Rick Foss is a friend. He’s an impassioned and clever football conversationalist.

He’s also a card-carrying, Terrible Towel-waving fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers, which for this weekend means that he has the intellectual capacity of a banana slug on crack.

Only kidding. I try to avoid the prevailing level of sports and political discourse in this country. That is, screaming and calling names until you’re exhausted and everybody forgets what you were debating.

Besides, it’s tough to assassinate the character of somebody so geeked-up about a professional sports team that he’ll consider having its logo tattooed God-knows-where on his body. You can’t add much that isn’t obvious.

He means it, too. Rick threatened this permanent act of super fanaticism three years ago if the Steelers beat the New England Patriots in the AFC championship. Of course, his Steelers took great pains to show their rank inferiority as a franchise that afternoon. Or maybe the fix was on and somebody was receiving a financial kickback from Rick’s wife.

Whatever the case, the game’s on again. So’s the pledge.

“No tattoo yet, but I am making an appointment,” he boasted. “Can’t decide on the diameter yet. Their logo is first. Then later, I may add a bold STEELERS’ written like I-beams with a Super Bowl trophy underneath and list all the years won. Leaving room for more. I can almost feel the needles now.”

You’re wondering what’s wrong with Rick, and I might offer a little keener insight than some of his Lisbon neighbors.

This extreme posturing and self-sacrifice (I vow to shave my sideburns and give up caffeine for a day if the Patriots win) has been building since early October. ‘Twas then, four weeks into the football season, that Rick and I began a weekly exchange of prediction-heavy e-mail and dared anticipate that his Steelers and our Patriots would be the final two teams standing in the conference that matters.

His verbal jabbing intensified when Pittsburgh dealt New England an injury-aided defeat on Halloween. Then it really started stinging when the Patriots lost to the wretched Miami Dolphins the Monday night before Christmas, gift-wrapping playoff home field advantage for the Steelers.

Earlier this week, I notified Rick that my fee for reading his flowery prose this season would be out-ing him to thousands of readers who worship at the feet of Robert Kraft.

“I’m flattered and honored,” he said, “to put a target on my face again in support of the best team in the NFL this year.”

Like every fan claiming allegiance that makes no geographical sense, Rick is careful to point out that he’s no bandwagon passenger. He was a childhood fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates, forgivable enough in the 1960s, and his interest in that city’s baseball team carried over to the gridiron.

I wasn’t around back then, but the history book tells us that those Steelers made the egregiously awful Patriots of the early 1990s appear mighty.

When listing his favorite Steelers, Rick goes out of his way not to wrap himself exclusively in the Steel Curtain. Jack Lambert and “Mean” Joe Greene are followed by a recent All-Pro linebacker, Greg Lloyd.

“Just to show I don’t live entirely in the past,” he said.

I’ve given Rick ample room to wax hyperbolic about rookie quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, whom he’s affectionately labeled “Ruthlesskiller.” But he can’t get away with christening Big Ben the second coming of Terry Bradshaw, so he doesn’t try.

In fact, when approached in a weaker moment, Rick concedes that he hasn’t priced Super Bowl tickets yet.

“I give the edge to the Steelers on defense, and the clock-eating running game,” he weighed in. “The Steelers should win a close defensive struggle. Maybe 21-20. Pittsburgh has all its weapons and tools ready.”

So does the tattoo parlor. And so do I. Namely, the Monday morning e-mail containing my condolences.

Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. His e-mail is [email protected].