ANSWER
The Steelers logo originally belonged to the U.S. Steel Corporation, but was later adopted by the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) to represent the entire steel industry. As such, it was a natural choice of insignia for the then plain-helmeted Steelers, even if the suggestion did come from Republic Steel, a company headquartered in the arch-rival town of Cleveland. Still, they liked the idea, so for the 1962 season, the new logo adorned the Steelers helmets.
The only hitch was, at the time the Steelers had gold helmets, and equipment manager Jack Hart wasn't sure how the new logo would look against a gold background, so he ordered it applied to only the right side of the helmets. That season the Steelers had their best season in team history. They finished 9-5, and made it to the playoffs for the first time ever. To commemorate the playoff game, they switched to a black helmet, which highlighted the logo even better. Since the one-sided logo generated so much attention and brought them such good fortune, they decided to leave it that way permanently.
Additional trivia:
- The Los Angeles Rams were the first team to have an insignia on their helmets. In 1948, Rams player Fred Gehrke hand painted the now familiar Rams horns on the teams' leather helmets. The next year they switched to plastic, with the colors baked right in.
- The AISI logo is called the "Steelmark". In 1963, the Steelers petitioned the AISI to allow them to alter the Steelmark for their helmets, by changing the word "Steel" to "Steelers".
- Those four-pointed star shaped thingies in the Steelmark are called hypocycloids. They are formed by tracing a point on the edge of a circle as it rotates around the inside a larger circle. (Anyone remember Spirograph?)
WHO GOT IT RIGHT: Robert Walker, Bob Milligan, Robin Campbell, Kati Williams, Brian Hitchcox, Matthew Harrington, David Ervin, Yanitz Grinell, Linda Ging, JP Weigt, Farron Kempton, Scarlet Esho, Jim Ahumada, and James Forsyth.
