Dan Rooney (36 page)

So the fans were there on February 11, 2001, for one last glimpse of Three Rivers Stadium. They watched from the rooftops and windows of Pittsburgh's downtown skyscrapers. Patricia and I decided to stay home. Though our house was only three blocks from the stadium, we watched the implosion on television.

It was both a sad and happy day for me. My son Art and I had worked for years to get state, county, and city support for a new stadium—a football only stadium that would keep us competitive with other teams in the league. Most of the credit goes to Art, who spent countless hours working with the governor, state legislators, and city and county officials to make the financing work. Through his efforts, not only did the Steelers get a new stadium but the Pirates were able to build PNC Park, widely recognized as one of the best baseball parks in the country. The complex negotiations ensured Philadelphia would get new stadiums as well.

We also concluded a precedent-setting partnership with the University of Pittsburgh. The Panthers desperately needed new sports facilities. In discussions with university president Mark Nordenberg and athletic director Steve Pederson, we determined to share facilities both at our new Heinz Field and at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Southside Complex. Although the details took a lot of time and hard negotiating—the NCAA wanted to ensure an appropriate separation between professional and collegiate sports—we finally formed a partnership that would benefit the community, the university, and the Steelers.

While Art worked out the business details, I worked on an architectural program that would satisfy the needs of the team. I had learned a thing or two in the years since we had played in places like Forbes Field and Pitt Stadium and training facilities at Latrobe and South Park and Hershey. We paid special attention to the grass, the locker rooms, training rooms, press and television boxes, fan seating, and food concessions. It's a state-of-the-art facility in every way.

Heinz Field is part of Pittsburgh's grand entrance as visitors exit the Fort Pitt Tunnel. What makes the stadium special is the fact that fans can enjoy the city's skyline without leaving their seats. It is fan-friendly, has excellent sight-lines, and features unique amenities, such as the Coca-Cola Great Hall that serves as a tribute to Steelers history. Players always have told me they prefer grass to artificial turf, and so that's what we have at Heinz Field. Even with ten Steelers games, seven Pitt games, and five high school playoff games, the field still plays well—even if it doesn't always look pretty come winter. Brian Opacic, the stadium operations coordinator, does an excellent job in maintaining Heinz Field.

We played our first game at Heinz Field on October 7, 2001, against the Cincinnati Bengals. Everyone—the players, the fans, the media—loved the new facility from the start. It looks out on the Allegheny River and Pittsburgh's beautiful skyline. Whenever our team
crosses the opponent's 20-yard line—known in football as the red zone—gigantic Heinz ketchup bottles tip over and do a slow pour.

The Coca-Cola Great Hall is a tribute to Steelers history and allows our fans of all ages to learn about our tradition. The jumbotron features player profiles, short-subject films, and instant replays—all a far cry from the days of Mossy Murphy's marching bands, motor scooter, and gold-sequined baton-twirlers of the 1950s and 1960s.

Those early days seem now like a distant dream. The NFL was still in its infancy when the Steelers joined the league; with the help of guys like Walt Kiesling and Buddy Parker and Bobby Layne and Bill Dudley our team grew right along with it. The 1950s and 1960s were also the days of the great Johnny Unitas.

 

 

On September 11, 2002, I got the call that John Unitas had died. The news upset me. We were almost the same age—he was just a little younger. I attended his funeral mass at the Cathedral Mary Our Queen in Baltimore. More than two thousand people filled the pews. The front seats were reserved for family and his many teammates and NFL friends. Everyone was there, from Commissioner Tagliabue to Ravens coach Brian Billick and players Ray Lewis, Peter Boulware, and Michael McCrary. Outside the cathedral a small plane circled overhead with a banner reading in huge red letters “Unitas We Stand.” Inside, the wail of bagpipes filled the church. His coffin was covered with white lilies and roses, and beside it stood an easel with a painting of Johnny walking into the sunset in his blue number 19 Colts jersey. His six sons acted as pallbearers, and Cardinal William Keeler, the archbishop of Baltimore, eulogized him, recalling Johnny's glory days at Memorial Stadium. He said, “Johnny Unitas displayed in his NFL career native physical gifts and football intelligence honed by hard, dedicated practice; courage in the face of pain
and adversity; grace under pressure; commitment to teammates; unassuming, inspiring leadership . . . these were virtues he carried over to his family, asking his children to give their best, even as he asked it of his teammates.”

Commissioner Tagliabue pointed out the truth, “He was mythic . . . he symbolizes football, and more importantly, he symbolizes leadership.”

David Modell, Ravens owner Art Modell's son, said, “Johnny U was the father of modern football, so all of us, including my father, who enjoyed participating, owe that to Johnny.”

His son Joe remembered his father's reputation as a straight-talking man, including his traditional pregame challenge to his teammates: “Talk is cheap. Let's go play.”

And play he did. He was the man with the “golden arm,” setting twenty-two NFL passing records, including the seemingly unbreakable record of forty-seven consecutive games with a touchdown pass. He was named MVP three times and was selected for the Pro Bowl ten times. Johnny won three NFL championships, including the overtime victory against the New York Giants in 1958.

As I listened to the testimonials, I thought of the John Unitas I knew—the high school quarterback from St. Justin in his black high-topped shoes and his patented jump pass. I remembered the Unitas who Coach Kiesling didn't give a chance to throw at our summer training camp—he threw instead to my brothers on the sidelines.

I recalled the dispirited Unitas who came before the league's Management Council (CEC), asking for financial assistance when his playing days were long over. Though he was the best quarterback to ever play the game, he played at a time when big salaries were not the norm. He took care of his ailing mother's hospital bills and always paid what he owed. Now he was in debt and needed help. The league had established a Dire Need Fund for retired players, but Johnny didn't qualify under the existing rules. Sitting there in the pew at his
funeral I felt we should have done more for him, a man who had done so much to bring the NFL to national prominence. I'll be the first to admit the league could have done more to help Johnny. He deserved better. His funeral marked the end of an era.

 

 

The Steelers were less successful in 1998 and 1999. But Bill Cowher didn't lose the team. We now had a good management team in place as well. We hired North Catholic alum Kevin Colbert as director of football operations. Cowher never lost my confidence, and he began to turn the team around. We went 9-7 in 2000 and 13-3 in 2001, the year we went to the AFC championship. We lost to the Patriots, who then went on to win Super Bowl XXXVI that year.

In 2002 we won another division championship, the sixteenth in franchise history. But one of the highlights for me was the return of Terry Bradshaw for a Pittsburgh reunion. Terry had left in 1983 and hadn't been back for a Steelers game in nearly twenty years. Fan and press criticism at the end of his career had hurt him, and he couldn't forget the boos he heard when he'd leave a game injured. Now he was back in Pittsburgh, and we had a good talk—Terry and I had a lot of catching up to do. He attended our game against the Colts and appeared at halftime with his two daughters, Rachel and Erin, before sixty-four thousand wildly cheering fans who welcomed him home. We showed a video tribute on the jumbotron. The crowd went wild with the replay of the Immaculate Reception. The scoreboard read, “Welcome Home Terry.” I turned to him and pointed out the obvious, “They love you here.”

Terry spoke into an echoing microphone: “That sounds good. That's all right. Keep going. I want to thank the Rooney family. It's been nineteen years since I've been on this playing field. I want to thank their dad, who was my father away from home. I want to thank
Dan Rooney, who signed me on the Three Rivers Stadium field . . . I want to tell all of you that there's no place like home. I think it's important tonight that I let all of you know, you all need your family, you all need your football family, you all need your Steelers family. Though I've probably been an enigma to you, believe me, I have missed you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, it's good to be home.” By the end of the speech, those who weren't cheering were crying—some of us were doing both.

 

 

The year 2003 marked the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark's epic journey of discovery. Captain Meriwether Lewis left Pittsburgh on August 31, 1803, in search of a northwest passage and to explore the Louisiana Territory, an unknown land recently acquired from Napoleon. To commemorate the anniversary, my son Art thought it would be a good idea to focus our family vacation on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. We had always tried to theme our family trips, and now the Rooney family had grown large enough to more than match Lewis and Clark's thirty-three-man Corps of Discovery.

