On the selected date to welcome to Pittsburgh the new Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin and his family, University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg was scheduled to be out of town. But as schedules would have it, a decision was made to proceed with the welcome wagon hosting in a partnership between the University and the Pittsburgh chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People((NAACP).
As one of the vice presidents of the University at the time, yours truly represented the school for the festivity, cohosting with the NAACP. That organization’s President Gayle Moss delivered her customary appropriately warm remarks to the Tomlin family and an audience of African American community supporters as well as African American University of Pittsburgh folks. In my comments, both open and private, I tried to make clear that Pittsburgh regarded itself as a city of sports champions—steel and ketchup notwithstanding.
Mike Tomlin would be the only Black coach of a major professional sport in Pittsburgh’s-then 249 years. In this town, his victories would be lauded but those African Americans assembled—and elsewhere—would be his champion in both the triumphant days and during the tough times.
Michael Pettaway Tomlin was born in Hampton, Virginia on the ides of March, 1972. He played the wide receiver position at the College of William and Mary (the alma mater of drop-out and slaveholder President Thomas Jefferson) and graduated in 1995 with a degree in sociology. He became a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity at William and Mary.
Early in his coaching career with various teams, Mike Tomlin developed as a defensive coach. And with his Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive coaching, the team won the 2003 Super Bowl, delivering a record five interceptions resulting in three touchdowns.
After a season of coaching with the Minnesota Vikings—where two players were older than he—Mike Tomlin became the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2007. I leave it to the sportswriters and others to advance the shoulda, woulda, coulda aspects of Mike Tomlin’s Steelers leadership.
I, instead, observe the glory of the Tomlin uniqueness while he coached the Pittsburgh Steelers. Coach Tomlin led the Pittsburgh Steelers for 19 seasons. He held the National Football League (NFL) record for winning more games than he lost in each of those 19 seasons. He smashed the NFL record for season winning streaks.
ROBERT HILL
At the time of Mike Tomlin’s 2025 exit from coaching the Steelers, no one in football, baseball, basketball or ice hockey in the major leagues in the United States and Canada had been head coach longer than he.
Among his other achievements as Pittsburgh Steelers head coach, the supreme victory was Mike Tomlin’s winning the Super Bowl in 2009, at the time the youngest head coach to win the Super Bowl.
Mike Tomlin was accompanied by his wife Kiya, her mother Susan Winston, little sons Dino and Mason as well as baby girl Harley at that 2007 welcome reception that was hosted by the Pittsburgh chapter of the NAACP and the University of Pittsburgh.
Morristown, N.J.- born Kiya Winston Tomlin, who connected with Mike Tomlin when she was a William and Mary gymnast, is a designer and entrepreneur. With medical doctor aspirations, she earned a William and Mary bachelor’s degree in 1996. Shifting focus, she formally studied fashion design at the University of Cincinnati.
Not merely a wife of a lionized NFL coach, Kiya Tomlin developed in Pittsburgh as that designer and entrepreneur in the world of fashion. Her Kiya Tomlin lines have earned her a place among America’s distinguished figures in the world of clothing creation, branding and marketing. She not only blends comfort and elegance in her day-to-day women’s clothing styles but has captured the spirit of the NFL with her women’s apparel for all of the league’s teams.
Kiya Tomlin’s and my paths crossed some time after the welcome party. I witnessed her designs mesmerize an audience at a fashion showcase charity event presented by Pittsburgh impresaria Demeatria Boccella. Kiya Tomlin greeted me warmly and remembered fondly the welcome party.
In 2024 Demeatria Boccella’s Fashion AFRICANA event was cochaired by Kiya Tomlin, evidence of her continuing commitment to Pittsburgh.
As a confirmed urbanite, I was impressed to learn that Kiya and Mike Tomlin did not purchase a McMansion in a toney Pittsburgh suburb. Rather, their comfortable east end Tudor home is well within the city limits of this town.
Those two little Tomlin boys grew up not in some privileged New England boarding school but here in Pittsburgh. After high school, Michael Dean Tomlin (Dino) played football for the University of Maryland and later Boston College as a wide receiver. Younger brother Mason became an Ivy Leaguer, playing defensive back at Columbia University in Manhattan. That Harley Tomlin baby girl is today an accomplished varsity gymnast at the University of Georgia.
During his 19 busy seasons as head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Mike Tomlin made time to embrace the Pittsburgh community. I saw him out and about on more than one occasion.
University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg was eventually able to greet the coach. The pair was seen on nationwide television as Chancellor Nordenberg hosted Coach Tomlin at a Big East basketball game at home here in Pittsburgh, where the coach’s William and Mary African American classmate, David Cox, had been appointed director of operations for the University’s men’s basketball team.
(Robert Hill is an award-winning Pittsburgh writer and communications consultant)