Dan Rooney (24 page)

“I thought you gave me the horse!”

“Sure I did, but I didn't say I was going to take care of it forever!”

“What, are you too cheap to pay for it?” Terry said, laughing, and pulled a dollar bill out of his wallet and dropped it in a trophy on the Chief's desk. “Well, that ought to cover it!”

We were all in stitches by the end of this episode. Dad told his trainers to take the horse and put it back in the paddock.

Don't get me wrong. Terry genuinely loved horses—their speed and grace. He once said, “Imagine yourself sitting on top of a great thoroughbred horse. You sit up there and feel that power. That's what it was like, playing quarterback on that team. It was a great ride.”

I've seen a lot of quarterbacks in my years with the Steelers and the NFL. The only quarterback I'd rate above Terry Bradshaw is the great Johnny Unitas. Dan Marino is up there high on the list, as is John Elway, but Bradshaw had something special. A tremendous athlete, big and strong, he could pass, he could run, he could even kick when we asked him to. He was smart, called his own plays, and was a team leader in the locker room. He contributed to the closeness of the team, and in critical games his sense of humor helped keep the players loose.

 

 

The closeness of our young players and their ability to stay loose gave us a great advantage as we went into our first Super Bowl against the
veteran Vikings. Both defenses dominated the first half, the only score coming on a safety when Tarkenton recovered his own fumble in the end zone and was downed by Dwight White.

We kicked off to open the second half. The Vikings' Bill Brown fumbled and Marv Kellum recovered for us on the Minnesota 30-yard line. Four plays later, Franco scored from 9 yards out. By the end of the day, Franco had rushed for 158 yards, then a Super Bowl record. Rocky contributed another 65 yards, while the Steelers' defense held Minnesota to only 17 yards on the ground. The Steel Curtain kept Tarkenton on the run all day, allowing only eleven of twenty-six passes to reach their intended receivers. Three passes were intercepted, and four deflected.

Bradshaw finished off the Vikings with a 30-yard pass completion to Larry Brown, setting up another pass to Brown for a touchdown. In this final 66-yard drive, Bradshaw demonstrated real leadership, managing the clock, mixing his plays, and exploiting the weak points in the Viking defense. He showed poise and confidence. The final score, 16- 6, told the whole story. Both Bradshaw and the Steelers had arrived.

 

 

It seemed everyone in the country wanted the Chief and the Steelers to win the Super Bowl that year—except, of course, the Minnesota people, and Al Davis. Pete Rozelle especially admired my father. Pete often said that handing the Chief the Lombardi Trophy in our very emotional locker room was the highlight of his career as commissioner. My father wanted me to accept it, but I said, “No, this is yours, Dad.” And it was his. He had founded the team, kept it in Pittsburgh, stuck it out through the lean times. He was the beloved Chief. He was the legend.

What a party it was in New Orleans. Of our five Super Bowls, this victory is still the sweetest because it was our first. When we returned
home, all of Pittsburgh turned out to greet us. The outpouring of affection overwhelmed me and reminded me how important the Steelers were to our community.

Our family celebrated with a trip to Ireland. Dad, especially, enjoyed this visit to the Old Sod. When we got off the plane, the reporters there asked him his views on boxing and baseball. He said, “Aren't you going to ask me about the Super Bowl?”

They said, “What's that?” They had no clue about American football.

“What a relief,” Dad replied, “I'm happy you don't know anything about it, because that's all I've been hearing about for weeks.”

When we got back to the States, my father came into my office and said, “Dan, I think it's time we call you ‘president'—you've been doing the job for years.”

“Do you think we need to make an announcement?” I asked.

“No, just put it in the Media Guide and let them read it at the beginning of the season.”

Though I'd been running the team for some time, we never worried about titles. Dad never liked to take credit for things. He tried to push me forward into the limelight. But he deserved to shine. He was quite a guy.

When the Media Guide came out in the summer of 1975, Dad appeared as “Chairman of the Board,” followed by me as “President,” and my brother Art and Jack McGinley each as “Vice President.” The newspapers quoted me as saying, “Dad walked into my office and said, ‘You're the president!' There wasn't a lot of fanfare involved. It's a title without a raise.”

