Rozelle Read online

  Rozelle

  Jerry Izenberg

  Rozelle

  A BIOGRAPHY

  Foreword by David Stern

  UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS

  LINCOLN AND LONDON

  © 2014 by Jerry Izenberg

  All rights reserved

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication

  Data

  Izenberg, Jerry.

  Rozelle: a biography / Jerry Izenberg;

  foreword by David Stern.

  pages cm

  Summary: “A biography of Pete Rozelle, the man

  who brought the nfl to the forefront of profes-

  sional sports”— Provided by publisher.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  isbn 978- 0- 8032- 5574- 6 (hardback)

  isbn 978- 0- 8032- 6697- 1 (epub)

  isbn 978- 0- 8032- 6698- 8 (mobi)

  isbn 978-0-8032-6699-5 (pdf)

  1. Rozelle, Pete. 2. Football commissioners—

  United States— Biography. I. Title.

  gv939.r695.i94 2014

  796.332092— dc23

  [B]

  2014016577

  Set in Janson Text by L. Auten.

  For Anne Marie (Rozelle) Bratton, clearly her father’s daughter

  Contents

  List of Illustrations ix

  Foreword by David Stern xi

  Acknowledgments xv

  Prologue 1

  1. In the Beginning 7

  2. Moving On 28

  3. The Accidental Coronation 43

  4. The Boy Wonder Takes Center Stage 52

  5. How Do You Tell Vince? 62

  6. Heads They Win, Tails He Loses 81

  7. The 100- Yard Armageddon 90

  8. Sex, Lies, and Bringing Up Baby 105

  9. Ain’t Gonna Study No War No More 126

  10. Bringing in the Sheaves 141

  11. The Failed Coups 162

  12. Power to the Tackles 177

  13. Another Day, Another Dragon to Slay 196

  14. At War with the Counterculture 210

  15. Davis Again: Feud without End 222

  16. Never Take a Knife to a Gunfight 234

  17. The Final Battles 254

  18. Death Be Not Proud 272

  List of Interviews 285

  Notes 287

  Index 297

  Illustrations

  Following page 140

  1. Pete Rozelle and Jane Coupe on their wedding day

  2. The young Rozelles and daughter Anne Marie

  3. Rozelle and his daughter, Anne Marie

  4. Rozelle at the office

  5. Rozelle with Nixon and Bebe Robozo

  6. Rozelle awarding the Super Bowl XXI trophy

  7. George Halas and Pete Rozelle in the press lounge

  8. Hall of Fame committee meeting

  9. Pete Rozelle opens pro football’s Hall of Fame

  10. Rozelle and Carrie Cooke, whom he married in 1974

  11. The Rozelles and the Cookes merge

  12. Pete and his friends at his surprise birthday party

  13. Thelma Elkjer and Anne Marie Rozelle Bratton

  at Anne Marie’s wedding

  14. Rozelle and Tex Schramm

  15. Pete Rozelle at the Hall of Fame banquet

  16. The Hall of Fame Class of 1985

  17. Alvin Pete Rozelle

  Foreword

  by David Stern

  During my career I have had the great fortune to know and work

  with many talented and creative sports executives. Pete Rozelle

  was unique among them. Pete was a passionate and knowledgeable

  fan, an extraordinary communicator and marketer, and a vision-

  ary commissioner. He also had a keen wit and a generosity of spirit

  that were on display to all who knew him.

  Pete was the iconic commissioner for those who came after

  him, a complete package. He excelled in all key areas of commis-

  sionership, including league administration and the relationship

  between the league and its teams, where his efforts transformed

  the National Football League (nfl). With his background in pub-

  lic relations (pr), Pete was an extraordinary marketer, becoming

  the first sports “brand manager,” with a broad understanding of

  all that would entail. Under his guidance, the strength of the nfl

  brand led to a bond with the American public that has only grown

  in subsequent years.

  And, of course, he was legendary for his negotiations with the

  television networks over his league’s broadcast rights. Before Pete

  assumed his commissionership, interest in individual nfl teams

  was local. Recognizing competitive balance was the key to the

  league’s success, Pete convinced the owners that forming a strong

  partnership was in their best interests, and they started by com-

  bining their games into one television package and splitting the

  revenues equally. Revenue sharing was only one of Pete’s inno-

  vations. Confident there was an audience for a primetime week-

  night game, Pete pitched the idea, and Monday Night Football was born. Pete also had a concept for the nfl’s championship game.

  xi

  He turned that vision into the Super Bowl, America’s preeminent sporting event and perennially one of the most watched programs

  on television.

