Dan Rooney obit

Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney, 84, Dies; N.F.L. Force and Link to Football’s Past

He was not on the list.

Dan Rooney, the longtime Pittsburgh Steelers chairman who helped shape the modern National Football League and was one of the last surviving links to its founders, died on Thursday in Pittsburgh. He was 84.

The Steelers announced his death on their website.

“My father meant so much to all of us, and so much to so many past and present members of the Steelers organization,” said Mr. Rooney’s son, the team president Arthur Rooney II. “He gave his heart and soul to the Steelers, the National Football League and the City of Pittsburgh.”

Mr. Rooney’s health had deteriorated in recent weeks, and he had uncharacteristically missed the league’s annual meeting in Phoenix in late March. In a speech there to the other team owners, Commissioner Roger Goodell praised Mr. Rooney for his decades of service, and flew to Pittsburgh to see him soon after the meeting concluded.

Except for a stint as ambassador to Ireland in the Obama administration, Mr. Rooney was part of the Steelers almost from birth, having been born the year before his father, Art, bought the team in 1933.

Mr. Rooney started out as a water boy and held nearly every job in the team’s front office, eventually becoming chairman. During his nearly eight decades with the team, the Steelers became one of the league’s most successful franchises, winning six Super Bowl titles — more than any other team.

Mr. Rooney was also a powerful force in the N.F.L. and a confidant of commissioners going back to Bert Bell, who was himself once an owner of the Steelers. Mr. Rooney worked to settle the often-tumultuous labor disputes of the 1970s and ’80s. Without the bombast that characterized some other owners, he was a consensus builder who could work with players to hammer out differences.

Among his many roles, Mr. Rooney was on the expansion committee that helped put teams in Seattle and Tampa, and he helped engineer the merger between the N.F.L. and the American Football League, in part by persuading his father to let the Steelers join the new conference that would be home to many A.F.L. teams.

Mr. Rooney also played a central role in selecting new commissioners, including Mr. Goodell. It was Mr. Rooney who was chosen to go to Mr. Goodell’s hotel room in August 2006 to tell him that he had been elected.

Long a supporter of progressive causes, Mr. Rooney recruited the league’s first black executive and pushed for the adoption of what has become known as the Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview at least one minority candidate for a head coach or general manager opening. The rule has since been expanded to include the consideration of women for front-office positions.

Mr. Rooney, however, rarely sought the spotlight. In 1989, when he helped lead the search for a successor to Commissioner Pete Rozelle, several owners pushed Mr. Rooney’s name forward as an alternative to Jim Finks and Paul Tagliabue, two other candidates. Asked about the odds of his seeking the job, Mr. Rooney was blunt.

“Slim and none,” he told reporters. “No, make that none.”

Mr. Tagliabue got the job.

In a league filled with billionaires and outsize personalities, Mr. Rooney was more interested in deflecting attention than receiving it, particularly when he turned into an elder statesman surrounded by owners who had made their money outside of football.

Like other second- and third-generation owners, including John Mara of the Giants and Michael Bidwill of the Arizona Cardinals, Mr. Rooney’s primary concern was the health of his team and the league, not an outside business.

Few owners wore as many hats or were as universally admired as Mr. Rooney. Nor have many of them spanned as many generations as Mr. Rooney, who worked with some of the original architects of the league, including George Halas in Chicago and Curly Lambeau in Green Bay, Wis.

“In some ways I think of myself as the Last Steeler, the last of the founding generation of the N.F.L.,” Rooney wrote in “Dan Rooney: My 75 years With the Pittsburgh Steelers and the NFL” (2007).

Daniel Milton Rooney was born in Pittsburgh on July 20, 1932, a year before the Steelers entered the still-fledgling N.F.L. His home on the North Side of Pittsburgh, he would note, was just three blocks from where the first professional football game is thought to have been played, 40 years before he was born.

Players, coaches and other personnel  who played during Rooney's tenure with the Steelers include: Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Mean Joe Greene, Roy Jefferson, L. C. Greenwood, Dick Hoak, Andy Russell, Rocky Bleier, Ray Mansfield, Sam Davis, Bobby Walden,  Ron Shanklin, Mel Blount, Chuck Knoll, Preston Pearson, Chuck Hinton, Jack Ham, Frank Lewis, Lynn Swann, Larry Brown, Ernie Holmes, Mike Wagner, Dwight White, Gerry Mullins, Henry Davis, Roy Gerela, Bruce Van Dyke, George Webster, Glen Edwards, John Rowser, John Stallworth, Mike Webster, Jack Lambert, Donnie Shell, Dave Brown, Bill Nunn, Bud Carson, Dick Haley, Cliff Stoudt, John Banaszak, Mark Malone, Frank Pollard, Tunch Ilkin, Matt Bahr, Tony Dungy, Bennie Cunningham, Gary Anderson, Dwayne Woodruff, Walter Abercrombie, Gary Dunn, Mike Merriweather, Ray Pinney, Tom Moore, Robin Cole, Louis Lipps, Harry Newsome, David Woodley, Earnest Jackson, Bryan Hinkle, Walter Bubby Brister, Anthony Henton, Delton Hall, Rod Woodson, Greg Lloyd, Hardy Nickerson, Thomas Everett, Merril Hoge, Steve Bono, David Little, Warren Williams, Todd Blackledge, Dermontti Dawson, Terry Long, Mike Mularkey, Craig Wolfley, Eric Green, Carnell Lake, Barry Foster, Adrian Cooper, Tom Donahoe, Jeff Graham, Neil O'Donnell, Bill Cowher, Carlton Haselrig, Darren Perry, Leon Searcy, Levon Kirkland, Joel Steed, Marvin Lewis, Dick LeBeau, Albert Bentley, Mark Royals, Yancey Thigpen, Chad Brown, Kevin Greene, Mike Tomczak, Bam Morris, Duval Love, Chan Gailey, Dom Capers, Charles Johnson, Tim McKyer, Fred McAfee, Arthur J. Rooney, Jr., Jason Gildon, Kordell Stewart, Mark Bruener, Jim Miller, John L. Williams, Tim Lester, Willie Williams, Norm Johnson, Rohn Stark, Tom Newberry, Jerome Bettis, Jon Witman, Josh Miller, Brenden Stai, Erric Pegram, Chad Scott, Will Wolford, Mike Vrabel, Donnell Woolford, Alan Faneca, Hines Ward, Ray Sherman, Jim Haslett, Troy Edwards, Joey Porter, Aaron Smith, Kevin Gilbride, Kevin Colbert, Dan Kreider, Marvel Smith, Plaxico Burress, Wayne Gandy, Kendrell Bell, Jeff Hartings, Casey Hampton, Tommy Maddox, Jeff Hartings, Kendall Simmons, Chris Hope, Antwaan Randle El, Brett Keisel, James Harrison, Russ Grimm, Charlie Batch, James Farrior, John Allred, Terance Mathis, Jeff Reed, Troy Polamalu, Ken Whisenhunt, Ben Roethlisberger, Duce Staley, Nate Washington, Heath Miller, Chris Gardocki, Willie Parker, Santonio Holmes, Mark Whipple, Mike Tomlin, Daniel Sepulveda, Ken Anderson, Lawrence Timmons, LaMarr Woodley, Patrick Bailey, Bruce Arians, Byron Leftwich, Mitch Berger, Mike Wallace, Rashard Mendenhall, Maurkice Pouncey, Joey Galloway, Antonio Brown, Marcus Gilbert, Ryan Clark, Todd Haley, Leonard Pope, David DeCastro, Mike Adams, John Mitchell, Larry Foote, Le'Veon Bell, Bruce Gradkowski, Emmanuel Sanders, Matt Spaeth,  Lawrence Timmons, William Gay, Ryan Shazier, Martavis Bryant, David DeCastro, Bud Dupree, Michael Vick, DeAngelo Williams, Alejandro Villanueva, Mike Munchak, Sean Davis, Cameron Heyward, Chris Boswell, John Fuqua, Frank Lewis.Gary Ballman and Roosevelt Nix.