But as far as I was concerned, the most important guy on that page was “Head Coach,” Chuck Noll.

STEELERS DYNASTY

THE STEELERS WERE FLYING HIGH in early 1975 after our victory in Super Bowl IX. And rightly so. We had rebuilt the team almost from scratch. In five years we had gone from the basement to the very top of the National Football League. Sometimes people forget the magnitude of this accomplishment. It takes a combination of talented players, coaching, team closeness, and good management. Without any one of these essential ingredients, you don't have a Super Bowl winner. There are some teams in the NFL that have never experienced a Super Bowl. In the 1970s the Steelers won the Super Bowl four times—we won every time we appeared in pro football's ultimate game. Plus, we did it back to back—twice—all within six years. That had never been done before, and no team has done it since.

I hear and read how the Dallas Cowboys—“America's Team”—was the team of the 1970s because they appeared in five Super Bowls.
Well, we won four Super Bowls and beat those guys both times we played them for the championship. Don't get me wrong. Tex Schramm and Tom Landry fielded some incredibly talented teams in those years, but I'd sure take the Steelers over the Cowboys if I had to pick the team of the decade.

I lived and breathed football during these years, but I somehow found time to do other things. I don't think it's healthy to be totally consumed by any one pursuit. You'll go nuts. For me, I had my family, my faith, and some meaningful outside interests as well.

 

 

Chuck Noll not only coached the team but became a friend. He's a Renaissance man—a connoisseur of fine wine and food, an aficionado of classical music (he once guest-conducted the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra), and an expert pilot. In 1974 Chuck took me flying in his Beechcraft A35 Bonanza V-tail, and in 1975 I earned a pilot's license.

I'd been interested in flying since I was six years old. That's when our whole family went out to Allegheny County Airport to see my uncle Dan (Father Silas) leave for his mission to China. My father had a pilot's license in his early years, and I remember when he flew from New York to Miami Beach in one of those Yankee Clipper flying boats, the kind that could land in the water. He took off from New York harbor and flew to Florida, splashing down near Miami. A crew towed the plane to a dock, where the passengers disembarked. My mother drove me there to meet him. The plane fascinated me, and I've been interested in flying ever since.

During World War II, my father gave me a “spotter's guide,” which pictured silhouettes of military and civilian aircraft. I would scan the sky for hours, watching and identifying every plane I saw. I knew all of the planes made in the United States, how they were used, what they could do, and how fast they were. I remember being at our
summer place in Ligonier outside of Pittsburgh, just lying in the grass on a hill above the cemetery, when suddenly a huge bomber returning from a practice mission flew over at treetop level—my first sighting of a B-29. It was massive, and the engine noise practically deafened me. You know how you remember impressions from your youth? Well, this is one of those, and the image remains vivid in my memory.

I read everything I could on flying and the heroes of the skies, like the amazing Chuck Yeager, war ace and test pilot, and Joe White, who flew the X-15. Many of these aviators believed if we could have flown a plane into space, our space program would have progressed more rapidly, safely, and ultimately more successfully. Instead, rockets won out over fixed-wing aircraft. Men like Yeager and White argued for pilot control of spacecraft. They believed the first astronauts shot into space in rockets were the guinea pigs of the scientists at Mission Control; they had no more control over their craft than the monkeys sent before them. I can understand why, when those pilots put their lives on the line, they'd feel that way. But those original astronauts had a lot of guts.

When Chuck Noll decided he wanted a new and larger aircraft, a twin-engine Beechcraft Baron, he asked me if I wanted to buy his Bonanza for what he'd paid for it. It was a good deal, and it got me flying. I worked with a flight instructor and became instrument rated. Since then I have accumulated more than twenty-five hundred flight hours.

When I first got my license, I flew to Washington, Pennsylvania. On this trip, while performing a touch-and-go landing, I advanced the manifold and heard an ominous “pop.” The plane lost power, but I could still fly. To maintain altitude, I had to open it up and fly at full power. On the way back to Allegheny County, I constantly watched for a spot to make an emergency landing. But I made it safely back to the airport, where I learned that the rocker arm connecting the camshaft to the valve-stem had broken off. That's why the engine lost
compression and power. This was a little hairy for a young and inexperienced pilot, but I kept my cool.

A pilot can't panic. That's why it's important to do your homework, learn the flight systems, review emergency procedures (for engine failure, engine fire, electric fire, alternator failure, etc.), and keep your head.

I've flown to New York on many occasions. One time, as a student pilot flying over the Hudson on a foggy day, I couldn't see the other side of the river. I became a little concerned and checked in with the New York Center air traffic controller. “Am I over the ocean or the river?” I asked.

“You're here,” the controller assured me.

“Where's here?”

“You're practically on top of us!”

I made it to the airport okay. For a moment or so I was a little unsure where I was. But that's how you learn.

On another trip to New York, I again had to ask for help. “How do I get to Westchester County Airport?”

The controller gave me directions, but I still couldn't see the landing strip.

Finally, he said, “Hey, just make a right turn, go down to where you see the big bridge, make a left at the bridge, and it'll be right there a few miles out.”

I thought he was being funny, but I followed the directions exactly and found the airport.

I guess my most notable flying story occurred on a return flight to Pittsburgh from Latrobe during summer training camp in 2000. The mechanics who had just rebuilt the engine of the Bonanza either did not put the alternator on properly or installed a defective unit. I had no problem flying to Latrobe, but on the way back I ran into trouble. The lights on my instrument panel began to blink off. All electric needles shimmied side to side, then off. The radio went dead. I
switched on the standby alternator. Nothing. The red light on the landing gear indicator remained on, but only dimly. The landing gear was almost all the way up but not completely retracted. “Don't panic. Just get this plane back to Allegheny County Airport,” I said aloud to myself as I tried to crank the landing gear down manually. I couldn't fly the plane and reach around to the back of the seat on the passenger side to wind the hand crank that would manually extend the gear. I just couldn't do it. I called the tower on my cell phone but got voice mail. This was not good.

I called 911. The operator didn't believe me when I said I was Dan Rooney.

“Dan Rooney? Of the Pittsburgh Steelers? Yeah, right.”

It might have been funny if the situation hadn't been so serious. After convincing him who I was, I asked if he would please get in touch with the tower. Without electricity I had no radio—the tower couldn't get back to me directly. So I had to rely on the 911 operator to relay messages for me. I'd tell the operator where I was, and he would talk to the tower. In turn, the controller sent back instructions.

I told them my location as I passed over Rostraver Airport. “Don't land at Rostraver,” they said. “Just keep coming in to Allegheny County.” That was okay with me, because I was more familiar with the Allegheny County Airport. From my position I could see the U.S. Steel Plant just off the airport's Runway 28.

They told me to continue toward Runway 28 and fly over the tower so they could inspect my gear. I descended to eight hundred feet and passed over the tower. The tower confirmed through my 911 operator that the gear was not down. They called a mechanic to see if he had any ideas. In the meantime, they directed me to burn off as much fuel as I could.

“Listen, when that sun goes down, I'm landing,” I said, “and I'm landing in the grass between the runway and the taxiway.”

I made about four passes on a west heading, elongating the pattern by going east farther than normal. I don't know how much fuel I burned off, but it couldn't have been much.

On my last pass, the sun sank below the horizon—just as my cell phone's battery died. Now I didn't have any communications at all. I flew over the tower and rocked my wings so they knew I was coming in to land.

I came in at eighty knots, then at the last second nosed up to slow down even more.

I think I made the best landing I'd ever made in my life. It surprised me how far the plane traveled after it touched down and skidded over the ground. I hit the marker for Runway 28, veered left, and came to a stop. Fortunately, the marker didn't hit the wing tanks and there was no fire, but as a precaution all the fire trucks, an ambulance, and every emergency vehicle for miles around were there.