Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett has had an up-and-down start to his second NFL season.
His team is out to a solid start, with Pittsburgh sitting at 4-3. He has displayed a flair for the dramatic and a knack for clutch fourth-quarter play, notching come-from-behind wins over both the Baltimore Ravens and Los Angeles Rams.
But the negatives have largely outweighed the positives for Pickett and the Pittsburgh offense thus far. The Steelers are currently bottom five in passing yardage, rushing yardage, and points scored.
Pickett exited Pittsburgh’s last outing, a 10-point home loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, with injured ribs. But he doesn’t seem to think the injury, or the quick turnaround, will impact his availability heading into Pittsburgh’s Thursday night showdown with the Tennessee Titans, telling reporters, “I’m playing, for sure.”
This means Thursday will mark Pickett’s next opportunity to get Pittsburgh’s offense on track. Steelers fans, players, and coaches will all be rooting for, if not exactly expecting, that outcome. So too, will Pickett’s wife, the former Amy Paternoster.
Who Is Kenny Pickett’s Wife, Amy Paternoster?
Pickett and Paternoster weren’t exactly high school sweethearts, but they weren’t too far off either. The signal-caller spoke to People about how the two New Jersey natives met in a setting none too surprising for a couple of former standout student-athletes.
“We worked out at the same place growing up because Amy played soccer and I played football,” Pickett told People. “We started training at this place when I was like 12 years old and Amy might have been 10, so I knew her growing up from there.”
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While the two knew of one another from a fairly young age, they didn’t link up romantically till years later. After both had already gone off to college.
Pickett, of course, went to the University of Pittsburgh and starred as the quarterback for the Panthers. Paternoster, evidently something of a scholar, studied economics at Princeton University.
2' left, 1st | Princeton 4, Bucknell 0
Amy Paternoster makes it a 4-0 lead late in the half!
Watch the game here: https://t.co/yH0VvKx2Ae pic.twitter.com/Wl2YF68yiF
— Princeton WSoccer (@PrincetonWSoc) September 28, 2021
While Pickett was rewriting the record books at Pitt, Paternoster was making her own mark athletically. The 2018 Gatorade Girls Soccer Player of the Year in the state of New Jersey would prove to be a steady contributor at the next level for the Princeton Tigers.
In three collegiate seasons, she registered five goals and six assists in almost 900 minutes worth of playing time.
It was a chance encounter during a holiday break that led to Pickett and Paternoster’s romance beginning in earnest.
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“We never talked, and then she went off to Princeton, and I went to Pitt. We came home on a college break and saw each other at a party and hit it off,” Pickett told People.
The two made their relationship official soon thereafter, becoming an item publicly in April 2021 (per Us Weekly). Just under a year later, they shared news of their engagement.
Pittsburgh QB Kenny Pickett gets engaged to girlfriend Amy Paternoster https://t.co/u9CEzb84gt pic.twitter.com/ruezLa73ED
— New York Post (@nypost) January 25, 2022
“When I think of my life, I think of you — because I will never be able to go a day without you,” Paternoster captioned a series of snaps from the romantic moment. “I cannot put into words the love I have for you, but I promise to show you every day for the rest of my life.”
Much like any Steelers fan worth their salt, Paternoster is devoted to her husband and the team’s quarterback. She’ll be cheering just as hard as any other Pittsburgh fan for her husband to get a crucial dub against Tennessee on Thursday night.
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