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REWIND: The Chief · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to uh the Pittsburgh Sports Memories podcast.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: On uh this episode, we'll be reviewing one of the uh Pittsburgh patriarchs.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: He's a person that probably one of the biggest sports figures in um Pittsburgh sports history, if I could say Pittsburgh one more time.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh he uh considered the he's a founder and the patriarch of the Steelers organization.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: And um he really was more for known for his extraordinary personal skills and a general all-around good person, more than you know, the football championship, although he did keep the team afloat during the lean years.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: And that would be uh the chief, Art Rooney Sr.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: If you wonder why there are plays written about him, there's been a couple books.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: He's pretty well celebrated in the not just in the Pittsburgh area, but nationally by many national uh media types.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: He's definitely um considered one of those uh people that you know definitely uh made uh sports what it was, not just in Pittsburgh, but you know, in the whole in you know, he made the NFL the juggernaut that it is today.
1:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Steve, it's it's interesting.
1:18
SPEAKER_02: He's he is a um almost like a mythical figure in Pittsburgh, and um you just grow up just knowing who he is and who his family is, and and you see this, you know, there's pictures of him with a cigar in his mouth.
1:34
SPEAKER_02: And so it's interesting when you actually delve into okay, who was he, what's his background, what did he actually do here?
1:42
SPEAKER_02: Um and that's what we're gonna get into.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so um to begin, um, he's uh he was born to a to a family that immigrated from Ireland, and I think they ended up on the north side, and I do believe his father owned a bar on the north side, and that's where you know the the chief kind of cut his teeth there.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: And um, as he got older, he uh graduated high school.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: He be he was a boxer, he was very athletic, he played some football, but in Maine, his biggest thing was boxer, and uh he ended up barnstorming around the country, him and his uh, I think he had an older brother, and they they would barnstorm around the country.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: And I guess back in those days, that was you know back in the teens, nineteens, like you, you know, the carnival would come to town and they would have a guy like like you ever watch the movie Digstown?
2:31
SPEAKER_00: Like kind of like that, you know, where like there's this big guy, and he's like, if you can go like two rounds with him, you win like 20 bucks.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: And uh the chief was one of the guys that you would go, you know, two rounds with, but he knew how to he knew how to box.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: And uh he did that for a while, and he was he was kind of like a like a puncher, like he would get in close and kind of duke it out, and he took a lot of punches.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: And as he kept going on this barn storing tour, one of the older boxers said, Well, you come from a good family, and you know, you you're pretty smart, you know, this isn't the life for you.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: And he realized he kind of saw the handwriting on the wall that he wasn't going to become, you know, a big name boxer, and that if he kept going on this by the time he had reached his old age, just from, you know, as many boxers do, just you know, you just lose your kind of sense because you get hit in the head too many times.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: So what he did was he came back to Pittsburgh and um he ended up attending college.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: He went to Temple on an athletics scholarship, and then he finished up his education at Georgetown University.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: So um he was a pretty smart, pretty smart guy.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: And um that would definitely, I'm sure that education would benefit him later as he uh owned several different businesses.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: And knowing boxing, he became a boxing promoter.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: He would promote fights often around the um area.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, I don't know of any big name fights he pressed, but he was f friends with uh famous boxers from Pittsburgh and such.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: He also owned uh a semi-pro football team named the Hope Harveys, and that was well before the the NFL.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: He got into the NFL.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: But uh his main love was definitely baseball and horse racing.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: And this kind of goes back into the personality of uh the chief here was he liked that because you know, baseball plays almost every day in the horse track you can go every every day.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're always racing horses.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: And I think he liked that interpersonal interactions with people, and he was a pretty good uh horse handicapper.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: He could uh he knew how to play the ponies.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: He won a lot of money at the track, but he put in a lot of work, like a lot of people that do that.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, he he would get up at 5 a.m.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: and he would go down and actually uh clock the horses at the track, you know, and do his research and stuff.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: This is the days before TV and the internet, all you had was radio and the newspaper.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: So you really had to get out there and uh put your work in.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: And um, that was definitely something he enjoyed and excelled at.
5:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he he um you know, it it's interesting because he was really into sports, obviously, and boxing and you know, he had a love of sports.
5:18
SPEAKER_02: And instead of continuing to play sports, you know, he took his sort of business savvy and turned that into, you know, he could still be involved in sports, but at a management kind of level, you know, like you said, owning the the semi-pro team and promoting boxing matches and and then even managing the the horse races and figuring those out, he he decided to use sort of his brain instead of his athletic talent.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and obviously, like I said, that advice from going out boxing, and I guess he kind of, you know, if you aren't a top draw boxer, you know, you aren't gonna make enough money, and you know, how many punches do you have in uh in you?
5:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, I think he kind of was smart enough to see the handwriting on the wall, so to speak.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, he did uh get into politics with a gentleman named Bill Coyne, who was one of the top Republican leaders of this era.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, another place where he probably developed his, you know, from the bar and you know, social contact, like that was really his biggest asset was he knew how to treat people and he had a philosophy that we'll get into that served him well for his whole life and probably would serve most of us well.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: I'd like, like I myself, I love to read biographies, especially biographies of people that are successful or that I admire, because sometimes you can learn some life lessons and kind of incorporate some of their successes into yours.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: And you know, he was just of that older generation.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: If you I knew them through my my wife's grandmother, it was just kind of like that older generation kind of had this at it, this the way of treating people that I really miss.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: I really miss.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: And I hope to, you know, I I guess the only way to do that is to kind of pass it on to the younger generation, but um, not to get too far off there.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, he like I said, he was a very successful horse handicapper.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, according to his son Art Jr., who would be Dan's younger brother, they had like five kids, and they're all named like Art, Dan, Tim, and John.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: So it gets confusing.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, he took a bet from uh, I guess Tim Mara, who owned the um the Giants, was the original owner of the Giants.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: They took a took a bet for like 50K or paid out 50K on the horses.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: And uh Tim Tim Mara didn't have the money right then, so art let him pay him off slowly or eventually.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: And uh I guess Tim Mara always felt like after that, the Mars and the Rooneys have been a very close family, close-knit families.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: It's not just in the NFL, but I think there's been marriages between the families and such.
7:53
SPEAKER_02: So you know, and I the actress.
7:56
SPEAKER_02: Uh if you ever um heard of Rooney Mara, the actress, she was in like the the social network and um some other movies.
8:03
SPEAKER_02: That she's part of that family.
8:05
SPEAKER_02: That's her name.
8:07
SPEAKER_02: Rooney Mara is Rooney and Mara, the two families.
8:11
SPEAKER_02: That's why she's named that.
8:12
SPEAKER_02: I think she's Dan's niece.
8:14
SPEAKER_02: Uh, her sister, too, is an actress.
8:16
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, those two families have definitely been close and now are you know going to hip via marriage in some cases.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: And um, just to keep with the horse tracing, because uh the chief did own horses, um, he had a great day at a track called Saratoga, which is in New York, I believe.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: And uh according to rumors, he won over 250,000.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not sure.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: I didn't, I don't know if that's in today's money or back then money.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was if it was back then money, that's a lot, that's like millions of dollars.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: And uh according, they said, I guess, you know, when you have your race card, the chief hit just about every race on that card that day.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: He got he picked the winners or you know, however he bet.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: So, like I said, the chief was a great horse handicapping.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: Horse racing was definitely his first love and what he definitely excelled at over those early years.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: So uh we kind of went over this in the Steelers' dark ages a little bit, but um in 1933, once again, he has these interpersonal connections and relationships with politicians and other people.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: And he he buys into the NFL because he realizes that um from his political connections that they're gonna repeal the blue law, so they'll be able to play football on Sundays, um, which starts his uh relationship with the NFL and the Steelers.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: And um, boy, at first it was a rocky relationship for uh all involved.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: He he um he got into fights with his coaches over, I don't know what, but they they got mad at him.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: And so they I know in his one the one coach they pushed the furniture to the edges of the office, and I guess uh that these Joe Bach was a tough guy.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't like no pushover, but uh Rooney drawing on his uh barnstorming days of boxing totally just beat the heck out of uh the coach so bad that the uh players didn't respect Joe Bach anymore because he got beat up by the chief.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just can't imagine stuff like this.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean, only back then in that generation.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's I could just never uh imagine that a player and a coach and an owner would literally have just like a boxing match in there, you know.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: Could you imagine that?
10:33
SPEAKER_02: Some that there was a time when you were sort of more accountable for your words, right?
10:40
SPEAKER_02: You couldn't just go on Twitter and call somebody names like you can today, I think back then that that got you into into fights, into physical fights, and uh just it just a different time.
10:51
SPEAKER_02: Hard to hard to like criticize or or whatever that because it's just a different time, right?
10:57
SPEAKER_02: Very different.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like a total fist fight either.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: They they actually got like boxing gloves and set up like an area to do it.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like they just like okay, we're just going at it.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: They jumped over the desk.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: They actually had like for real, like like sparring match, I guess.
11:13
SPEAKER_02: And uh kind of like like challenging him to a duel, kind of like that, only without the pistols.
11:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: Nice.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh my honor has been assuaged, I guess.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh Joe Joe's wasn't too much because I guess he didn't last too much longer with the Steelers after that.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: I had a great quote, and this is just the example of how I treated a player.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: He never had a player he didn't like, and he thought every player he had was a star.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh and maybe one of those examples.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if there's more of a Bobby Lane story or what, but uh either Bobby trusted the chief or it was just so cocky that he signed a black blank contract and left uh Art Rooney to fill the details.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: Tell him, pay me what you think I'm worth.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: And uh I'm sure uh and I'm sure the chief was more than fair with that contract.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: Because I mean he and he did have a history of paying people, like he paid uh Byron White, that running back they drafted, like the most money that they'd ever paid a rookie.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: So he had tried to pay people and you know, buy good players, but uh those early years it definitely didn't work out.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: Um and he he was he was definitely a prankster, like he would definitely like like just mess with people and stuff.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: Once before a preseason game between the Steelers and Bears, um him him, him and his son Dan, his oldest son, who become later president of the Steelers, were walking down the hallway, I guess, in the hotel where the Bears were staying, and George Hallis was giving us like real fiery pep talk to the Bears.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: Oh, we're gonna beat the Steelers, and you know, here da-da.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: And so Dan goes up and knocks on the door, and um George Hallis opens and said, Oh, Dan, you're in the wrong place.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: You know, your father's room somewhere else said, and Dan says, Oh, please take it easy on the Steelers, you know, don't beat my dad's team too bad.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: Like in his little kid voice, and like all the team laughed and stuff, and you know, it was just uh just another example of uh art uh messing messing with uh the opposition there.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: He definitely in his younger, even his older days, I guess, like to uh mess with people.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: And the to beat off in the exhibition game, the Steelers beat the Bears for the first time 10 to 9.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: And uh after the game, George Hallis stated that uh Dan Rooney was the Steelers' best offensive weapon that day.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: So I guess it had an effect on the Bears.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: They did take it easy on him in a preseason game.
13:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's that's kind of a funny story.
13:39
SPEAKER_02: And uh like this is all stuff that you just wouldn't see today, right?
13:42
SPEAKER_02: You wouldn't see an owner of an NFL team sending his his young child into the into the other team's room and everybody having a good laugh about it.
13:51
SPEAKER_02: It's just things were you know, it was like you said, his his personality, and then also the fact that the league was smaller and and much more tight-knit because everybody was really a lot of those owners, Hallis and Rooney and Maris, they were they were trying to survive year to year more more than they were even maybe trying to win championships.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I it that's definitely something to be said, that there was definitely more of a camaraderie between the the owners than they're in now.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there wasn't millions and millions of dollars.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: And even the chief says that later that once TV came in, you know, it's just like all these other people came in.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: You had sports psychologists and trainers and TV executives and stuff.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: It definitely was such a different, smaller, tight-knit community, you know, when the money maybe wasn't as good.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: So you kind of lost that when you when you got the money, you kind of lost that uh tight-knit family feel, I guess.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, to his credit, um, the chief, he did find creative solutions during the war years um he combined with the Philadelphia Eagles and the Chicago Cardinals when they didn't have enough players to field a team.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, you know, say what you will, they did not win a lot in those early years.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: But I think, like you said, just surviving day to day was probably winning and uh putting enough people in the seats to pay the salary.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: That was one of the quotes Aruni said was uh the biggest thrill wasn't winning on Sunday, but meeting the payroll on Mondays.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: So definitely something to be said.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you're just trying to survive.
15:33
SPEAKER_02: Hard to imagine, given like where the NFL is now, that you would even have to think about that.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: There was a time where you even had to think about that.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: Another great thing, he he formed allies.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: We talk about the Maras, but another person he he knew he came into the league with was uh Burt Bell, who uh was one of the owners and then commissioners of the league.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: He owned uh the Eagles.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: And um, one of the things Burt Bell did was realized was, and I think Rooney kind of got on board with this, was like in baseball, the Yankees see the Pirates as their competition, or the Yankees see the Red Sox as their competition, which they are on the field, but when you're looking at the overall sports landscape and getting people to spend their money to see your product, the Yankees aren't competing against the Red Sox.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: The Yankees are competing against the Giants and the Jets.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think sometimes bigger market teams realize that.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: And I think that was something that maybe uh that that was revolutionary, and that was part of the reason the NFL has seen his success go far above other sports.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: And um so one of the big things that Burt Bell and him did was they set up the the current draft, which I guess teams didn't do that, like the best team would just kind of sign whoever the best players were available, and if you had enough money to sign them, you would sign them.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: Whereas now there was a draft system, and the team that finished last would get the best the first pick of a player coming into the league, so they would get more talent.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: And it and it really was a revolutionary thing.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, you see that in other leagues that don't don't necessarily that finally you know caught on to that, that you know, you're only really it's kind of like a chain, you're only really as strong as your weakest link.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: You know, if if you if you don't have the fans in Pittsburgh and Tampa and other places, your league just isn't gonna thrive as well as it could.
17:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, could you imagine what the NFL would look like if if you didn't have a draft where the worst team got to pick first?
17:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it would look it would look like the Premier League.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I know you're not a big soccer fan, but it would look like the Premier League, like soccer leagues do.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: Whereas the soccer teams just, you know, you have like in the English, you have six teams that have all the money.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: And in Spain, you have like two or three.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: And that that those teams have all these money, and they just they just sign whoever they want.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: And you know, if you're some little team that's not quite there, you you never even get a chance at the best players.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
18:11
SPEAKER_02: And the Steelers would would have been in that category for sure had they not implemented a draft.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I yeah.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: It it's it's one of the more revolutionary concepts and it's just shows that Yeah, there's a different way of looking at the league, you know.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: And I think other leagues have finally caught on to that, you know.
18:32
SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, everybody has a draft now.
18:33
SPEAKER_02: I mean, all the all the major sports leagues do have a uh that same style of draft too, where the worst team gets to pick first, or at least there's some kind of lottery where the set of worst teams, yeah.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: The penguins kind of ruined that with the tanks.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, you at least get a certain percentage of top draft picks.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: Right.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: And it's funny to hear sometimes like the big market teams complain about it still.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: Like you hear a reporter, everyone's well, why does Miami get this pick?
