Former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin revealed a massive Minecraft city he spent twelve years building across multiple console generations. The NBC analyst launched a dedicated YouTube channel for the project, surprising the NFL world and drawing lighthearted reactions from former players.
Stepping away from the NFL sideline after 19 seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Mike Tomlin has found an unexpected second act in digital content creation. The longtime coach, now working as an analyst for NBC Sports, went viral by unveiling a hyper-detailed virtual metropolis he crafted in Minecraft over the span of a dozen years.
From Middle School Connection to a Twelve-Year Secret Obsession
Even after his kids grew up and slowly stopped playing as much, Tomlin kept building in creative mode, driven by a long-time personal interest in architecture.
Building the city served as a vital mental escape from the intense demands of coaching professional football. It was therapeutic for me – some mindless entertainment,
Tomlin said in a social media video. It allowed me to detach from the pressures and the reality of life. Kind of my secret obsession, and so let’s take you all through it.
Inside Tomlinburg: High-Rises, Penthouses, and Boutique Hotels
- A downtown boutique hotel equipped with a luxury spa, therapy rooms, a ballroom featuring a glass ceiling, and separate men’s and women’s restrooms.
- High-rise apartment buildings designed with multi-level fish tanks taking up entire walls in individual units, along with underground rooms utilizing glowstone for illumination when windows were not an option.
- Rooftop entertainment spaces connecting indoor lounge areas to outdoor patios, complete with dedicated movie theater setups.
- Residential high-rises built based on where his children went to college.
- A building featuring a rooftop labeled
Trump Tower,
accompanied by a video editing annotation noting it was a build circa 2015 and not an endorsement because nobody thought he would win.
Initially focused purely on density, Tomlin eventually constructed a host of high-rise apartments and multi-family buildings directly along the shore with streets and sightlines carefully arranged to guarantee that every unit featured a spectacular view.
Console Upgrades and Family Technical Support
Because Tomlin admitted he lacked computer skills, his sons helped safeguard the save file across multiple hardware upgrades, with his son Mayce noting that his father would occasionally take his PlayStation to play.
Whenever his sons returned home, they would ask him to load up the city so they can see all of the modifications he had completed. It was his oldest son, Dino, who ultimately convinced him to share the project with the world, telling him that people needed to see the city he had worked on for 12 years.
Le’Veon Bell and the NFL World React to the Virtual Tour
Former Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell, who played for Pittsburgh from 2013 to 2018 as part of the high-flying Killer B’s offense alongside Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown, took to X to share a lighthearted jab about the timeline of the secret project.
“we were tryna win super bowls and coach T was on minecraft building cities 😭”
Le’Veon Bell, via X
Other football analysts joined in on the fun, with Warren Sharp dividing Tomlin’s career into periods before and after Minecraft, while JJ Zachariason joked that the Steelers would have captured eight Super Bowls under Tomlin if the game had never existed.
With the first episode of his virtual city tour now public, Tomlin promised to release follow-up videos exploring more districts of his digital creation, including the central bay area.
More on Mike Tomlin
Worth a look
