Key Takeaways
- Former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin launched a YouTube series showcasing the sprawling Minecraft city he has built over 12 years.
- Tomlin started playing to spend time with his children, who contributed buildings to the densely packed city and its carefully designed interiors.
- He calls creative-mode building “therapeutic” and a way to “detach from the realities and the pressures of life.”
Former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin just launched his YouTube channel with a showcase of his impressive city built in Minecraft.
In a video shared on the platform, which he has indicated will be the first in a series of videos, Tomlin explained that his son, Dino, convinced him to start documenting his interest in the popular video game. “When my kids were in middle school, they’d be in their room all weekend,” he shared. “They’d have friends over, and they were obsessed with playing this game, Minecraft, that I knew nothing about.”
Tomlin said he eventually became “mesmerized” by the game because it managed to occupy his children’s attention spans for extended periods of time. He admitted that he’s “not skilled enough” to engage in the survival mode or the fan-made game modes, but he got interested in building in the creative mode.
“It was a means of spending time with them,” he shared. “They participated all over this city. All of my kids have buildings.”Tomlin said he started small, but over the course of twelve years working on it in his free time, he’s created a densely populated city with a large variety of buildings. Many of the buildings even include decorated and well-planned interiors, representing his passion for urban architecture.
He added that he found the game “therapeutic,” even if he described the building process as “mindless entertainment.” Tomlin admitted that he doesn’t watch a lot of TV, so he used Minecraft as a way to “detach from the pressures and realities of life.”
“You'll find appropriate number of public restrooms and stuff throughout all my public facilities, men's and women's restrooms,” he continued. “Not anything over the top in terms of detail ... but it was important that I represented that.” At one point in the video, he showcased a Trump Tower penthouse, but a caption underneath the video stressed, “Not an endorsement… This build is 2015… We didn’t think he would win… TWICE.”
Watch Tomlin break down some of his huge 12-year project above.
