I Pity The Fool

That is what the cartoonish actor Mr. T used to say. Well, I pity the fool who has to replace the real Mr. T -- Paul Tagliabue, that is. The longtime NFL commissioner announced his retirement yesterday, ending an amazingly productive 17 year run as the leader of the most successful, well-run organization in sport.

Ever since Pete Rozelle took the reins of the NFL in 1959, the league has become an amazing force in popular culture. While pro games were on television prior to that time, Rozelle was able to get the disparate, fractious owners of NFL teams to pool their resources and sell themselves as entities within a league, which has led to amazing profits and growth for all of them. Teams like the Pittsburgh Steelers, which was decidedly a mom-and-pop organization prior to 1960, are now financial powerhouses. The Rooney family, which still owns a controlling interest in the Pittsburgh franchise, is now fabulously wealthy. Tagliabue took Rozelle's vision and ran with it, presiding over 17 years of labor peace and great wealth for all who participated, owners and players alike. Could you even imagine a community owned non-profit team like the Packers even existing, let alone thriving, in any other sport?

It didn't have to be this way - back in the 1950s, college football was still king and the NFL was essentially a regional operation; most of the country did not pay attention to the comings and goings of the pros. Now the NFL is almost inescapable. Here in Minnesota, if someone from Winter Park clears his throat, five television cameras and fourteen reporters seem to materialize on the spot. While the Twins, Timberwolves and Wild struggle to get on the front page of the sports section, minor Viking personnel moves run above the fold. How does this happen? Because the people who run the NFL have made it part of our lives. Millions of people are currently gearing up for, and planning to watch hours of, the NFL draft, which is an administrative exercise.

Tagliabue, like Rozelle, was key in the packaging of pro football and brokering its insertion deep into the American psyche. It's an amazing achievement, especially to this baseball fan, and Tagliabue deserves a lot of credit for it.