19:01
SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, yeah, just because you make all the money doesn't mean you know you get every little advantage here.
19:07
SPEAKER_02: Well, well, those early NFL owners, like, you know, to your point, that was that was one of their big things is the the league has to succeed as a whole.
19:18
SPEAKER_02: It can't just be one or two teams being successful.
19:21
SPEAKER_02: And so there's a lot of unselfishness with things like that.
19:25
SPEAKER_02: Later on, the revenue sharing, um, you know, if if they didn't have stuff like that, the league would not have been successful.
19:31
SPEAKER_02: It would have been a couple of a handful of teams that were good and nobody else was, and then nobody would have gone to the games in those smaller towns where the teams weren't very good, and that those teams would have faded away.
19:42
SPEAKER_02: So um it it required a lot of unselfishness from people like the chief and and his contemporaries to build up the NFL to what it is today.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and in researching this, I didn't realize the Giants, like the Maras had a tough time in New York.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: Like there was that AAF where Cleveland came from.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: Like they had a couple teams in New York that the Giants had to fight for fans and fight off for years to get a fan base from.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't like, you know, I always just think, I always just thought, oh, well, the Giants, they just kind of just showed up and always had a fan base.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: No, like the Maras, they really had to fight to keep their team afloat because there was a lot of other rival leagues.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: So I'm sure that led to it too, thinking of the of the um of the league as a whole instead of just oh, are the Giants gonna survive, you know?
20:33
SPEAKER_00: So I mean it's it definitely is a lot of unselfishness, but you know, it definitely been look at what it's done for the for the NFL.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, just another example of the chief and like his great, I have a great quote, you know, he has at the end here.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: Um one one day after uh Walt Keysling, I think it cut Johnny Unitis, they ran into Johnny Unitis.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Um he was, you know, he was still in town, but he hadn't gone down to Baltimore to you know get signed and become the rest is history kind of moment.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: But they ran into Johnny Unitis.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: It was in the car, and uh the chief rolled down the window and just said, Oh, hey, Johnny, uh, you know, sorry didn't work out.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: And you know, good luck.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, I hope you you have good luck wherever you end up.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: And I mean that's that's just like you know, one of those things that you know you just got cut by an employer, but you know, at least they're like human about it, you know.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: Of course, the infamous story um at the end of the playoff game in Oakland, the final payoff, the chief finally gets uh gets his playoff when he's in he's in the elevator and he misses the immaculate reception.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: Which uh, you know, it was enough, but uh he did he did find out when he uh I mean, could you imagine going in the difference in his attitude probably from when he went in that elevator to when he came out down in the basement at Three River Stadium?
21:54
SPEAKER_00: He was definitely shocked when he came out and they won.
21:58
SPEAKER_02: And I and I think the reason he went down.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Early was because he wanted to be in the locker room for when the team came in to sort of you know tell them, Hey, you know, good season, don't be disappointed, you guys did great.
22:09
SPEAKER_02: Like, I think he went down there to encourage the players.
22:12
SPEAKER_02: So, like, that was the reason he was in the elevator.
22:14
SPEAKER_02: He wasn't just like going to get a drink or something.
22:16
SPEAKER_02: He actually wanted to get down there ahead of time so he could be there when the players got in the locker room.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: And no, he didn't meddle with the team like, you know, oh, like you know, your owners call this play or you know, cut this player.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: He would, you know, he would just kind of let the coaches handle that, which is probably smart on his part once he got the right coach.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: But uh he definitely um was a personable owner.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: And uh the players, like I said, the uh one of the more enigmatic players that ever played for the Steelers, Terry Bradshaw, loved the chief.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: And you know, the chief called him the blonde bomber.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: And um after uh the first Super Bowl when the chief called Terry and Terry Bradshaw and said, You made me a big shot.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: I can't go anywhere.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's recognizing me now.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: I guess he he liked to keep it and he liked his anonymity there, and he lost a little bit that with some success.
23:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
23:15
SPEAKER_02: It says a lot about the chief that Terry Bradshaw is one of those guys who's very he says different things at different times.
23:23
SPEAKER_02: He's all over the map when he talks about different things.
23:26
SPEAKER_02: He's anytime I've ever heard him talk about our Rooney, including in his Hall of Fame induction, it's just with just complete reverence and admiration and love for this guy that was the owner.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's that that that's the type of influence type of person that he was.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, like I said, he let the chief uh let his son ring run the team.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: Um he didn't interfere with Dan when he moved out of the way and Dan took over in the late 60s.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: Um, even in the 80s when Dan fired his one his younger brother and Art's son, you know, he he he said to our junior said, Dan's running the team, it's his decision.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: You we have to abide by it.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: And um that takes a lot of uh fortitude, I imagine, especially in you know the family, that family stuff can be tough.
24:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we talked about this in a previous episode, how you know if you will if you want to look at a turning point for the Steelers, it's really when he hands over control to Dan.
