Rooney-ism #2

Growing up in Coaldale, a tiny speck of anthracite between the ‘I’ and the ‘A’ in Pennsylvania, you didn’t expect to meet people in the outside who’d heard of the place, much less knew the place, much less knew someone from the place. But then, you never expected to meet Art Rooney either.

Still fairly new to Pittsburgh in the fall of 1983, I was assigned to cover the Steelers one day when the regular beat guy was off doing something else. I was working in the press room late in the afternoon when The Chief walked in trailing a burst of cigar smoke. I’d never seen him, except for when they’d given him the Lombardi Trophies after four Super Bowls, and I was more than a little nervous. Closer to petrified, frankly. I was fortunate, I thought, that I was the one guy in there he didn’t know and probably wouldn’t talk to.

I turned back to my work, but in a second he was next to me.

“Hiya,” he said, “What’s your name?”

“Oh, Hi Art,” I said, as 10 other heads whirled toward me for not calling him Mr. Rooney. “I’m Gene Collier.”

“Hi Gene where ya from?” he said.

Now I was really in deep. Not only had I disrespected him, but I’d probably named the one place he couldn’t connect with.

“Coaldale? Oh sure!” he said. “I knew a priest from there once, and a pretty good punter.”

I thought about that moment again only this past March. My mother had died the previous December, and I’d just packed up my father’s stuff for his move to Indianapolis, where he’d be closer to my brother and his wife and spend his last days.

Driving out of Coaldale, possibly for the last time at age 56, The Chief seemed to be with me again. It’s said that The Chief knew a priest and/or a football player from every town in Pennsylvania, but I never gave much thought to whether that was true. I only know how good he made me feel about the place.

                                                                                                        - Gene Collier

Rooney-ism #1

Among the greatest challenges in writing The Chief, the stage play on which this movie is based, was in satisfactorily conveying Art Rooney’s singular humanity, his stunning capacity for everyday empathy.

Plenty of people asked us, by which I mean Rob Zellers and me, if there were stories about the great sportsman and founder of the Pittsburgh Steelers that we regretted had not made in into the script of the play, and by extension the word-for-word version now available through the efforts of the film's producer Mike Wittlin and executive producers Tom Chaffee and Bruce Kaplan. Time simply did not permit the telling of every compelling story about The Chief. There are one hundred and one such stories, and that’s just about boxing. But my favorite goes pretty much like this.

When The Chief’s wife died, which would have been in 1980, the funeral home employed for the viewing had two rooms. Katherine Rooney was in one. A local fireman in the other. As the sessions wore on, The Chief, even in his grief, noticed that no one was showing up to pay respects to the fireman. Finally he asked the one visitor who came to the other room what was up. “Oh Mr. Rooney,” the man said, “This is my father. My mom’s dead, and I’m the only living relative that I know of. That’s why no one’s come.” From that point until the end of the viewings, the Chief made sure that all flowers that were delivered to his wife’s room where split between Katherine and the fireman, and that everyone who came to pay respects to his wife also visit the fireman and sign the fireman’s book. When a long-lost relative did turn up during the final session, she remarked, “Oh my gosh, I didn’t know that dad knew Lynn Swann and Franco Harris, and all these players!”

This story just slays me. Not only didn’t he have to do it, he clearly didn’t have to do it – indeed it appeared to have no purpose – after the first visitor indicated no one else would be coming. Yet he did it because it seemed right to him. It seemed polite. There was no one like him.

Many, many people, I hope, will see this DVD, just as tens of thousands saw the play, the most successful production in the history of the Pittsburgh Public Theatre. Many of them will praise the staggering performance of Tom Atkins, and to lesser extents the work of the producers, directors, writers, and all talented people who contributed to its existence in any way.

I would only ask that they remember that the overriding reason it works is and always has been Art Rooney. We are all privileged to be associated with him even in this humble way.

                                                                                      - Gene Collier

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