Associated Press Steelers chariman Dan Rooney. Click photo for larger image.

Picture this: Dan Rooney, 71, wearing a baseball cap backward, an oversized 1966 John Havlicek Celtics jersey and 2-inch thick gold chain around his neck, leaping out of his seat at Heinz Field to high-five his son after a Steelers touchdown.

Can't do it? It's no more surprising than Rooney's stance on player celebrations in the NFL. He might be old-school Pittsburgh, but Dan Rooney enjoys the way some modern players celebrate big plays and he's against the league trying to do away with it.

"I voted against that when it was first put in, because I thought it was part of the game and it was fun," Rooney said.

The NFL can fine players and penalize teams for taunting, and it can fine players for what it decides is a premeditated celebration of more than one player. Now it wants to add a 15-yard penalty for multiple celebrants, and Rooney believes the No Fun League is going too far. The league's competition committee favors the rule, and it will go to a vote of the owners at next week's NFL meetings in Palm Beach, Fla.

"I don't know that it's the biggest thing in this league, that's a problem to be making it like it's the biggest thing that we're going to this meeting for," Rooney said. "Everybody's talking about it, and it scares me because you get into an area you don't belong."

When his team was winning Super Bowls in the 1970s, Rooney enjoyed his players' celebrations that included a premeditated, choreographed, hand-slapping, leaping, twisting routine by Hall of Fame receivers Lynn Swann and John Stallworth. Under current rules, those two would be fined after each celebration, and under the proposed rules the Steelers would be penalized 15 yards on the kickoff.

"I remember when you had Stallworth and Swann doing that stuff they did -- I could say that crazy stuff that they did," Rooney said. "But it was good, it added to the thing, people liked it, they saw it and thought this isn't bad."

Rooney doesn't mind the new proposal as much as he does its possible interpretation by NFL officials. Last season, for example, Hines Ward was fined $5,000 and the Steelers were penalized 15 yards because the receiver spiked the football after catching a touchdown pass in Seattle. Spiking is legal and will remain so even if the NFL adopts the new rule. However, the officials penalized Ward for taunting because they thought he spiked the ball in front of the man he had just beaten for the score, cornerback Ken Lucas.

"They said it was taunting," Rooney said. "It wasn't. It was an official and, hey, they're not perfect, they'll call something on you. You say, OK this is the way it's supposed to work, it may not be how it works. So I have concerns."

Rooney doesn't favor real taunting of opponents, nor the types of celebrations that involve Sharpies or cell phones.

As for instant replay, he's all for making it a permanent part of the NFL, although he still wishes the replay official were an equal part of the officiating crew. Originally against replay when the issue came to a vote in the 1980s, he favors it because it has been around so long.

He does not believe other sports like baseball, though, need it.

"One thing that baseball has that's great, their umpires are excellent," Rooney said. "And I love the way they say 'It ain't nothing 'til I call it.' I think that's the attitude they should have.

"Baseball doesn't have that many issues that needs it. I think the umpires do a very creditable job in what they call. Why slow their game down?"