* Game: Steelers (11-3) vs. Tennessee Titans (12-2), 1 p.m.

* Where: LP Field, Nashville, Tenn.

* TV: KDKA.

No big surprise that, growing up in Squirrel Hill in the 1970s, Donna and Robert Paul's three children turned out to be lifelong Steelers fans.

Larry, the oldest, remembers going to his first Steelers game in 1970 at age 5 and, over the years, watching the team from Section 222 at Three Rivers Stadium, bear-pawing popcorn because it was too cold to take his gloves off.

Nearly 40 years later, the parents remain in the Pittsburgh area, but the kids have scattered: Larry, 44, and brother Stephen, 41, are co-managing partners of Laurel Crown Partners, the acquisition arm of the family business with offices on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. Their current holdings include Ampco-Pittsburgh metal fabricator, Urban Active fitness facilities and Morton's restaurants.

Sister Karen Zimmer, 39, is a pediatrician and researcher based in Philadelphia, with an appointment at Johns Hopkins University.

Despite their distant home addresses, the Paul siblings have always made it back to town for a game or two during the season. They wouldn't miss a Steelers playoff game, and were in Detroit to witness the hoisting of the Super Bowl trophy.

Now the Paul family has made what Larry Paul would describe only as "a meaningful investment" in the Steelers, the major significance of which, he quickly pointed out, is that Pittsburgh's favorite franchise will continue to be run by members of the Rooney family.

Presumably, though, the Pauls will get better seats on game day.

"At the end of the day, this is Art and Dan's team, and we feel very fortunate that they've allowed us to get on the bus with them," Paul said yesterday.

"We feel very lucky to be part of something that is so ingrained in the fabric of the city."

The Pauls are the sole new partners with a Pittsburgh connection. Other new investors revealed Wednesday, when the NFL owners approved a deal to restructure the Steelers ownership and keep it in control of Dan Rooney and his son Art Rooney II, were Knoxville, Tenn., businessman James A. Haslam III and movie producer Thomas Tull.

But despite the Pittsburgh connection, Paul said his family had no previous business ties to the Steelers and did not previously know the Rooneys beyond the occasional introduction at a local social event.

It just so happened that the Pauls had been looking for business opportunities with an NFL team for a while and, through a combination of letting people know and the Rooney family needing to restructure the team ownership, "the deal kind of came to us," he said.

"It was completely serendipitous that our interests happened to overlap with the family situation going on with the Rooneys."

Paul said "I'm not quite sure" what his family's role will be in its latest venture. He anticipates "a good, constructive relationship" with the Rooneys in which the Pauls share their expertise for running the business, as well as ideas for making Steelers games a better experience for fans.

"It comes down to how we can help Art and Dan do what they do. It's not like I'm going to sit there and tell them who should start at left tackle, or who they should draft on draft day."

His is a private family, Paul said, and he expects that after this initial attention they will blend into the background where "we're just another set of fans, dressed in black and gold, cheering for another Steelers victory."