  Like any chief executive officer (ceo), Pete had his share of

  challenges, and there, too, he met them head- on. He was only

  thirty- three when he became commissioner, but he established

  his authority quickly, earning the trust and respect of the league’s

  owners and players. Understanding that the nfl’s integrity was

  vital to its reputation, Pete early in his tenure fined the legendary

  George Halas for abusing officials, and a year later he suspended

  two of the league’s biggest stars, Paul Hornung and Alex Karras,

  for betting on nfl games. Decades later, Pete led the way in com-

  bating the use of steroids and other performance- enhancing drugs.

  In speaking out publicly on the issue, Pete expressed great con-

  cern about the dangers the drugs posed to players who used them.

  Pete was also politically savvy, twice petitioning Congress suc-

  cessfully to grant the nfl exemptions to the Sherman Anti- Trust

  Act. He believed the nfl was strongest when its franchises acted

  in concert for the best interests of the sport, and the first exemp-

  tion allowed the teams to sell the television rights to their games

  collectively. The second, long rumored to have been assisted by

  the grant of the Saints franchise to Senator Russell Long’s beloved

  Louisiana, allowed the nfl to merge with the American Football

  League (afl), a major building block of today’s immensely suc-

  cessful nfl. When the teams stopped cooperating, Pete’s enthu-

  siasm for his job waned, as the Oakland Raiders sued the league.

  It bothered Pete terribly that his league was being torn apart by

  one of his teams— to say nothing of the endless depositions.

  That Pete was able to accomplish so much has much to do

  with his business acumen and vision. But he was also extraordi-

  narily well prepared; few people knew as much about the issues

  or were as adept at reading p
eople and situations as Pete. When

  you are in a position of leadership and are able to accrete experi-

  ence, facts, and knowledge, there comes a time when you know

  more about the key topics than most everybody else. Simply stated,

  xii

  Foreword

  there were no questions on any sports- related subject where Pete was not comfortable.

  On a personal note, for me Pete was more than simply the

  archetype of what the modern sports commissioner could and

  should be. When I became commissioner of the National Basket-

  ball Association (nba) in 1984, Pete was wonderfully helpful. He

  could not have been more giving of his time, sharing his experi-

  ences and expertise, no matter the subject. I was fortunate to get

  to know him. There was, over our years, a fair amount of tennis

  played on Sundays— Pete was as competitive on the tennis court

  as he was in the boardroom. When Pete announced he was step-

  ping down, he and I had lunch together; I wanted to personally

  thank him for the example he had set and the help he had pro-

  vided. I also attended his retirement party. It was there that he

  told a couple of saucy jokes, which I have embraced as my own in

  later years. That was Pete, though. He was warm. He was genu-

  ine. He was funny.

  There is nobody better able to tell Pete’s story than the acclaimed

  veteran sports journalist and columnist Jerry Izenberg. Jerry has

  reported on many of the key sports figures and events of the past

  sixty years. He is one of only a handful of reporters to have cov-

  ered every Super Bowl, and few people, if any, are as knowledge-

  able about the sport of football and the nfl as he.

  As one of the most highly respected professionals in his field,

  Jerry’s body of work is extraordinary and his knowledge of the sub-

  ject unparalleled. Having long been a fan of his writing, I have no

  doubt readers will find his telling of Pete’s story to be complete,

  insightful, witty, and well written.

  Foreword

  xiii

  Acknowledgments

  I am indebted to numerous people for the extraordinary amount

  of time they gave me during this four- decade search for the many

  dimensions of Pete Rozelle. There were many, far too numerous

  to mention here, but the ones to whom I owe a particular debt of

  gratitude are Pete’s daughter, Anne Marie Bratton; former nfl

  commissioner Paul Tagliabue; Joe Browne; Ernie Accorsi; Art

  Modell and Wellington Mara, both of whom sadly passed away

  before this book was finished; Anson Christian; Colleen Smith-

  Grubb; Aileen and Bob Izenberg; and, finally, my long- suffering

  agent, Peter Sawyer.

  xv

  Rozelle

  Prologue

  It was the year when we all reached the undeniable conclusion that

  Pete Rozelle had put a golden lariat around all of professional foot-

  ball and brought it peace in our time at last. Al Davis was merged

  and deceptively (but temporarily) silenced. College All- Americans,

  once wooed by the nfl and the afl with money, women, and more

  money, had been dumped into the new common draft. Now, with

  the end of the war between the two leagues, the most talented col-

  lege football players on the planet were lucky if they could get a

  scout to buy them a cup of coffee.

  It was January 1969, and we were in Miami Beach, at the Doral

  Beach Hotel, the media and league headquarters for Super Bowl

  III. This would be the Super Bowl of “Joe Willie” Namath and

  his “guarantee of victory” that rocked America’s 100- yard world.

  It was the game that finally breathed credibility into the notion of

  one football universe indivisible and bankable under the benevo-

  lent dictatorship of one man.

  His name was Pete Rozelle.

