Architect of NFL success succumbs to cancer

* Pete Rozelle, the father of the Super Bowl and Monday Night Football, died Friday of brain cancer.

By Vito Stellino

The Baltimore Sun

Pete Rozelle, who transformed the NFL from a struggling, 12-team league into the greatest success story in modern American sports during his 29-year tenure as commissioner, died Friday from brain cancer at his home in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. He was 70.

Rozelle, who was 33 when he was named commissioner as a surprise compromise choice in 1960, resigned as the NFL's leader in 1989.

"He was the best commissioner there ever was in any sport," said close friend Dan Rooney, president of the Pittsburgh Steelers. "He took the NFL from barnstorming to the pre-eminent sport in America."

Under Rozelle, the NFL became much more than a sports league. It became an integral part of the American entertainment industry with "Monday Night Football," which he founded in 1970, becoming one of the longest running prime-time shows in television history.

He also created the Super Bowl and elevated it from just a league championship game into America's most-watched sporting event, a midwinter holiday that draws corporate executives and jet-setters from around the country.

Perhaps Rozelle's greatest triumph was to persuade the owners to share their television revenue equally and pushing to make a single TV contract for all teams legal. That set the stage for national contracts, which allowed small markets such as Green Bay, Wis., to compete on equal terms with New York City.

Rozelle also presided over the 1966 merger with the American Football League, which added 10 teams to the league in a single stroke, and paved the way to start the Super Bowl.

His deft touch in getting the antitrust exemption through Congress that made the merger legal was a classic example of his ability to do the behind-the-scenes dealing necessary to accomplish the league's agenda.

Rozelle gained the support of a powerful congressman, the late Hale Boggs of Louisiana, by promising New Orleans an expansion franchise.

When Boggs told Rozelle just before the vote, "Just for the record, I can assume we can say the franchise for New Orleans is firm?" Rozelle replied, "Well, it looks good, of course, Hale, but you know I can't make any promises."

Boggs replied, "Well, Pete, why don't you just go back and check with the owners. I'll hold things up until you get back." Rozelle paused and said, "That's all right, Hale. You can count on their approval."

Rozelle had the clout to deliver the votes for expansion, and later that year, New Orleans was awarded an expansion team.

"He was able to deal with people and put together a coalition," Rooney said. "When there would be a problem at a meeting, he'd say, 'Let's take a bathroom break.' It might take three hours, but he would talk to people and get it done."

Ravens owner Art Modell, who negotiated the TV deals with Rozelle, said, "He had the ability to achieve a consensus and make a decision and stick with it. He didn't use the committee approach as others have in all sports. He acted alone.

"There was only one Pete Rozelle. No other commissioner in any sport could equal his talent and ability. He didn't do it in an autocratic way. He did it with persuasion. He was masterful with the owners in this league, who are all egomaniacs. He had a very special talent and was the right man at the right time."

Rozelle achieved all that success even though he was something of an accidental commissioner in the first place.

After Bert Bell died of a heart attack at a football game in October 1959, the owners gathered the next spring in Miami Beach to elect a successor.

They turned to Rozelle, general manager of the Los Angeles Rams, on the 23rd ballot, only after they failed to agree on any of the other candidates after nine days.

When Rozelle was told to leave the room while they discussed his candidacy, he hid from the small contingent of media members in the men's room. Whenever somebody entered, he'd wash his hands.

After he was elected, he came into the room and said, "Gentleman, I can honestly say I come to you with clean hands." It was example of the wit that would serve him well over the years.

Rozelle once said, "The reason I was selected was probably that I was the only one who hadn't alienated most of the people in that meeting. They said I'd grow into the job and that, in effect, is what I did."

It didn't take him long to take charge. He immediately moved the league office from outside Philadelphia to the media center of New York.

At the league meeting the following year, Rozelle quickly showed his mettle.

Rooney remembers that the late George Preston Marshall, owner of the Washington Redskins, used to come to the meetings in a bathrobe and slippers.

"He was giving his opening address and Marshall interrupted him. Pete said, 'Mr. Marshall, please let me finish.' Marshall sat there and then hit him with everything that was wrong. He said things like, 'You don't know what you're talking about.' Pete kept his cool and said, 'Thank you,' and went on to the next order of business. He didn't make a thing out of it. He showed he had the wherewithal to do the job. That's the meeting that made him. He showed he was his own man and he wouldn't back down when somebody attacked," Rooney said.

Rozelle's first public test came in 1962 when he suspended two of the game's biggest stars, Paul Hornung and Alex Karras, for gambling on games.

The following year, Sports Illustrated named him Sportsman of the Year, and the Rozelle legend started to build.

Rozelle was born Alvin Rozelle on March 1, 1926, in Lynwood, Calif. As a junior high student, he was hired as a sports stringer for the Los Angeles Times at 15 cents an inch. He served in the Navy during World War II and went to Compton College and the University of San Francisco.

He was hired as the USF assistant athletic director and head sports publicist at $400 a month after graduated. He went to the Rams as publicity director, served a stint in public relations, then joined the Rams again and was serving as general manager when he became commissioner.

He was married twice and his only daughter, Ann, was born in 1958.

He is survived by his current wife, Carrie, and her four children from her first husband, who was the late Ralph Cooke, son of Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke.