Ahead of this year’s 50th anniversary of the National Football League’s most unforgettable play, Steelers Hall of Famer Franco Harris’ “Immaculate Reception,'' comes the book Immaculate: How the Steelers Saved Pittsburgh. Immaculate weaves together the historical stories of Pittsburgh and its beloved professional football team like the linear strands of DNA—antiparallel, twisting throughout, and irrevocably connected together.
Tom O’Lenic is an accomplished biotechnology executive, sports enthusiast and boutique winemaker, born in Donora, Pennsylvania and raised in Pittsburgh. His passion for competitive athletics was seeded in his youth in the Iron City, and fueled by his family—Tom’s father played minor league baseball, and his uncle was Baseball Hall of Famer “Stan the Man” Musial.
Tom is fascinated with history and how the past influences the future, or, in some cases, doesn’t. His experience with the steel industry collapse of the mid-1970s was deeply personal, as his father, an engineer at U.S. Steel, was one of the many thousands of employees who were adversely impacted by the declining business.
Immaculate: How the Steelers Saved Pittsburgh is a passion project for Tom, who has long held the opinion the community of Pittsburgh steeled itself through its deindustrialization transformation with the galvanizing presence of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Tom currently resides in Pleasanton, California.