Dan Rooney made the Steelers
You really can’t say enough good things about the late Dan Rooney.
He had it all and did it all. How many NFL owners ever served as a United States ambassador? Rooney was an ambassador to Ireland, and it wasn’t some cushy job. Rooney worked hard to better both countries and loved every minute of it.
He was kind and compassionate, but he was also very smart and a tremendous businessman. He could be tough, but he knew when to compromise and how to form a consensus when it was needed to move ahead.
Not only was he one of the best owners in the history of the NFL, he was also a force behind the scenes and helped make it into the most successful leagues in the history of sports.
Then, there’s the Rooney Rule, which was developed in honor of Dan Rooney and has led to the hiring of many minority coaches in the NFL.
But beyond all that is his role in the development of the Steelers. Consider that before he took over the reins of the Steelers, they were regarded as losers. His father, Art Rooney, was beloved by all, but he did a terrible job of running the Steelers. His real passion and interests were in boxing and horse racing. To him, the Steelers were little more than a hobby. And why not? Back when he bought the Steelers in 1933, pro football was a novelty. There was very little money in the game. There was no TV revenue, and attendance depended more on the weather than the talent on your team.
Boxing and horse racing were much more lucrative than pro football, and that’s why Rooney concentrated his efforts on those sports.
But all that changed when Dan Rooney took control of the team in the late 1960s. One of his first moves was to hire Chuck Noll as the team’s coach.
I remember Dan Rooney coming to St. John’s Roman Catholic Church in Monaca where I grew up. He was the guest speaker for some type of church dinner there. He talked about the recent hiring of Chuck Noll and what a great coach he would be. We all got a chuckle out of that. We’d heard this line before. The Steelers had been known for years as being cheap and had never been known to pay top dollar for a good coach. We all figured the unknown Noll had been hired mainly because he was young and inexpensive. Certainly, we thought, there had to be more qualified coaches out there than this guy.
Well, thank God, we were wrong. It turned out to be the right hiring, and the team’s destiny changed with that move.
After hiring Noll, the Steelers started getting better players and started winning on a consistent basis. Six Super Bowl victories followed. Even after Noll left, Rooney hired two other great coaches, and the Steelers kept right on winning.
Consider that before the Noll hiring, there was no Steelers Nation. Whether the Steelers played at Pitt Stadium or Forbes Field, they never attracted significant crowds. Only the away games were televised, and they never drew much interest either.
Back in those days, no one could ever have imagined that the Steelers would have consecutive sellouts at home for 44 years and draw legions of fans on the road. There were no Steelers bars, here or anywhere in the country. Certainly no one would consider going to games in zero-degree weather, dressed from head to toe in black and gold.
There also was no Steelers way. Under Dan Rooney, the Steelers didn’t make flashy moves like signing big-name free agents. They became known for developing their own players and treating them fairly. It was considered the foundation for their winning ways.
Dan Rooney didn’t do it alone, but he was the guiding force. There’s no way the Steelers would have been the same without him. It’s possible someone could have come along and done a good job in running the Steelers, but no one could have done it as well as Dan Rooney.
So, think about that when you reflect on the life and times of Dan Rooney. Sure his father bought the team, but Dan was the one who made it successful. And in fact, he made it more successful than anyone could have ever imagined.
Mark O’Keefe is the editorial page editor of the Herald-Standard, the sister newspaper of the Greene County Messenger.