Mike Tomlin won a Super Bowl, ranks second on the Pittsburgh Steelers’ all-time wins list and never had a losing record during his 19 seasons with the organization. On Wednesday, he revealed another side of himself through an expansive Minecraft creation.
Tomlin presented the city he has spent more than 12 years building in a YouTube video that ran nearly 20 minutes. During the tour, he discussed his interest in high-rise buildings, architecture and urban planning.
His involvement with Minecraft began after he watched his children obsessively play the game while they were in middle school. Tomlin became interested in the game’s creative mode, which gives users unlimited resources to construct cities.
The project also gave Tomlin a way to spend time with his children. Each of them participated in the Minecraft world, and their buildings remain scattered across the city.
“Over the course of time, they got just disinterested in the game. They go on to high school and so forth and off to college. Their participation became less and less over the years. My participation probably at times increased,” Tomlin says, laughing.
“At different times over the course of a 12-month calendar, I would have different levels of fixation on this.”
Tomlin recalled creating the city’s various communities, neighborhoods and buildings while dealing with challenges along the way. He described the construction process as “mindless entertainment” and “therapeutic.”
“I’m not a big TV watcher,” he says. “It allowed me to detach from the realities and the pressures of life.”
During the tour, Tomlin displayed apartments and other architectural features throughout the city. He also apologized for his “lack of stick control” while moving around the Minecraft world with a controller.
His broader plan centered on densely populated buildings positioned around a body of water. Tomlin said the city began on a smaller scale before he spent 12 years expanding it with additional neighborhoods.
The first structure Tomlin built was a “boutique hotel” featuring an executive spa and therapy rooms. Describing himself as “lighting conscious,” he incorporated glass ceilings when appropriate, along with indoor and outdoor boutiques, an elevator well and a main desk.
Another community in the city includes an apartment building with an aquarium located on each floor. Tomlin also said he was “view conscious” when designing the high rises and wanted the high-end urban apartments to have strong sightlines.
One apartment building sits directly across from baseball and soccer stadiums. Tomlin teased that those venues will be shown during another episode of his Minecraft tour.
“You’ll find appropriate number of public restrooms and stuff throughout all my public facilities, men’s and women’s restrooms,” he says. “Not anything over the top in terms of detail … but it was important that I represented that.”
Tomlin’s favorite rooftop penthouse has a “Trump Tower” sign displayed on the front. A caption beneath the video clarified, “Not an endorsement. … This build is [circa] 2015 … we didn’t think he would win … TWICE.”
Tomlin placed villagers inside that building to “get a sense of how people moved throughout the space.” The structure contains open living and dining areas, a “Jack and Jill” bedroom design and an outdoor entertainment space on the roof.
The Minecraft unveiling arrived after Tomlin coached Pittsburgh for 19 seasons from 2007 to 2025. He was the NFL’s longest-tenured head coach until he stepped down Jan. 13, and he has since joined NBC Sports as an analyst.
Tomlin said he plans to return in the next episode with “something you’ll find really interesting.” He did not reveal when that next installment would be released.