The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Rozelle left behind impressive legacy
NEW YORK — For a compromise candidate not even under consideration when the voting began, Pete Rozelle sure achieved a lot as NFL commissioner.
Indeed, the man who led the NFL from 196089 generally is regarded as the best league boss in sports history — not just in pro football.
“He did more for professional football and the NFL than any other sports executive has done,” Wellington Mara, then owner of the New York Giants, said of Rozelle.
Rozelle’s predecessor, Bert Bell, helped popularize the league, but its following still lagged behind the college game. Bell died in October 1959 of a heart attack while at a SteelersEagles game in Philadelphia, and NFL owners gathered three months later to elect a new commissioner.
Initially, there were three candidates, none named Rozelle. Austin Gunsel temporarily had taken the post after Bell’s death and was backed by several longtime owners. 49ers counsel Marshall Leahy was supported by a group of newer owners. Lions President Edwin Anderson also was in consideration.
The voting — and backroom politicking — began. It didn’t cease through 20 rounds and nearly a week of balloting. Then Rams owner Dan Reeves, and Browns owner Paul Brown sought to break the deadlock by proposing LA’s general manager, the 33yearold Rozelle.
Suddenly, there was movement as Brown pushed for Rozelle and persuaded others to elect him. On the 23rd ballot, they did.
“I was totally shocked,” Rozelle said, “because I was so young and because they’d considered so many other people who had so much more experience in football than I.”
But he was the man, and very quickly he rewarded the owners’ faith by building the NFL into America’s No. 1 sport.
“He was a man of vision; boy, did he have vision,” former quarterback and congressman Jack Kemp said. “Could he see things the rest of us could not see.”
Immediately so in his new job, too. Rozelle approved league expansion to Dallas for the 1960 season and for Minneapolis in ‘61, a cause championed by one of the NFL’s founders, Bears owner George Halas.
Rozelle fought back challenges in court from the rival AFL, then years later oversaw the merger of the leagues.
He recognized the need to centralize television contracts — each team was negotiating its own deals when he assumed office — evenly split the money, and keep games on free TV, reaching agreement with CBS for two years of coverage for $9.3 million. That began the most lucrative source of NFL revenue, while also ensuring a significant broadcast presence that, today, has become an overwhelmingly dominant one.
When that deal was threatened by legal action, Rozelle lobbied in Washington for an antitrust exemption, which became the Sports Broadcast Act. Soon, every franchise was splitting a gold mine.
Rozelle also approved scheduling Monday night games, getting another network involved in 1970 when the leagues merged. ABC launched “Monday Night Football,” something the commissioner had sought for years, recognizing the boost it could provide his league.
“He was able to accomplish things because he was able to bring diverse groups of egotistical, strongminded owners and managers together and do things that were necessary to be done for the betterment of the league,” Cowboys President Tex Schramm told Pro Football Hall of Fame Executive Director Joe Horrigan.
As the success graph pointed skyward, dark clouds gathered on several fronts.
First, the league became aware that two of its biggest stars, Green Bay halfback Paul Hornung and Detroit defensive tackle Alex Karras, had been associating with known gamblers. A lengthy investigation led to indefinite suspension for both, which eventually turned into oneseason bans.
At the time, Rozelle called it the most difficult decision he’d made.
Seven months later, President Kennedy was assassinated, and Rozelle basically had three options: postpone games for that weekend; cancel them; or play them.
As he weighed whether maintaining the schedule would provide some relief for a mourning nation or, on the contrary, be seen as disrespectful, Rozelle sought advice from Kennedy adviser Pierre Salinger. Explaining that he believed the president wouldn’t have wanted the NFL to go dark, Salinger encouraged the league to play.
And it did, with Rozelle issuing a statement: “It has been traditional in sports for athletes to perform in times of great tragedy. Football was Mr. Kennedy’s game. He thrived on competition.”
Rozelle later admitted to regretting the decision, but it also must be noted there was no falloff in attendance at six of the seven games that Sunday.
Rozelle passed away in 1996, deep into successor Paul Tagliabue’s tenure.
“Pete was loyal and inspired loyalty in others, a great, great quality,” Tagliabue said. “He was generous and never selfcentered. Pete Rozelle will never be replaced. We all sorely miss him, we all sorely miss his advice.?