24:25
SPEAKER_02: Um, and we talked about um Bill Austin, the coach before Chuck Knowle.
24:30
SPEAKER_02: You know, Art had hired him.
24:32
SPEAKER_02: So as great of a guy as Art was, he wasn't all that great at running the football team.
24:38
SPEAKER_02: And he hired Bill Austin as the coach because Vince Lombardi said, Oh, if this guy's one of my assistants, I can vouch for him, he's the best.
24:45
SPEAKER_02: And Dan said, Okay, well, why don't we bring him in for an interview?
24:48
SPEAKER_02: We'll bring six other guys in for an interview, then we'll evaluate who's the best because that's what you're supposed to do.
24:54
SPEAKER_02: And Art said, Oh, don't worry, I already hired him because Vince said he was good, and Bill Austin turned out to be a terrible coach.
25:00
SPEAKER_02: And so when Dan took over, he started doing things like that.
25:03
SPEAKER_02: And when they hired Chuck Noel, it was a much more involved process.
25:06
SPEAKER_02: And this time they got the right guy, obviously.
25:08
SPEAKER_02: Chagnol went on to win four Super Bowls.
25:11
SPEAKER_02: Um, but you know, a good leader does that.
25:14
SPEAKER_02: A good leader knows when to step out of the way and let maybe let somebody that has a little bit more acumen or a little bit more skills in a certain area um take over.
25:26
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes when you do that, you have to put aside your ego a little bit, right?
25:30
SPEAKER_02: You have to put aside your control, your need for control.
25:34
SPEAKER_02: And that's what art did.
25:35
SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, that that's a big deal that he let Dan take over.
25:38
SPEAKER_02: And I don't think the Steelers have the success that they do if he doesn't make that decision.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: And I think too, it made nice that he combined that with, you know, his overall philosophy, which um we'll get into here, which I've been kind of teasing it, is um art and art rooney, I we've all heard the golden rule, treat everybody as you want to be treated.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Well, Art kind of put his own little spin on it there.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: He said, treat everybody the way you'd like to be treated, give them the benefit of the doubt, but never let anyone mistake kindness for weakness.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: So he kind of took like, you know, a little bit of the golden rule and put a little Norse side on it there.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, it's okay, you know, treat everybody how you want it.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: And he would.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: He would like he'd greet everybody from the groundskeepers to Pete Rossell, exactly the same.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: He'd talk to everybody on the team.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: If you know, you're just a little person to you know the most important person in the league.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: It was Pete Rossell probably at that time.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: So that was definitely something that uh benefited him well and made nice one.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: And Dan, Dan too kind of saw that and took those lessons from his father and incorporated with his football skills, and that definitely has made for a very successful organization.
26:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's stories, there's stories of him talking to like the cleaning people at the offices of of the Steelers and things of that nature.
26:56
SPEAKER_02: He was just that kind of guy.
26:57
SPEAKER_02: Like it didn't matter.
26:59
SPEAKER_02: Um, it didn't matter, you know, who you were.
27:02
SPEAKER_02: Like it wasn't like, hey, I'm the owner.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: It was just you're another you're a human being, I'm a human being.
27:06
SPEAKER_02: Let's have a just a conversation.
27:08
SPEAKER_02: He never never really saw himself apparently as above anybody else.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and um he definitely rubbed off on Dan that way because remember, Dan used to let uh Ike Taylor sleep in his office.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: And they used to say that, but you could go into Dan's office or the sheet, and you couldn't do that.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: Like in other organizations, you weren't gonna walk into Al Davis' office or you know, whoever Carl Rosenbloom or whoever owns the Colts back, you know, you weren't gonna do that in other organizations, yeah.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a good point.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, later years, some of the stuff he did.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, he helped uh the pay bring the penguins, they were a minor league hornets before the 67 expansion in the NHL, and um he helped uh facilitate them becoming a professional franchise, and he was part owner of the penguins during the early years of the 70s.
28:00
SPEAKER_02: Uh another funny thing that's an interesting story.
28:04
SPEAKER_02: The the penguins had their 50th anniversary uh a couple of years ago, and they did this this really good documentary.
28:11
SPEAKER_02: It's I think you can still go out and watch it on their website or on YouTube.
28:14
SPEAKER_02: And and they talked about the founding of the team, and that's a story I'd never heard before.
28:18
SPEAKER_02: Like the the the when the NHL expanded, they had six teams and they were going to add six teams.
28:23
SPEAKER_02: Um, but in Pittsburgh was one of the candidates, the Penguins, and um and Art like was friendly with some of the guys, the NHL executives or whoever that were making the decisions, and he actually called and said, Look, you you know, you should you should admit Pittsburgh is one of the teams, and the guy, the the gentleman that was going to be the owner, you know, he said, I know this guy, and and he looked he actually you could legitimately say that the penguins maybe don't exist if he doesn't intervene.
28:54
SPEAKER_02: Like that's a legitimate thing you can say, and I never even knew that until recently.
28:58
SPEAKER_02: Um so not only is Art Rooney responsible for the Steelers, he's also at least partly responsible for the Penguins.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: At least in the early years, yeah, he started started the Penguins.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: I mean, or helped start them.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, one of one of those uh so he really is like a sports patriarch in this town.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: Like when people use that, you gotta think he's responsible for more than just the Steelers.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, the so much so that the uh when he when he passed away in 1988, the county wanted to make his house a historical landmark.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: The Rooney's turned that down, and actually Dan moved back there, and that's where Dan lived until he passed away.
29:33
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, and and Art lived in that same house.
29:35
SPEAKER_02: It was on the north side.
29:37
SPEAKER_02: It was a pretty modest house.
29:38
SPEAKER_02: It was not a not a mansion, it wasn't um, you know, anything like a gated community.
29:44
SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you look at NFL owners today, and even back then, I mean, NFL owners by that point by the by the time Art died in 1988, you know, NFL owners, the NFL was pretty big even back then, and um he could have been living in you know, Fox Chapel or one of these nicer Pittsburgh neighborhoods.
30:02
SPEAKER_02: He just stayed in that same house on the north side.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Dan Dan ended up fixing it up and uh moving from uh I guess he lived in Mount Lebanon.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: He moved back after Art died in 88.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: And he used to walk to the games.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: Dan used to walk to the games.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: So like I said, like father like son, it was you know real tribute to the to the chief.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: Um uh just another funny story.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh, one time when he was in a hotel, the chief was at a hotel in New York, a drunken party was next door to his room and they were like real loud all night.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: And like I said, his routine was to get up at 5 a.m.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: and go and you know, get clock the horses to set up his day at the track.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, they kept him up, and I guess they were yelling anti-Semitic comments about like, you know, about Jewish people all night.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: And so, like, when they finally went to bed at like three or four, the chiefs started like calling their room like every five minutes and asking for like Mr.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: Schwartz or Mr.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: Goldfarb, like obviously like Jewish sounding names just to mess with them.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: And so he did that for a while until he had to go to the track, and then he paid like the switchboard operator to to keep doing it for like the next couple hours.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, the chief the chief uh definitely liked to mess with people.
31:16
SPEAKER_02: It was uh that was another that's a side of them that you probably never hear about, right?
31:22
SPEAKER_02: Because it's just those aren't the things that were reported back then, or people would only know that from first hand accounts.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was in his son's book.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: Uh, or like uh I was reading uh the art model, like they were in Cleveland one time playing a game, and like and art was like they were, I think it was in '95 when after Art had moved the team, or maybe not, I don't know, they were losing, and art was trying to like beat it out of there.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: He didn't want to get bothered.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: And like you hear somebody yelling, art, art, art, and finally he turns around and there it's the chief, and the chief like thumbs his nose at him just to mess with them.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: Like, like who does this stuff?
31:58
SPEAKER_00: It's just like just being silly.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh, like I said, he uh talked to all the people.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, another great, great thing that the chief did was uh even the people that maybe he didn't get along with too well, like Al Davis, like that was definitely someone who was an arch rival of the Steelers from the Immaculate Reception to competing with all those great teams in the 70s.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: And um there was um an incident between the Steelers and the Raiders where Chuck Atkinson knocked out Lynn Swan, like on like a I think it was like a clothesline, it was a really dirty cheap shot hit.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: And so like after the game, like Chuck Knoll said there was a criminal element in the NFL, referring to Chuck Atkinson and the Raiders.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: So Davis uh paid for George Atkinson to sue Chuck Knowle in court for defamation, which you know was just like horrible for the league and really bad.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: And it was just kind of like Al Davis too was suing the league because he wanted to move back.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: Did he want to move to Oakland or from Oakland?
33:01
SPEAKER_00: It was he was moving the Raiders to either LA or Oakland, and he was suing the league.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: So I think he just did this to just to annoy the Rooneys.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, even after all that, like Al Davis' wife got sick in like the early 80s, and um the chiefs sent her flowers and like encouraging notes, and he even visited her when she was in the hospital.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: So through all that, like this guy, like Al Davis is causing all these troubles and headaches, you know, on the business side and somewhat on the personal with his organization.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: The chief still found like you know, some humanity and yeah, just general all-round the kindness, treat people the way you want to be treated if they aren't, even if they aren't treating you the way you think they should.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, it's just uh I found that an interesting story.
33:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's pretty incredible, and that's a hard thing to do when you, you know, treating people that have rubbed you the wrong way, uh, in a way that's still loving, and that's uh that says a lot.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: Especially in court, it was a court case, yeah.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: Or crazy.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: Um as far as the Chiefs' overall like conclusion and his ownership style, um, like we said, he went he didn't meddle, like you said, he didn't have an ego.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: He let his coaches make the the decisions, and uh unfortunately the negatives were when he he just kind of hired people on other people's words and didn't take the football too seriously, so the team suffered and was really bad.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh he let it he let them constantly trade draft picks for veterans because the coaches liked veterans, didn't want to suffer through teaching, you know, oh, I don't need no rookie, screw it up where I can get a veteran.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: And you know, so they they that definitely lasted until Dan took over.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: And um, and he definitely followed his golden rule there.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: He uh treated everybody the way he wanted to be treated, and um you can see that uh really in the end it paid off.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: It was almost that Super Bowl, Super Bowl nine was the first one, right?
35:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was almost like a lifetime achievement trofe uh award for uh Art, the Chief.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: And uh definitely uh definitely a good thing that happened to everybody in the league, wanted them to win, and uh you could see it, the appreciation of the players and uh even Pete Rosel when they handed him that trophy there in um Orleans.
35:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Joe Green is quoted as saying that that was really their motivation for that first Super Bowl was to get a championship for Mr.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: Rooney.
35:31
SPEAKER_02: And so even the players really that was, you know, obviously they wanted to win for themselves, but they really wanted to win for the owner.
35:39
SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's something, again, you wouldn't see a lot of today, probably.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: No, no, not so much.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: It was definitely much more family, but um, definitely some good life lessons there.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: The chief is a character doing the boxing and uh harassing people and harassing racists in the next room.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: He was he definitely had fun in life and uh definitely a good guy and a person you can draw some life lessons from.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: Um anything else to add, Tim?
36:06
SPEAKER_02: Well, well, so here's here's a good question, Steve.
36:09
SPEAKER_02: So so he's this he's this great guy.
36:12
SPEAKER_02: So, first of all, I I want to say this.
36:13
SPEAKER_02: Like, I think, you know, what when you talk about figures from that era, um, people that existed before the days of 24-7 media, that there was a tendency to, you know, kind of like make people into these mythical figures.
36:29
SPEAKER_02: If you view it like Babe Ruth is a good example, right?
36:32
SPEAKER_02: Babe Ruth was at the time, you know, they would write these books about him and make these movies about him where at the end of the movie he like donates his kidneys to a sick kid or something.
36:42
SPEAKER_02: Um you know, and and Babe Ruth wasn't like a necessarily a bad person, but he, you know, we know today that Babe Ruth drank a lot, he he caroused around with women while he was married, you know, but none of that stuff ever got reported because that wasn't the way the world was back then.
36:58
SPEAKER_02: You didn't report on that stuff.
37:00
SPEAKER_02: And and I think with Art Rooney, um if he if he would have been the same way, that stuff would have come out by now.
37:06
SPEAKER_02: You wouldn't have had all the people saying all the things about him even years later that knew him, that interacted with him on a daily basis.
37:15
SPEAKER_02: You wouldn't see the legacy carried on in his son and grandson the way it has been, and the love uh that people around the NFL have for you know for Dan.
37:25
SPEAKER_02: Um you just wouldn't have that, right?
37:27
SPEAKER_02: So I I think it's almost like, you know, if he had any skeletons in the closet, um, I I really don't think he did.
37:36
SPEAKER_02: You know, I don't think there's some secret thing that nobody knew about because it would have come out or somebody would have said something, and you never hear a bad word ever about the chief.
37:47
SPEAKER_02: Um so that just says a lot, right?
37:49
SPEAKER_02: That that you just never hear a bad word.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it definitely speaks to his character and the character of his person.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: And um just that you know, like he just always was like a funny, funny kind of mess with people guy, too, you know.
38:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: And that's what I kind of took out of it.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: Not just, you know, he was not kind of like a straight-laced guy, but I mean, the most scandalous thing I came across was I guess he got involved with some slot machines before they were legal.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: Like they were only supposed to dispense candy, but his were dispensing money.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: And Mayor Lawrence, Davy Lawrence, who was a mayor way back when, found out about it and said, Yo, is this legal?
38:27
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I guess not.
38:29
SPEAKER_00: And Lawrence was like, I guess you know what to do.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: And he just like stopped doing it.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: So, so I mean, that's probably one of the more I mean he did do some stuff that maybe wasn't completely legal, but to his credit, when they told him to knock it off, he was like, Nope, I'm done, you know?
38:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
38:47
SPEAKER_02: And if that's the worst thing, I mean, hey, who of us haven't has dabbled in illegal slot machine gambling?
38:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I yeah, I I don't think it's really that big of a deal.
38:58
SPEAKER_00: And the fact that like when he was called out on it, he was like, Okay, well, I'll just stop doing that then.
39:02
SPEAKER_02: Well, and the fact that the fact that he was called out on it and given the opportunity to just stop again says a lot about what what because they could have prosecuted him or arrested him or whatever, and they chose not to.
39:13
SPEAKER_02: Um here's another good question, Steve.
39:15
SPEAKER_02: So let's say let's fast forward to today, right?
39:19
SPEAKER_02: Say you had an owner, an NFL owner, or even another sport, an owner that is this great guy, treats everybody well.
39:27
SPEAKER_02: Um, there are stories of art he used to carry around one dollar bills in his pocket to give to poor kids on the street, right?
39:34
SPEAKER_02: So say you had that kind of figure today with you know the way that art ran the team for 40 years.
39:40
SPEAKER_02: You know, you talked about that and we did a whole episode about the dark ages of the Steelers, you know, where they just made bad decision after bad decision and didn't win.
39:50
SPEAKER_02: I wonder what the reaction would be today if you had this really nice old guy owner that you know kept losing every single year.
39:59
SPEAKER_02: You ever you ever think about that?
