# Sports and the Steelers bar

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "Sports and the Steelers bar," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/sports-and-the-steelers-bar/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*Asked whether he enjoys any sport, John Kiriakou named baseball and football, and described walking to a Steelers bar in Clarendon, Arlington, to watch a game he could have watched at home, for the five hundred screaming Pittsburgh fans.*

- **Sports he follows:** Baseball and football, both regularly
- **The team:** The Pittsburgh Steelers
- **Where:** A Steelers bar in Clarendon, Arlington, Virginia
- **Why not at home:** "Even if the game's on here at home, I'll walk to a Steelers bar"
- **What he goes for:** "500 screaming Pittsburgh Steelers fans"
- **Rall's answer to the same question:** "My answer is no"

**Sports and the Steelers bar** records [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)'s answer to a viewer who asked both hosts on 25 February 2026 whether they enjoy any sport, and what they most like to watch live.

[Ted Rall](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ted-rall) handed it over and disposed of his own answer first, *"John, you better answer this cuz my question is short. The end. My answer is no."*[1]

Kiriakou's was not short. *"I do. I love I love baseball and football. I watch both regularly."*[1]

## The walk

What he described next is a preference for the room over the broadcast. *"Football is like such a big deal to me that even if the game's on here at home, I'll walk to a Steelers bar in Clarendon, Arlington, Virginia here, and um just so I can be surrounded by 500 screaming Pittsburgh Steelers fans."*[1][2]

The detail is a small piece of biography that the corpus otherwise carries only in fragments: a Pittsburgh allegiance kept up in Virginia, and a willingness to leave the house for the crowd rather than the game.

Rall's reply was that he envied people with that kind of passion, and named his own, buzkashi, which he said he would watch every day if it were available, and which requires a trip to Afghanistan or Central Asia to see.[2]

## See also

- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)
- [Ted Rall](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ted-rall)
- [The Greek community of Warren, Ohio](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/greek-community-of-warren-ohio)

## Sources

1. DeProgram (Ted Rall) (2026-02-25), at 31:14. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI7gFn7KjzI&t=1874s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-25-deprogram-ted-rall-deprogram-ted-rall/
2. DeProgram (Ted Rall) (2026-02-25), at 31:46. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI7gFn7KjzI&t=1906s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-25-deprogram-ted-rall-deprogram-ted-rall/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/sports-and-the-steelers-bar/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt