Stop everything and check out Mike Tomlin’s YouTube video about his Minecraft city
Tuesday night was a beautiful lead-in to October, the best month on the sports calendar.
Major League Baseball offered four playoff games for sports fans, while the WNBA served up a pair of playoff contests, including a clash between Dallas and Golden State that ended in overtime.
But the real magic was playing out on YouTube.
That is where shortly after 8:00 p.m. Eastern none other than former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin was introducing the world to his Minecraft city. Weeks ago, Tomlin let slip on a podcast that he has been playing the game for years, something he started as a way of bonding with his children while they were playing the game when they were younger, but that he continued as his children grew out of Minecraft and into other games.
Rather than putting the sticks down, Tomlin kept building, and refining, his massive city.
On that episode of the Glass Half Full Podcast with Craig Melvin, Tomlin teased that he might share the city with the world on a later date.
Wednesday night was that date.
In Episode 1, titled “Rooftops, Penthouses, and Urban Living,” we were treated to Tomlin, in a grey quarter-zip, giving us just a taste of what he has built over a decade of playing Minecraft. It began with the very first building he build, what he described as a “boutique hotel,” complete with a multi-purpose conference room and what he described as an “appropriate” number of public restrooms. That boutique hotel even had a basement speakeasy.
The fun was just beginning.
While breezing by both a CVS he had built and an MLS stadium — which he promised to unveil in a later installment — he then showcased another high-end residence, complete with offices, a two-bedroom penthouse, and a beautiful rooftop recreation area. It was during this segment when Tomlin let slip a phrase that will be seared into my brain for eternity: “I got into Jack and Jill bedroom concepts … with multiple sinks.”
Incredible.
Other standout quotes included Tomlin talking about how he would “get fixated on bodies of water,” and how if you “see bookshelves, that is where I was detailing offices. It’s about high-end residences along this river.”
But perhaps the most endearing moment from Episode 1? When he showed off a The View, another high-rise residence structure modeled after a building with the same name on the campus of the University of Maryland, where his son Dino began his collegiate playing career. Tomlin shared that he would take inspiration from buildings he saw in real life, including those where his children were attending college, and work them into his city.
As the episode was playing out on YouTube, those following along on social media — and in the live thread on the new SB Nation app — were becoming overjoyed.
However, the true beauty of Tomlin’s Minecraft city was not the what he built, but why, and how that evolved over time. Yes, we have no choice but to praise our urban planning king, and his fondness for multiple sinks and need for an appropriate number of public restrooms. But this was born out of an NFL coach looking for a way to bond with his children, which is wholesome on his own, but grew into that same coach using it as a way to decompress for years, even after his children outgrew the game.
One can easily imagine Tomlin coming home after another tough AFC North battle with John Harbaugh and the Baltimore Ravens, for example, and creating something in Minecraft to unwind. He said so as much, talking about how this was “therapeutic” for him in the beginning of the episode. In a sport filled with images of coaches burning the midnight oil to find an edge, and a sport that glorifies outworking everyone else, we can now picture Tomlin, working away at a city, planning as a means of unwinding.
It might be the most relatable an NFL head coach has ever been.
You can watch Episode 1 here:
I can’t wait for Episode 2.