40:01
SPEAKER_02: Like, how would the fans respond to that kind of thing today?
40:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't it would be almost like if all of a sudden like Bob Nutting and the Pirates all of a sudden just turned it around.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: And like in two years, all of a sudden they win like two or three World Series in a row, and then like maybe another two a couple years later, and then all of a sudden don't have a losing season.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: Like, because the same thing, like if you want read some of the stuff, like the same things that are said about like Bob Nutting, like he's cheap, he doesn't want to pay, he's incompetent, like all that was said about the chief, like when he was in his losing, when they were losing in the 50s and 60s.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: It really I it's the same kind of argument, and you know, maybe you know, people didn't, you know, fans are fans and they want to win, they want to win every year, and you know, it's just I g I guess you know, people maybe people cut him a little bit more slack because he was a nicer guy.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: But I mean it's not like that's the only thing I could think of.
41:02
SPEAKER_00: Like I was thinking that like, what if like like that's to be the only analogy?
41:06
SPEAKER_00: Like, if all of a sudden sudden the pirates just got like really good and became like this really awesome team in baseball.
41:11
SPEAKER_00: Like, would people like turn it around for Bob Nutting and be like, hey, Bob Nutting, he's not that bad.
41:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
41:17
SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, and Bob Nutting doesn't have you know decades of goodwill that he's engineered towards the city or towards people either.
41:24
SPEAKER_02: Right.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: So like it it's I don't even think he's he doesn't even live, he lives in West Virginia, doesn't he?
41:29
SPEAKER_00: Right.
41:30
SPEAKER_02: So so so imagine if like a imagine if Mr.
41:33
SPEAKER_02: Rogers would have bought the Pirates in 2002 and and or in 1993, whenever they started to get really bad, right?
41:41
SPEAKER_02: Imagine if Mr.
41:42
SPEAKER_02: Rogers or some really loved figure bought the Pirates and then proceeded to make all the same terrible decisions that pirates owners made, you know, drafting all the wrong players and signing, you know, making all the wrong decisions.
41:55
SPEAKER_02: You know, would people still be as would that would that person that bought the team still be as loved as Mr.
42:02
SPEAKER_02: Rooney was?
42:04
SPEAKER_02: And and you know, to your point, would Mr.
42:06
SPEAKER_02: Rooney have been as loved had they not turned it around in the 70s and won all the Super Bowls?
42:11
SPEAKER_02: If he if they continue to stink all the way through the 70s and all the way until that he dies in the late 80s, I you just wonder.
42:18
SPEAKER_02: I just wonder if people would think of him differently or not.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh definitely winning.
42:23
SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, he even said, like he said, you know, uh when you're when you lose, you're dumb, and when you win, you're smart, you know.
42:29
SPEAKER_00: That was the chief said that too.
42:31
SPEAKER_00: So and there is something to that people think like rich people and successful people have all the answers, and not necessarily they made their share of mistakes too, I'm sure.
42:42
unknown: Right.
42:44
SPEAKER_02: Right.
42:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but nevertheless, I mean that that's a that's a whole what-if scenario.
42:48
SPEAKER_02: Obviously, what happened is you know, the team did turn things around, they became part of the the the consciousness here in Pittsburgh.
42:56
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the Steelers are are you know just uh uh a treasure, a local treasure, right?
43:04
SPEAKER_02: And that really goes back to the Rooney family and um and again, like you said, the way that that that Art conducted himself, the way he raised his sons and and and everybody else to conduct themselves.
43:17
SPEAKER_02: So um obviously uh very beloved figure, very very remembered figure uh in the history of the city.
43:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's for sure.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: And I mean I've seen if you see some of the internet, like not the site and internet video where they they took like four like championships, winning seasons, and I think MVP like on that the teams had, and they ranked all the four major professional sports baseball, hockey, football, basketball.
43:49
SPEAKER_00: And like the Steelers were the second highest ranked uh football team, which I right behind the Cowboys, which I was kind of surprised, you know, because they had so many bad losing seasons.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: And it just for fun, the Pirates were actually rated higher than the uh Patriots.
44:05
SPEAKER_00: They're 27 in the I don't know how the Pirates pulled that off, but but uh yeah, I it's just it speaks to his uh business acumen that the team even survived and to his uh to his character that he was beloved as uh much as he was.
44:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's it's it's neat to look back on him to to learn some things we didn't already know.
44:27
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, that that whole sense of humor that he had.
44:30
SPEAKER_02: I I think that's that's a cool thing that again people wouldn't people don't inherently know about, and realize that you know it it's rare, man, especially today.
44:41
SPEAKER_02: Anytime you build up somebody, um, they almost always fall.
44:45
SPEAKER_02: You know, whether it's it's Bill Cosby or Tiger Woods or whoever you thought was like this this great amazing figure, almost always, you know, it seems like something something ruins that view of them.
44:59
SPEAKER_02: And with our Rooney, I don't I I think that everything that's been said about him and written about him over the years, you know, holds up uh under scrutiny years later.
45:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, definitely for sure.
45:12
SPEAKER_02: All right, folks, thanks so much for listening.
45:14
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45:19
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45:22
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45:24
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