The big job was back home for the nomadic three. They had
to convince constituencies and sell ads and tickets. Their job was
not easy.
Rozelle, meanwhile, did the expected. He flew to Cleveland,
one of three towns that had to be sold on their new place in the
nfl alignment. He met the local press. He visited local radio and
television stations. And the last day of his whirlwind appearance
he was saluted at a luncheon by the International Council of Mar-
keting. The award they gave him was named “Marketing Execu-
tive of the Year.”
Bringing in the Sheaves
161
11
The Failed Coups
Why in the world would you write a book about him? . . . I am the man who saved the National Football League.
—Carroll Rosenbloom when he learned I was writing this book, talk-
ing to the author poolside at his Beverly Hills home
He loved me once, and I hope he will come to love me again.
—Pete Rozelle, explaining his “high noon at 410 Park Avenue” with
Carroll Rosenbloom
They were strong men with huge egos, these nfl club owners.
Quick to anger and slow to compromise. The older ones had been
through hard times and empty stadiums. The newer ones had the
kind of bankrolls they equated with power.
For Pete Rozelle, they continued to present a constant test of
wills even after “peace in our time.” For openers, there was George
Preston Marshall. For the first quarter century after he moved his
Boston Braves to Washington, where he renamed them the Red-
skins, no African American had earned a spot on his roster. If it
were up to George, none ever would.
After all, his fight song, “Hail to the Redskins,” originally
included the line “fight on for old Dixie,” the residue of the days
when his team owned the entire South, from the nation’s capital
all the way down to the Texas- Florida Panhandle. His love of that
radio- tv income and desire to appeal to southern markets put him
at least a decade behind Brown v. Board of Education.
Additionally, he made no secret of his feelings about racial mat-
ters even after his death when his will proclaimed the six million
162
dollars in assets he would leave to charity had only one qualifi-cation: none of it could be used “for any purpose which supports
or employs the principle of racial integration.” He fought Rozelle
on signing as much as a single black player until 1962, when the
commissioner made an end run around the whole Redskin fran-
chise and brought in the federal government to generate the nec-
essary heat.
When it came to Washington dc, Marshall might have owned
the football team, but from the moment that the nfl got its lim-
ited antitrust legislation for a single tv contract, Pete Rozelle could have given Marshall six points and still beaten him in any game
with the federal establishment.
Rozelle learned that the dc Armory Board controlled District of
Columbia Stadium, where the Redskins played. And the Armory
was controlled by the Department of the Interior.
Enter Stewart Udall, secretary of the interior, along with Attor-
ney General Robert Kennedy. After a talk with Rozelle, Udall sent
a letter to Marshall, reminding him who held his stadium lease.
“Unless you sign an African- American player,” Udall told him, “we
will negate your 30- year lease as being in violation of federal law.”
With no options left and no place to go, Marshall drafted Syra-
cuse running back Ernie Davis. When Davis said, “I won’t play for
the son of a bitch,” he traded him to Cleveland for Bobby Mitch-
ell, another Afro- American.
On the day Marshall surrendered, Udall made the following
statement: “I should like to thank Mr. Rozelle for his constructive
action. He has performed a distinct service to American sports for
his willingness to mediate this dispute.”
Rozelle had jammed a whole new way of life down Marshall’s
throat. The Redskins’ owner was bitter and angry and still extremely
influential within league circles. But never once did he mount an
attack upon Rozelle.
It was clear that Rozelle’s statements about the integrity of the
game and its social impact on the public were not just empty words.
In 1974, as America first began to discuss openly the impact of
The Failed Coups
163
drugs in the locker room, he announced he had fined Gene Klein, owner of the San Diego Chargers, twenty thousand dollars for lax-ity in controlling drug problems on his team. Other clubs had sim-
ilar problems. The Chargers felt that because they were a losing
franchise, they were being made a scapegoat for the league. But
never once did Klein mount a public attack on the commissioner.
Over the years Al Davis had fought Rozelle, had sued Rozelle,
had never made peace with Rozelle. He often implied to his play-
ers that they were penalized more because of Rozelle’s feelings
about him than their conduct on the field. But never did he ask
for Rozelle’s resignation as commissioner.
Outside of the emotional meeting over the Pete Gogolak sign-
ing, nobody had ever gone that far with Rozelle. George Halas
blistered the air with his language and with his tirades in which
the devil and the incompetence of game officials were conspiring to
deprive the Bears of their rightful place in the standings. But every
time it counted for as long as he lived, Halas supported Rozelle.