  Subsequent events would stamp him as the man who, above

  anyone else, gave America a brand- new national game. Nobody—

  not Kennesaw Mountain Landis (who scrubbed the Black Sox

  scandal white as snow), not Walter O’Malley (who opened the

  West Coast to the high- powered business of sports), not David

  Stern (who saved the nba from banishment forever as a cable- tv

  sport), not Avery Brundage (the International Olympic Commit-

  tee dictator)— had the impact on sports in the twentieth century

  that Pete Rozelle did.

  He never played the game. He never owned a franchise. He

  1

  never went to law school. He never even was a serious candidate for the job that would ultimately catapult him into the role of lord

  high architect of every new artistic and economic advance that

  made the nfl the trailblazer for all of sports in the second half of

  the twentieth century.

  The men who owned the National Football League didn’t even

  think of him as the combination of George Halas (the football

  maven), George Preston Marshall (entertainment genius), and

  Moses (the parter of a sea of red ink) necessary to keep them artis-

  tically and economically afloat. At the time they weren’t even sure

  what they wanted. But Rozelle, a reluctant candidate, knew what

  they needed once he became the commissioner. Time and again

  he would surprise them, to the point that they eventually rarely

  questioned his wisdom.

  Back on that evening in Miami Beach (Super Bowl III minus three

  days), I was sitting in the hotel bar with Jim Kensil, who would put

  in sixteen years in the nfl office under Rozelle before he became

  president of the Jets in 1977. Rozelle repeatedly referred to him

  during his tenure as “my offensive and defensive coordinator,”

  and with good reason.

  Recruited out of the Associated Press (ap) sports department

  to serve as Rozelle’s director of public relations, he ultimately

  became the commissioner’s sounding board, friend, trusted lieu-

  tenant, and point man. His effectiveness was matched only by his

  loyalty to his boss.

  We had each drunk a great deal that evening. Now Kensil— a

  good friend— was pissed at me because I was reminding him that

  his boss was simply a czar of 100- yard jocks and not a man for

  the ages. My belligerence was not his fault. My first marriage was

  already rocketing toward disaster, and the alcohol was not help-

  ing my mood. Ironically, when we talked later, those very cir-

  cumstances and our shared experiences as “single parents raising

  children” would give Rozelle and me a common bond.

  2

  Prologue

  “You think you know the guy,” Kensil, clearly annoyed because I was not yet ready to canonize his boss, insisted, “but you really

  don’t know him. Very few people do. He is capable of anything he

  sets his mind to. I really think that this is a guy who could find a

  way to settle the war in Vietnam if he were a diplomat.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Clearly, in that moment we were both tipsy and pissed off.

  I began to stagger off toward my room. A long line had formed

  outside the elevators, and at the rear Pete Rozelle had joined it.

  “Great,” I mumbled to myself. “Don’t tell me this fre
akin’ eleva-

  tor stops at Saigon.” And then I waved and he nodded back, and I

  walked over and said something very pithy like, “You got a minute?”

  “From the size of this line, I’ve got an hour,” he said and laughed.

  So we walked back to the lobby and sat on a low bench, and I

  thought, hyperbole aside, what if Kensil is right about this guy?

  What will be his next move?

  “It’s none of my business,” I said, “but what the hell is a nice guy

  like you doing in a place like this? I mean, why don’t you get the

  hell out of the football business and do something interesting?”

  “I thought about that,” he said. “A lot of people have talked to

  me about running for public office, but that’s really out of the

  question. But, yes, I thought about making a change for some of

  the reasons you said, but then I had to make a much more serious

  personal decision. I wanted to put together enough investments

  and things so that my daughter would never have to worry. And

  then I wanted to get other parts of my own life straight.”

  Having worked hard to raise his daughter from a previous mar-

  riage, he would ultimately remarry. With that possibility in the

  back of his mind, he added, “I think now I just want to sit back

  and enjoy life.”

  The Pete Rozelle I knew and the Pete Rozelle I would discover

  more than thirty years ago when I first decided to write this book

  always enjoyed life. But sit back? That would have been like tell-

  ing the Mississippi River not to roll.

  I never did ask him if he planned to go to Vietnam. Kensil being

  Prologue

  3

  Kensil, he never would have forgiven me for that. But it was on that night that the notion of this book began to take shape.

  Why I didn’t begin to write it then was very simple. After the

  merger I figured he would not occupy as much of my time any-

  more. In private I had found him to be shrewd, willing to concede

  a point, inquisitive on his own, and not afraid to tell an anec-

  dote (which was invariably usable). And never after the fact did he

  append, “Of course, that’s off the record.”

  I thought that our relationship from that point forward would

  be casual and that I would miss the way it had been. It seemed to

  me that all he had to do was sit back and let the good times roll. I