Pittsburgh.

Police at Texas Stadium caught a couple of fanatics without tickets climbing over the fence, illegally trying to get into the game.

"Those are my people; that's my heritage right there," kidded Cowboys media-relations director Rich Dalrymple, a North Hills High graduate. "As someone who grew up there, it makes me proud ... the way the Steelers are loved."

Cincinnati is another venue with a similar Steelers gravitational pull. Counts vary over the years, but often one-third of the 65,535 seats have been occupied by Steelers fans.

"We don't need the opponent's fans to fill up the place now," said Bengals spokesman Jack Brennan, who didn't know how many Steelers fans to expect today, with both teams a hot ticket. "Certainly, the fan fervor that follows the Steelers is a reflection of their consistent success over I don't know how many years."

Their unexpected rise from 6-10 to AFC co-leader has served only to drive up the numbers of fans outside Western Pennsylvania trying to either get to games or get to a tavern to watch.

"It's out of control," said Steve Burman over the telephone from Hawaii.

Organize, organize

The Steelers Nation is in need of a union.

Steelers clubs are far more loosely organized than, say, Browns Backer Clubs, although hiring a front-office type to handle nothing but boosters will do that for you. No wonder the Browns Backers have 17 international clubs, from the Alps to West Africa, and clubs in 40 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. (There are 10 in Pennsylvania alone.)

Steelers groups are more unofficial, though they all -- as if this would surprise -- seem to revolve around a Sunday watering hole with satellite TV. They pop up wherever someone deigns to collect membership dues or organize a Web site. Some clubs come under the umbrella of the Ellwood City-based Black and Gold Brigade, which counts 6,000 members nationwide (with 200 expected next week for their annual group game trip).

There are 22 Steelers clubs abroad, at least. An Ohio club was officially founded just last year, in Columbus, Akron, Macedonia and Cleveland. Others range from Hawaii to England, from Tacoma, Wash., to suburban Dallas to Kansas City, Mo., to Louisville, Ky., to Atlanta, bookended by bunches in Florida and California.

A list compiled by this newspaper, at www.post-gazette.com/steelers/steelerbars_list.asp, shows 267 Steelers bars in 45 states, from the All Star Cafe in Waikiki to Zigo's in Alexandria, Va.

Then there's Baltimore.

The Steelers Nation is deep behind enemy Ravens lines, which might explain why the club rotates meetings among five different bars.

The Pittsburgh Steeler Fan Club of Baltimore consists of more than 2,800 members, one long road trip every season -- they had 160 tickets for the hurricane-ravaged Miami game -- and one North Shore adventure. Next month, up to 250 of them are coming for the Jets game, staying at a Downtown hotel and holding a tailgate party to which they bring their own portable potties. Some members are so rabid, they purchase Ravens season tickets just for Steelers game seats.

"We came," said transplant Tom Kelly. "We took over."

Steelers Nation is his house in Severn, Md., about 17 miles from the Ravens' stadium. It is decorated wall to wall in black-and-gold baubles. Six-hundred game programs, 147 mini-helmets, 50 games on DVDs, bobbleheads, jerseys -- so much Steelers stuff, in fact, that this Altoona native recently built a 1,000-square-foot addition.

"I can't remember a day in my life without something Steelers around," Kelly said. "Maybe there's something wrong with me."

Steelers Nation is huddled inside an Alaskan igloo for the 9 a.m. kickoffs.

Rob Madara built one outside his Anchorage home in 2003, and, lo and behold, the Steelers won the five consecutive games he watched on satellite TV in there. So Madara, an Erie native who otherwise joins about three dozen other Steelers fans at the Anchorage Hooters, plans to repeat the feat this season.

"Oh, it's snowing now," said Madara, an occupational and safety manager for an Air Force base there. "But this year I'm going to make it easier and not wait for the perfect snow. I'm going to buy an igloo kit."

Steelers Nation is drinking Iron City and Yuengling as a pregame warmup to the 8 a.m. kickoffs, Hawaii time.

"We'll literally stay all day and all night, real Steeler fans," said Steve Burman, the president of the Hawaii Steelheads.

Burman is a native of Houston, Texas, the son of a Harrisburg man, and he adopted the Steelers mostly out of Oilers/Cowboys hatred. He moved from Austin to the 50th state four years ago and found a couple of dozen people occupying a cheesy bar and staring at the screen on game days. He wound up organizing the club, changing their venue, and getting Pennsylvania-brewed beer mailed in overnight. Aloha 'n 'at.

Steelers Nation is international, having branched out when the NFL started exporting TV games to Japan and England and Mexico in 1970s.

In the generation after those Super Steelers, the club has hit the road for far-flung exhibitions at Montreal in 1990, Barcelona in 1993, Tokyo in 1996, Dublin in 1997 and Mexico City in 2000. They are still such a hit that Grupo Acir -- a Spanish-language, 15-city radio network stretching from Mexico to Acapulco -- is now a press-box regular. The network started broadcasting live at the Philadelphia game two weeks ago and plans to cover every Steelers game the rest of this season.

"We're going all the way to Jacksonville [and Super Bowl XXXIX], hopefully," said Fernando von Rossum Jr., who oversees and broadcasts the games with Fernando Sr. "My father brought the NFL 35 years ago to Mexico, and that's what helped make the Cowboys and Steelers so popular.

"When we go to Pittsburgh, every time there are some fans from Mexico on the airplane traveling with us, with their families and the towels. We need to create a waiting list for Steelers tickets for Mexicans."

Steelers Nation is deep behind real enemy lines, in Iraq, in the form of Terry Thomas hoisting his Steelers flag from the throne of Saddam's West Baghdad palace.

Thomas, a fan from his youth in Bridgeport, Ohio, was sent to Iraq in the summer and fall of 2003. So the medic from the 728th Air Control Squadron got his Steelers souvenirs sent with him.

"So football definitely was a binding force. That's how I knew there were other Steelers fans out there," Thomas -- retired in Florida now -- said of the flags and Terrible Towels he spotted on tanks and tents. "Even during war, the Steelers are represented out there."

Steelers Nation is Jersey John Tobias traversing the Turnpike regularly.

This resident of the New Jersey shore has spent the past 27 years traveling to Steelers home games -- 750 miles roundtrip, Point Pleasant house to Heinz Field parking lot .

"Up until three years ago, I only missed two games. You can ask the collectors on the Turnpike," said Tobias, known around the North Shore parking lots, the Steelers offices, the Downtown Hilton and the Steeler Nation simply as Jersey John.

Even though he lives just 65 miles from Giants Stadium, Jersey John has become a veritable pied piper for Pittsburgh. Years ago, Jersey John met a young fan at the NFL draft inside Madison Square Garden and wound up taking the kid to a few Steelers games, where the now-grown man -- Dave Lockett -- continues to work as the club's public relations/media manager.

"It's amazing to see all the fans on the Turnpike," Jersey John added. "You wave, 'Hey, I'll see ya in the 'Burgh.' "

"Right now, it's so enjoyable to wake up every morning to see the sun and see the team you love on the other side of Pennsylvania on top of its division."