Edward Bennett Williams, who once owned the Redskins, was
forced to go to what he had announced as a major press confer-
ence, and when the media arrived he was compelled to say he had
nothing to say— the result of a single telephone call from Rozelle.
Actually, the media had been invited to learn of the signing of
Vince Lombardi as the Skins’ new coach, but Rozelle told him the
contract had yet to be approved. “That was the most embarrass-
ing moment of my time as an nfl owner,” Williams would later
say. This was man of serious power and clout and enormous pres-
tige as one of America’s most famous trial lawyers. But even after
the humiliation of a moment like that, he remained a Rozelle sup-
porter in critical situations.
Through the years they sniped and they grumbled, and a few
like Davis struck hard in interviews far distanced from league
meetings, but nobody ever walked through the doors of the old
headquarters at 410 Park Avenue with the avowed purpose of tak-
ing the youthful commissioner to the mat over the way he ran the
league. Nobody.
164 The Failed Coups
That is, until Carroll Rosenbloom turned on the man he had nominated for the job and demanded his removal. Looking back
on the long history of Rosenbloom’s relationship with pro football
(he was an owner seven years before Rozelle became commissioner,
and at the time only he, Art Rooney, Paul Brown, Wellington
Mara, and Lou Spadia predated his stewardship), it would be hard
to find a less likely candidate to attempt a palace coup.
finally broke free and elected Rozelle. In happier times he had often
publicly said that pro football had the best commissioner in all of
sports. During the war between the afl and nfl, he had been an
outspoken supporter of Rozelle.
When, oh, when, it is logical to wonder, did the magic leave this
marriage? To wade through that minefield of confusion, it is first
necessary to know the mind of Carroll Rosenbloom.
“I know they were close when Carroll had the Colts in Balti-
more,” says Ernie Accorsi, who had worked for both men. “So what-
ever happened between them was after Rosenbloom had swapped
the Colts with Bob Irsay for the Rams and moved to California.”
In regard to the genius of that swap, Carroll openly proclaimed
that “we avoided capital gains taxes by doing it this way. It was the
kind of deal only I could put together.”
Why did he turn against Rozelle so violently? “Frankly,” Accorsi
said, “I don’t think you are going to actually find a reason, because
Carroll was the kind of man who had to go through life with an
ally and an enemy, and they could be interchangeable. Reasons
never really mattered, or else he forgot them. He could wake up
one day and think, ‘I don’t like this guy.’ And then he would look
for the reasons.”
A case in point was his vitriolic feud with John Steadman, a
revered Baltimore newspaperman who loved the town and who
first drew Rosenbloom’s wrath when he attacked him for includ-
ing the Colts’ preseason games in the overall season- ticket pack-
age at full regular- season prices. From a single- issue feud, it went viral. Steadman made his attacks on Carroll a defense of munici-The Failed Coups
165
pal pride. Rosenbloom made Steadman’s name anathema anywhere near his office. Then one day Carroll screamed at Accorsi, his pr
man, “If you don’t pull Steadman’s credentials, I’ll fire you. And
if you give him a parking pass, I really will fire you.”
Accorsi paid no attention but told Steadman, “John, listen to
me. My job is really on the line. See if you can find a parking space
near the Eastern Shore of Maryland.”
The controversy over Carroll’s “extended” season- ticket scam
rolled on. Steadman aroused the community. “In my opinion,”
said Bert Bell Jr., a Rosenbloom employee and the son of the com-
missioner who had brought Rosenbloom into football in the first
place, “that exhibition thing was highway robbery.”
But for Carroll it was nothing personal, just business. And he
had been about business for a long, long time. As a young man he
was determined to escape the dominance of his father’s success-
ful economic shadow and forge one of his own.
When, at age twenty- four, he was sent to Roanoke, Virginia, by
him to liquidate the Blue Ridge Overalls Company, a small fac-
tory that his father had owned, he saw his escape route. Return-
ing to Baltimore, he convinced his mother to loan him the money
to buy Blue Ridge for himself without telling his father who the
buyer was. He believed it was worth the gamble. But then there
never was a gamble that Carroll could pass up.
The country was in the throes of the Great Depression. When
President Roosevelt signed the newly authorized Civilian Conser-
vation Corps into law as a youth employment service and a devel-
oper of the American West, Rosenbloom sought and got a lucrative
contract for Blue Ridge to manufacture their denim work uniforms.
Ironically, roughly ten years later, after the Japanese bombed Pearl
Harbor, Rosenbloom went after and got one of the most signifi-
cant textile contracts of his career, a deal to manufacture military
fatigues. Textiles were the pebble that grew into the huge rock
upon which he founded his millionaire’s future, but it was a rock
that reached into all kinds of investments and industries.
