Tagliabue Shows He Is Not Rozelle Clone

It’s a comparison encompassing the present and the past. Paul Tagliabue and Pete Rozelle. They have been in the trenches together, fighting the battle as comrades in arms for the National Football League

Rozelle and Tagliabue, when the league was involved in a legal dispute, and confronted with a crisis, were both the leading offensive and defensive coordinators. They dictated the strategy and planned the presentations, winning their share of decisions before judges and juries, even when they went to overtime and pressed for a review via the appeals process.

Now Rozelle, after serving three months short of 30 years as commissioner, took himself out of the lineup. It evolved that Tagliabue would be his successor. On the night of March 22, 1989, when Rozelle stunned the NFL with his surprise resignation, the name of Tagliabue was quickly listed as a possible successor.

“It could be a good hard ride,” Tagliabue said upon being informed he was under consideration. He wasn’t presumptuous enough to believe the job was going to be his. If the owners wanted him, he was interested. If not? Then he’d remain with the Washington law firm of Covington & Burling, servicing the NFL account.

So now Tagliabue, age 48, has assumed command. He’s his own man. The respect he expresses for Rozelle is deep and sincere. They are friends of the football wars and nothing will alter the personal consideration they hold for each other. Skirmishes, even open warfare with the U.S. Football League, created a feeling of trust and high regard. They fought together.

But, to his credit, Tagliabue isn’t following Rozelle into office by trying to be anything but his own man, asserting himself when the occasion demands and raising his voice to make a pertinent point if he’s challenged. Rozelle is only a cross country telephone call away -- from New York to Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. -- if he’s seeking advice on how to solve some problem his predecessor dealt with numerous times before.

Rozelle realizes Tagliabue will move with a different rhythm and he’s not standing around looking over his shoulder or offering a deadly second-guess, as old bosses sometimes do. At the same time, it’s clear Tagliabue is not a puppet nor a parrot. And Rozelle is too fair and considerate to ever impose his will upon the man who took his place.

The impression Tagliabue made at the Super Bowl earned high points for himself and the league. He talked kindly of Rozelle, who wasn’t in the room but was watching via closed circuit television in another hotel. Then he extended an olive branch to the NFL Players Association, attempting to make it know that he was making a peace offering.

Before the season closed, Tagliabue went before four teams as an individual. He didn’t have assistants taking notes or trying to read the reaction in the room. He merely got up in front of them and delivered the message -- from the commissioner to you, the player, and the importance of trying to restore an amicable, working relationship.

The styles of the two men, Tagliabue and Rozelle, are not at all alike. Rozelle is suave, well-spoken, polite and well-versed in football topics. But he is always the peerless public relations figure. Tagliabue is more forceful and if a dialogue leads to confrontation then he’s not about to back off or dance around it.

His Italian temper shows through just enough to make those around him realize he’ll be quick to stand up and be counted. There’s no puff or sham. And he’s drawing on a background of more than 20 years of NFL experience as Rozelle’s walking-around legal adviser.

Rozelle always handled sportswriters and their probing inquisitions with diplomacy and tact. But, of late, it was as if he had been involved in so many lawsuits, none of his own making, that he had become gun-shy and was almost wary of going on the record.

In the last 10 years of his commissionership, there were suits from within the league that added to his discomfort. It was to his benefit to avoid traps and any chance his words could be distorted. So he framed his answers in a careful, well-chosen, cautious manner.

A former player, Dick Szymanski, who came to football as a player during the administration of the late Commissioner Bert Bell, and knew Rozelle and Tagliabue, offered some perceptive observations on the newly elected leader.

Szymanski, now vice president of the NFL Alumni Association, said, “I am deeply impressed how Paul handles himself and situations. I thought he would act and sound the part of a typical lawyer. But he expresses himself in an exceptional way and isn’t afraid to take a stand. Obviously, he knows the workings of the game from all the time he spent with Pete. I didn’t know what to expect but I know, from what I’ve seen, he’s earning high respect.”

Paul Tagliabue, basketball captain and president of his class at Georgetown and graduate of New York University School of Law in 1965, didn’t come in on a load of coal. He brings courage, honesty and a sense of fair play with him ... plus an impressive ability to express himself. Nothing else is required.