Paraphrasing Charles Dickens, these past few weeks for the Sports department at the Post-Gazette has been the best of times in some of the worst of times.

As our nation and our neighbors in western Pennsylvania struggle through a deepening recession, another nation -- Steelers Nation -- had a chance to rise in full throat for their heroes. The Steelers, now six-time Super Bowl champions, gave us their best even when times seemingly were at their worst.

Over the past couple of weeks, we've tried to deliver something from just about every conceivable angle on the Steelers and their championship run. From the touchdown of their charter jet in Tampa to the winning toe-tapping touchdown from Santonio Holmes, our goal both in print and on post-gazette.com is to be as complete as we can be for our readers.

Achieving that goal is not easy. You have seen the work of writers, photographers and videographers from every Editorial department at the P-G in our newspaper and Web site for the past couple of weeks. Many of those writers, particularly in Sports, grace the pages of this commemorative issue. I wanted to give a hearty thank you to all of them and to their bosses, who were so accommodating to me here. And a special thanks to Sports Editor Donna Eyring, who organized and directed our staff in Tampa.

Back on the home front, there were contributors no less important than the Tampa team. They were:

Brent Spanton, Assistant Sports Editor; Carl Remensky, Associate Sports Editor; Ben Howard, designer; Steve Ziants, designer; Rick Davis, copy editor; Randy Stoernell, copy editor; David Fink, copy editor; Rich Emert, copy editor; Megan Barrow, copy editor; Kelly Mills, designer; Bill Lowenberger, copy editor; Seth Rorabaugh, copy editor (when he's not doing his Empty Netters blog); Frank Billanti, intern copy editor; Ken Mrazik, news assistant; Steve Stempler, news assistant and David Garth, on loan from coordinating our universal copy desk, copy editor.

We hope you enjoyed all of the coverage. In these troubled times for our country, newspapers are far from exempt. We see daily stories about the sharp economic downturn in print media companies. But in that swirling sea of uncertainty, one thing shines like the comforting beacon of a far lighthouse: You, our readers.

You came to us in huge numbers, and we only hope we did our job by bringing you coverage that satisfied your thirst for this championship football team.

If indeed our dedicated group of journalists accomplished that, then we can proudly hold our heads up and claim a job well done.

Much like the Super Steelers have done six times over.

-- Jerry Micco
Assistant Managing Editor/Sports