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A DIFFERENT WAY TO WIN
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Foreword Joe Greene

It’s been a long time, but I still remember the day I met Dan Rooney. The Steelers had drafted me out of North Texas State in the first round in 1969, but I hadn’t signed yet. I came up to Pittsburgh with my agent and met Mr. Rooney, as I called him then, in the Steelers’ offices in the Roosevelt Hotel in the city’s downtown. We talked a bit, and he asked me what I was doing. I told him I had been working out, which actually wasn’t true. I had been holding out since the draft, and I wasn’t exactly in shape. I don’t think I fooled him.

After we figured out my contract and Mr. Rooney’s father, Art, gave me a cigar — which I still have — I drove to training camp with Dan, whom I now refer to as “the Ambassador” in honor of his time as the U.S. envoy to Ireland as well as his role as a great representative of the NFL and of his home, Pittsburgh. I was pretty quiet during the trip, but the Ambassador filled the silence by telling me how much I would love Pittsburgh, although, knowing I was from Texas, he did mention that it occasionally got cold in western Pennsylvania. 

I remember thinking how young he was at the time, and that he seemed genuinely interested in talking to me. Believe me, on that summer afternoon in 1969, I could not have imagined that one day Dan Rooney would ask me to present him when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

Watch Joe Greene Interview with Jim Rooney

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