Post-Gazette Dan Rooney, left, with father Art Sr. in the Steelers' offices in 1986. He is his father's son, but "I always tried to be my own man."

New NFL commissioner Roger Goodell wasted little time responding to a request to talk about the chairman of the Steelers.

"There is no one in our league that is respected and loved more than Dan Rooney,'' Goodell replied.

Rooney might laugh a little at that one, remembering when a couple of his own coaches would have taken issue with such sentiment.

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There was the time in 1956 when, not long graduated from Duquesne University with a degree in accounting and starting to express his opinions on the Steelers, Rooney tried to derail coach Walt Keisling from making Gary Glick the NFL's first draft choice as the Steelers' bonus pick. His father bowed to Keisling and the doomed selection of Glick was made.

Nine years later, it was Rooney who refused to allow coach Buddy Parker to trade Ben McGee and others after a fourth consecutive preseason loss. So, Parker quit for the umpteenth occasion, only this time Rooney accepted his resignation -- and waited until later to tell his dad.

It wasn't all smooth sailing for the son of the legendary Chief, Art Rooney Sr. There were the losing days -- on the field and at the box office -- the player strikes and the bitter disappointments of losses at home in championship games that would have put his team in more Super Bowls.

Through it all, however, Rooney said, "I have always found football and being with the Steelers fun. I always found I enjoyed every year, when we lost and when we won. I always thought it was a great thing. I do think doing things right, following a procedure, is probably where the difference came."

That career, which began when his father brought him to training camp in the 1930s, landed him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as part of only two father-son pairs in Canton (Tim and Wellington Mara join them). Sunday, the Dapper Dan honors Rooney with only its third Lifetime Achievement Award at its annual dinner at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

Goodell, a Washington & Jefferson graduate who has worked with Rooney in the league for two decades, said it is an honor well deserved.

"Dan Rooney is the heart and soul of the NFL. His achievements on behalf of Pittsburgh and the NFL are legendary, from building a world-class franchise in Pittsburgh to helping shape league policies and decisions across a wide range of issues.''

Rooney, 74, can trace his involvement with the Steelers back to 1940, at least the part of expressing his opinions to his father about the club. Art Rooney sold the Steelers to Alexis Thompson on Dec. 9, 1940, but regained ownership for a Pittsburgh franchise the following April when, after buying half of the Philadelphia Eagles with Bert Bell, he and Bell swapped franchises with Thompson.

"I was very interested in the Steelers as soon as I became aware,'' Dan Rooney said. "In fact, when that business came up that we were selling the team, I was really concerned.

"I remember it. We were in the dining room and my mother was on the phone talking to him. I said something to her, 'Dad isn't going to sell the football team is he?'

"She said to my father, 'You better talk to Danny, he's concerned what you're doing with the football team.' I got on the phone and I said, 'You're not selling the football team!' And he said, 'No, don't worry about it. It's just something we're going through, a process.'''

Rooney's first official job with the Steelers came as a 14-year-old in 1946, as what was then called a waterboy, in coach Jock Sutherland's first training camp.

"I learned a lot from Jock,'' Rooney said. "I became interested in the game itself and I also saw how he operated very thoroughly, making the guys count the T-shirts and socks coming out of the laundry and all those things."

Rooney went on to play quarterback at North Catholic High School and went to Duquesne University to study accounting and continue to play football, but the school discontinued the sport after his freshman year.

Rooney became more and more involved in the Steelers while he was a college student. He signed players to contracts and even helped with the draft -- which brought about his disagreement with Kiesling over Glick.

But it was the coaching tenure of Buddy Parker, which began in 1957, that prompted Rooney to get more involved with the front office and league matters. Art Rooney became less interested in NFL business and Parker wanted nothing to do with the league.

"He had a disdain for the league office and I wound up getting involved,'' Rooney said of Parker. "I would be in the office and I would get a call from the league, the commissioner. Other teams would call. They would all find out after awhile, hey, the guy you can get is Dan Rooney. He'll get this done for you.

"I kept getting more involved that way and things like that. My father was still there and doing things. He let me do more. He would push me. He took me with him to league meetings and he would always try to get me in the room with him."

Eventually, Art Rooney bestowed the big decisions on his son, such as choosing coaches and mapping strategy for the franchise. Dan Rooney did so while he also became more involved with league matters -- he helped settle player strikes in 1982 and 1987 and helped forge the collective bargaining agreement in 1992 that has kept labor peace.

He is his father's son, but no carbon copy.

"I always tried to be my own man,'' Rooney said. "I was not trying to copy him and he didn't want me to."