I called the Senator John Heinz History Center here in Pittsburgh for advice on our route and historical background. History Center president Andy Masich and Library and Archives director David Halaas turned out to be experts on the subjects of Lewis and Clark, western history, and American Indians. They really helped us concentrate our energies when they “commissioned” us as the “Rooney Family Corps of Rediscovery.” Basing our charter on the document President Thomas Jefferson gave to Captain Lewis, they instructed us to retrace Lewis and Clark's journey west and bring back to Pittsburgh evidence of our discoveries—photographs, water samples, botanical specimens, and artifacts.

We launched our expedition from Pittsburgh on the anniversary of
the departure of Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery—August 31, 2003, exactly two hundred years to the day—in a replica keelboat, with many of our family members and friends trailing behind in canoes and kayaks.

For three weeks we traveled in the footsteps of the intrepid explorers—by canoe, bus, horseback, and airplane across the continent. To prepare our family, Patricia compiled a reading list, including Lewis and Clark's original journals. In the journals, we learned that the captains had met the Cheyenne Indians in 1804-05 at the Mandan villages in what is now North Dakota. They described them as a “tall, handsome people.” Working through our History Center partners, Andy and David, we made arrangements to visit traditional Northern Cheyenne leaders in Montana, the first stop of the western leg of our trip.

We flew from Pittsburgh to Billings, then drove to Pompey's Pillar on the Yellowstone River, where William Clark had scratched his name on the soft sandstone rock, the only physical evidence remaining of the now famous expedition.

We then headed for a little mining town called Coalstrip, twenty miles north of Lame Deer, Montana, and the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. We pulled into our motel, where we found about twenty Cheyennes waiting for us. My first impression was, Lewis and Clark were right, they are a big people—a couple of the men towered over us, their long black hair pulled back in ponytails or braids. At first they just looked at us. They weren't unfriendly, but they weren't smiling either. David introduced us, one by one, beginning with Steve Brady (Braided Hair), a traditional leader and headman of the Crazy Dogs Society. He was very friendly. “Hello Dan Rooney,” he said, “
Ha ho.
Welcome to Cheyenne country.”

We all went to a restaurant not far away. The wait staff there expected us and had set the tables. But Art's wife, Greta, noticed the Indian kids sat at one table, her kids at another. So she went over and mixed them up, same with the adults. That was a good move.

The next day, with Steve Brady and his brother Otto Braided Hair guiding us, we drove to Lame Deer, the seat of the tribal government. As we drove I saw a church—Sacred Heart Catholic Church—and asked Steve if we could stop. I went inside to the church office and gave the secretary a contribution and my card.

When I returned to the car, Steve turned to me and said, “Dan, the Church has not always been a friend of the Cheyennes. Some Indian people think of it as the house of the enemy. After the whites forced us onto reservations, they tried to destroy our language, customs, and religion. They shaved our heads and dressed us in wool suits. They said they had to ‘Kill the Indian to save the man.' They sent us to boarding schools, where we were separated from our parents and forbidden to speak our language or practice our traditional ways.”

I was moved—and saw immediately the parallel with the Irish Catholics and their experience with England. And so I said, “You're just like the Irish! Both the Cheyennes and Irish Catholics have been persecuted for their religious beliefs, but both have come through with their faiths strengthened.”

Steve and Otto next took us to the home of Douglas Spotted Eagle, a holy man and Keeper of the Sacred Hat. Here we joined other Cheyennes in a traditional sweat lodge ceremony. Once inside the lodge—a frame of willow branches covered with layers of heavy tarps—we seated ourselves on the ground around a pit. Young men carried in red-hot rocks, placed them in the pit, then closed the door flaps. In the pitch darkness Otto Braided Hair poured water over the hot rocks. Intense heat and the scent of sage filled the lodge as Otto and the others began singing songs in their native language. I could hardly breathe. Otto explained the healing powers of a traditional “sweat” and encouraged us to speak our hearts, to share our thoughts and feelings. It was like a confessional.