Several years ago I read a book about basketball coach Pete Newell titled simply and appropriately A Good Man. That underrated description describes Dan Rooney perfectly. Through the twists, turns, and decisions of the NFL's past six decades one of three commissioners could always turn to Rooney and ask what the league should do. Some times he just listened. Other times he suggested. It was always wise to listen. From labor disputes to minority opportunities Rooney was closer to the right thing to do than perhaps any NFL owner has ever been.
Dan Rooney was born in 1932. That was the year before his father brought an NFL team to Pittsburgh. The team was in his blood and became his life's work. Art Rooney was a league pillar but he wasn't an effective owner. The team was terrible until his son took over the decision-making in the mid-1960s. Even before the kid took over those decisions the senior Rooney probably should've listened. Dan Rooney seemed to be the only person in Pittsburgh that saw something in a slope-shouldered, rookie quarterback from Louisville named John Unitas. Imagine how the league might've been different if the Steelers owner and coach had listened to the young Rooney kid. Art Rooney ran his team with his heart. Dan Rooney did so with his head and heart in apparent perfect harmony. He hired Chuck Noll to coach the Steelers in 1969. Five years later they had their first Super Bowl. Five years after that they had three more. Rooney hire three coaches. In nearly fifty years of football he hired three coaches. Three! His father hired his third coach in the team's third year. All three of Dan Rooney's coaching hires have won a Super Bowl. His first one won four. The Steelers have been the most consistently successful team in the league since they hit their stride in the early 1970's. That ridiculously consistent success started at the top. Three!
In the first decades of the NFL all of the teams were more Mom n' Pops than corporate giants. In the case of the New York Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers it seemed that Tim Mara and Art Rooney bought the teams more for their sons than for themselves. Wellington and Jack Mara and the Rooney boys took to football like they were born to it. They were. Even though I came to the NFL at the time between the Mom n' Pop days and the corporate days I got a little view of the way things used to be. Wellington and Dan gave me that. Their ability to run their teams with head and heart was admirable. As a big fan of football's past it was wonderful. I miss them.
The NFL lost a good man yesterday. Damn few left.
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