This very good job just opened up.
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Anyone can handle it who has some aptitude for and experience in: labor relations, law enforcement, drug counseling, accounting, economic development, promotion and television programming.
Not one or two of the above. All of them. Oh, and the applicant also has to look and sound good on television and have friends in Congress.
It might also help if he (or, far less likely, she) knows something about football, considering that the job is replacing Pete Rozelle as commissioner of the National Football League.
But that`s probably not a requirement. Peter Ueberroth didn`t know much about baseball when he took the baseball commissioner`s job five years ago, and he did all right.
It is possible, of course, that the 28 owners of the NFL teams will choose someone from football`s establishment, someone who does not have many of the abilities mentioned above. The rulers of the game could decide that their situation calls for a consolidating caretaker, rather than an innovator, as the fourth commissioner since the league was founded and only the second since it became a key factor in everyday life for six months a year.
But football may have too many troubles as well as too many opportunities to take that risk. Drug and steroid use threaten to tarnish the league`s image, negotations with the player`s union are not going well, franchise shifts have angered fans, some cities are clamoring for new franchises and, in others, resistance grows to public subsidies for stadiums.
So there is likely to be serious consideration to going for a big name, someone from the world of business, the professions or government who has already proven an ability to move and shake among the movers and shakers. That`s what the baseball owners did when they hired Ueberroth, a successful businessman who had run the 1984 Olympic Games and gotten named as Time Magazine`s man of the year.
But who? It almost has to be a ”former.” No one is likely to resign as the CEO of a major corporation or a U.S. Senator to take the football job, attractive though it may be. There are plenty of former big-wigs, but most of them-Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, John Tower-were mentioned Wednesday only as jokes.
Someone who would have been an obvious contender in November is no longer available. Jack Kemp-former quarterback, former congressman, former Republican presidential hopeful-is the new Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, a position he is unlikely to leave now.
One possibility is Paul Kirk, who stepped down last month as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Baseball is Kirk`s first love among sports, but he likes football, he`s popular on Capitol Hill and he knows how to raise and spend money, making him a possibility, even though most football owners seem to be Republicans.
So are Donald Rumsfeld and Rudolph Giuliani. A former defense secretary and corporation chief, Rumsfeld knows how to run large organizations and deal with unions. Once a congressman himself, he remains well connected in Washington. Giuliani, who just stepped down as a crime-busting U.S. Attorney in New York, offers the image of rectitude and moderation, though, like Kirk, his game is baseball. He is gearing up a campaign for mayor of New York, but he could gear it down.
Pete Dawkins` campaign got geared down for him last year when he lost his first run for office. So he is not a Republican senator from New Jersey. But he still has a pretty impressive list of credentials-Heisman Trophy winner, Rhodes Scholar, combat officer, Wall Street financier.
Pete duPont, another former congressman and presidential candidate, as well as former governor of Delaware, is energetic, ambitious and athletic, though perhaps a bit too aristocratic for the tastes of the football owners.
No doubt there are others. But it isn`t a position for which a whole lot of people qualify.
HIGHLIGHTS OF ROZELLE`S TENURE AS NFL COMMISSIONER
– 1960: Elected NFL commissioner as a compromise choice on the 23d ballot;
moves the NFL office to New York; the Chicago Cardinals move to St. Louis.
– 1961: NBC is awarded a two-year contract for radio and television rights to the NFL championship game for $615,000 annually; Canton, Ohio, is chosen as the site of the Hall of Fame; a law is enacted legalizing single-network contracts by professional sports leagues.
– 1962: Re-elected NFL commissioner; the NFL enters into a single-network contract with CBS for $9.3 million; a U.S. District Court judge in Baltimore rules against the AFL in its antitrust suit against the NFL.
– 1963: Suspended indefinitely are players Paul Hornung and Alex Karras for placing bets on their own games; the Pro Football Hall of Fame is dedicated;
the finding for the NFL in the suit brought by the AFL is upheld; Rozelle is named Sportsman of the Year by Sports Illustrated.
– 1964: CBS bids $14.1 million per year for the NFL regular-season TV rights for 1964 and 1965 and acquires rights to the championship games for 1964 and 1965 for $1.8 million per game; Hornung and Karras are reinstated.
– 1965: Atlanta is awarded a franchise; CBS acquires the rights to NFL regular-season games in 1966 and 1967, with an option for 1968, for $18.8 million per year.
– 1966: Rights to the 1967 and 1968 NFL championship games are sold to CBS for $2 million per game; the AFL and NFL agree to a merger with Rozelle as commissioner; New Orleans is awarded an NFL franchise; the rights for the Super Bowl for four years are sold to CBS and NBC for $9.5 million.
– 1969: ABC acquires the rights to televise 13 regular-season Monday night games 1970-72 and Monday Night Football is born.
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– 1973: NFL Charities, a non-profit organization, is created; Lance Rentzel of the Dallas Cowboys is suspended for the 1973 season for conduct detrimental to the NFL.
– 1974: Rozelle is given a 10-year contract effective January 1, 1973; Tampa Bay and Seattle are awarded franchises to begin play in 1976; the NFL Players Association strikes on July 1 and returns 59 days later.
– 1977: The NFL Players Association and NFL Management Council ratify a collective bargaining agreement extending until 1982; a four-year television contract is negotiated with the three major networks to begin in 1978.
– 1980: CBS, with a bid of $12 million, wins the national radio rights to 36 games for the 1980-83 seasons; the Oakland Raiders join the Los Angeles Coliseum Commission`s antitrust suit against the NFL, contending the league violated antitrust laws in declining to approve a proposed move by the Raiders from Oakland to L.A.
– 1982: The NFL signs a five-year, $2.1 billion contract with the three television networks to televise all regular-season and postseason games starting in 1982; a jury rules against the NFL in the antitrust trial brought by the Los Angeles Coliseum Commission and the Raiders, clearing the way for the Raiders` move; the season is reduced to nine games by a 57-day players`
strike; play resumes November 21 following the ratification of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, to run through 1986.
– 1983: Quarterback Art Schlichter is suspended for gambling.
– 1984: The Baltimore Colts relocate to Indianapolis.
– 1985: Rozelle is elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame; the NFL enters into a two-year agreement granting NBC the radio rights to a 37-game package in each of the 1985-86 seasons; NFL owners adopt a series of preseason games to be played in England, Europe and Japan.
– 1986: Owners adopt limited use of instant replay as an officiating aid; a jury in U.S. District Court in New York awards the United States Football League one dollar in its $1.7 billion anti-trust suit against the NFL.
– 1987: The NFL announces three-year television contracts worth $1.428 billion with ABC, NBC and CBS for 1987-89; ESPN receives a three-year deal for 13 prime-time games; CBS Radio agrees to a 40-game package in each of the 1987-89 seasons; the NFL Players Association strikes on Sept. 22; the NFL continues the regular-season schedule with replacement players; the players return to work without agreement on a new contract, ending the 24-day strike. – 1988: The verdict that awarded the USFL one dollar in its antitrust suit against the NFL is upheld; owners approve the transfer of the Cardinals from St. Louis to Phoenix.
– 1989: Rozelle announces his retirement.