Rozelle Has Active Role : NFL Still Trying to Find a Commissioner

With Commissioner Pete Rozelle taking an increasingly important role, three members of a dissident faction that blocked Jim Finks are being included in the process of finding a new NFL commissioner.

The dissident owners were to meet Monday night to ratify a plan that would allow the two groups to get together today at an owners’ meeting originally called to announce plans for a new international spring league.

Finks, the president of the New Orleans Saints, was the only man recommended two weeks ago by a six-member search committee of “old guard” owners.

He was blocked, however, by a coalition of 11 owners that kept him from getting the 19 of 28 votes necessary for election.

The dissidents said they didn’t object to Finks, but did object that none of them was included on the screening committee and also signed a letter requesting a continuation of the process until the fall. They also requested that additional candidates be considered in addition to the six finalists.

Mike Lynn, president of the Minnesota Vikings and one of the leaders of the dissident faction, said Monday that Finks continues to be an alternative. He also confirmed the involvement of Rozelle, who announced March 22 that he was stepping down after 22 years.

“Pete is still the commissioner and if there’s a dispute, he’d like to get it settled,” Lynn said. “Pete had the idea of including us in the deliberations.”

“Hopefully Pete can reconcile the two sides, we need to get this done,” said Art Modell of Cleveland, a member of the search committee.

Under the new plan, Lynn, Edward DeBartolo Jr. of San Francisco and Patrick Bowlen of Denver will meet with three members of the selection committee, which is headed by Wellington Mara of the New York Giants and Lamar Hunt of Kansas City. That meeting could take place Tuesday during the meetings on the international league.

Also included will be representatives of Heidrich and Struggles, the talent search firm that cut the list of candidates from 101 names at the start to six finalists and finally to Finks. The expanded group will look at the material that Heidrich and Struggles and the search committee used to arrive at the New Orleans president as its choice.

Modell said Monday that despite reports that a contract was agreed to, there was no committment to Finks other than some things that might be agreed upon “if the owners vote on him as commissioner.”

“No committment was made as such,” Modell said.

Tex Schramm, former president of the Dallas Cowboys and head of the group organizing the international league, denied on Monday reports that he ever was, or will be, a commissioner candidate.

The same report, from the Los Angeles Times, said that Roger Staubach also would be nominated for the post, but the former Cowboys quarterback said Monday that he isn’t interested.

“I have a great deal of gratitude and respect for the NFL and it is an attractive thought to be considered for commissioner,” Staubach said. “However, at this time my life is consumed with building my real estate company on a national basis and I am committed to this goal.”

Meanwhile, new names continued to surface as possibilities for deputy commissioner, a new post to be created under the top man.

The most prominent is Willie Davis, the former Green Bay Packer defensive end who is now a successful businessman. Robert Mulcahy, executive director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission, is also being pushed strongly by his staff.

Both Davis and Mulcahy were finalists in the search, along with former Democratic National chairman Paul Kirk and Paul Tagliabue, the NFL’s Washington lawyer, who is thought to have been second to Finks in the final analysis. Also on the list was the chief executive officer of a major corporation who asked that his name not be disclosed.

But one prominent owner said Monday that the deputies would be chosen only by the new commissioner in conjunction with the owners.