The fuel that drove him in all aspects of his life— business, rec-
166
The Failed Coups
reational, and social— was, pure and simple, his unabated passion.
As a case in point, he had been known to cry after his football
team’s emotional victories or defeats. This was a man who either
won or lost but rarely— if ever— compromised.
He was also man who collected friendships with celebrities on
both sides of the social street. He played golf with Joe Kennedy.
During the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic
City, President Lyndon Johnson did not stay in the hotel where
he was registered. He stayed in Rosenbloom’s home in Margate
City, New Jersey.
And he was a gambler of no small reputation— whether it was
sports betting or card games. As a result of this last and his home
away from home in Margate, he was active in the neon nightlife
of Atlantic City.
One person with whom he socialized (and to whom he lost a
good bit of gin rummy money) was a local mafioso named Skinny
D’Amato, an ex- con, member of the resort city’s dark- side social
set, and the front man for the infamous 500 Club at 6 Missouri
Avenue. In its showroom, the 500 Club featured entertainers such
as Frank Sinatra (who performed for free in deference to his close
ties to D’Amato and stayed at Rosenbloom’s home when he was in
town), Joey Bishop, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, and Sammy Davis
Jr. In the rear there was gambling. And at the bar there were gen-
erally a few ladies of the evening.
It was D’Amato who encouraged Rosenbloom to buy a half
interest in Havana’s Nacional Hotel and Casino. Unfortunately,
it was an investment that cost him dearly. The ink was hardly dry
on the bill of sale when Castro marched into Havana and shut
down the gambling and nationalized the hotel at a major finan-
cial loss to Carroll.
But in a strange sense this setback actually reinforced the public
perception of the man as the ultimate high roller. After all, despite
his father’s money and business acumen, it was a series of personal
gambles that made Carroll’s fortune, starting with his turnaround
of the dying company he had bought out from under his father.
The Failed Coups
167
He lived for challenges both business and recreational, and there were no secrets about Carroll’s love of high- stakes gambling.
There had been rumors for years that Rosenbloom had needed
his Colts to beat the Giants in the historic sudden- death title game
of 1958 by more than three points so that he could cash a bet. They
were fed by the fact that the Colts had not tried to kick a field goal in the shadow of the Giants’ goal line and instead had finally had
Alan Ameche run the ball in for the winning score.
They persisted even though they were absolutely false. Rozelle was
not even the commissioner when the Colts played that game. But
innuendo and gossip survived, and so in 1963 Rozelle launched
a six- month investigation by Jim Hamilton, the league’s chief of
security, because t
hat was the same year in which he suspended
Horning and Karras for gambling. What made it worse in Car-
roll’s eyes was that at the same media conference in which Rozelle
barred the two players, he was asked about his investigation of
Rosenbloom and replied, “No comment.”
The probe finally cleared Rosenbloom. But as always happens
with newspapers in such cases, the possibility drew the headlines,
but the exoneration was barely mentioned. Rosenbloom remained
furious.
In truth, Wellington Mara once logically speculated for me that
Rosenbloom felt that because the league had made it to the top of
America’s popularity charts through the long reach of Rozelle’s
high- powered public relations staff, Rosenbloom felt the com-
missioner could have and should have done more to trumpet his
innocence to the general public. Mara, knowing Rosenbloom as
he did, believed Carroll never forgot or forgave that, and it fur-
ther fueled his ever- lasting anger.
In 1975 with Rosenbloom’s animosity toward the commissioner
steadily growing, the commissioner used the rarely employed so-
called Rozelle Rule against the Rams in what came to be known
as the Cullen Bryant case.
168
The Failed Coups
Carroll had signed the Lions’ Ron Jessie, who had played out his option. As a means of loosely enforcing the league’s reserve
clause, the commissioner had been granted the right to arbitrarily
designate compensation to the team that had lost its player.
Because of the growing sensitivity involving anything between
the league and Rosenbloom, Rozelle called in two nfl employees,
Joe Kuharich, his old usf football coach, and Ernie Accorsi, whose
previous employment by Rosenbloom the commissioner felt might
be useful. “He told us,” Accorsi said, “to figure out what would be
fair compensation to the Lions. We talked it over, and Bryant was
logical because he was not a starter but clearly had a bright future
ahead of him.” It led to a major Rozelle defeat. Bryant won a court
case. Rosenbloom silently financed the action.
So by the summer of 1975, Rosenbloom, the man who always
needed an ally and an enemy, was obsessed with putting the youth-
ful commissioner in his place. It was the summer in which I had
begun serious research on this book. The Rams were about to play
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