No Replacing Rozelle the Man, Father

Anne Marie Rozelle Bratton told two of her favorite stories: first the “Tea Set Caper,” followed by the one about “Talking Barbie.” She was the final speaker at Tuesday morning’s memorial service in Beverly Hills for her father, Pete Rozelle, professional football’s popular and constructive commissioner for 29 years, who died Dec. 6 at the family’s home in Rancho Santa Fe.

Inside a hotel ballroom filled with flags, flowers and potted palms, plus a grand piano on stage to accompany a Loyola Marymount consort choir, were hundreds of NFL friends and acquaintances--Frank Gifford, Jack Kemp, Don Klosterman, Paul Tagliabue, too many to mention--to whom Rozelle’s daughter acknowledged: “Most of you have known my father much longer than I have.”

But she knew him best. Anne Marie knew the man who danced on two left feet with her, who rode the Small, Small World ride with her 11 times in a row, who conspired to hide food from an Irish nanny’s home cooking inside a baked potato skin, then sneak off together for hamburgers. Anne Marie knew the man who never broke a promise, whose credo in life was to honor every commitment, even if you get a better offer.

“As good as Pete Rozelle was at his profession,” she concluded, “as a father, he was even better.”

A rapt audience paid respects to one of America’s true sportsmen, who prepared for his own funeral by requesting two of his favorite songs, then added a request, typical of Rozelle, that any memorial service be postponed until after the December holidays, so as not to darken anyone’s mood.

Hundreds listened to “Edelweiss” and “Try to Remember,” after a rendition of the national anthem by Whitney Houston on film from, appropriately, a Super Bowl game. Before introducing Gifford, one of the day’s eulogists, television sportscaster Al Michaels alluded to Pete Rozelle’s having once had “a crazy, bizarre idea, for something called ‘Monday Night Football.’ Who knows? Maybe it’ll pan out someday.”

Mourners came from all walks of life, but primarily from the community of football. Al Davis was among those there, to honor a man with whom he did not always see eye to eye. John Lehman was close at hand, as ever, to honor someone he had known for 54 years, from the classrooms of Compton High to the Naval ports of World War II.

Lehman even knew how Alvin Ray Rozelle gained the nickname by which he would be known for life: “His Uncle Glenn took one look at him and said, ‘He looks like a repeat of his father.’ Repeat turned into Pete.”

Davis, in his car after leaving the service, traced his history with Rozelle back more than 40 years.

“Every player in football should know his name,” Davis said. “Some of these kids today, they don’t even know Martin Luther King; they don’t know who Douglas MacArthur is.”

Rozelle’s rule had everlasting impact on generations of football players to come.

Davis said, “We had our differences, sure. But he wrote me letters, and I wrote to him. My regret is if those differences kept us from spending time together, this last part of his life.”

Rozelle knew he was dying of brain cancer. After being told he had three months to live, he rarely left the house, but often watched football with guests at his huge home entertainment center, with several games simultaneously in progress. His successor as commissioner, Tagliabue, said, “I visited him there in November. He was very sick, but his spirit was still burning.”

One of Rozelle’s final public appearances was in San Diego at the Republican National Convention. He wanted to be there for his longtime friend, Kemp, the vice presidential nominee, who choked back tears recalling it.

Said Kemp: “In honor of Pete, I would like to say, this really isn’t a memorial, it’s a celebration. Jonathan Swift said, ‘Vision is the art of seeing things invisible to other people.’ Pete gave to American sports a true set of values. He was honest and honorable, fair and frank, never high-minded and never high-handed. Every one of us in this room stands on the shoulders of Pete Rozelle.”

Near the end, gradually losing his equilibrium, then his voice, Rozelle couldn’t eat, couldn’t swallow.

His spirit remained indomitable. Reading was Pete’s passion, but one morning at breakfast, Anne Marie caught her father gazing at a newspaper that was upside-down. He was keeping up a pretense of strength.

He also kept his humor, as long as he could.

At a hospital one day, a patient recognized Rozelle.

“I know you!” the man said. “You’re Paul Tagliabue.”

Pete looked the guy in the eye.

“Fine, thank you,” he replied. “And you?”

A doctor, puzzled, quickly attempted to explain that the man had made a mistake, and that Rozelle had misunderstood. It took a sly smile from Rozelle to make the doctor realize that Pete had understood perfectly.

The late commissioner was characterized this way by all who knew him: as a man of unfailing generosity and good will, who always made an extra effort.

No one appreciated this more than his daughter. To comfort a distraught little girl whose plastic tea set had been found with a cigarette butt stubbed into it, Rozelle launched a make-believe investigation, calling NFL security, demanding that somebody get to the bottom of this serious case. Everyone saw the commissioner’s wink but Anne Marie, which was the whole idea.

“This Christmas, the hot toy was the Tickle Me Elmo doll,” Rozelle Bratton related. “For me one year, the doll everyone wanted was Talking Barbie. My father searched everywhere for it. I mean, everywhere. It was almost impossible to find. But, sure enough, come Christmas Day, there it was, under the tree, my Talking Barbie.

“I pulled the string on her back, to make her talk.

“ ‘Buenas dias,’ she said. ‘Me llamo Barbie. Donde esta Ken?’

“My dad had gone all the way to Mexico for it.”

Born in South Gate on March 1, 1926, Rozelle grew up in Lynwood and later attended Compton Junior College and the University of San Francisco. He hero-worshiped Duke Snider, of whom he wrote for the school paper from the Duke’s days as a tailback at Compton High, long before Dodger baseball days to follow.

Rozelle’s oft-stated ambition in life, according to Don Klosterman, was to be a sportswriter and someday succeed Paul Zimmerman as sports editor of The Times. Instead, both he and Klosterman became general managers of the Rams, and on Jan. 26, 1960, Rozelle was elected NFL commissioner. Six years later, a merger with the American Football League left him commissioner of all pro football.

“He had absolutely no ego,” Klosterman said. “He was a giant of a man, but he always considered himself just another guy.”

Gifford recalled a family situation involving his son, Kyle, who once needed adult guidance from someone other than his father. When he asked Rozelle to intervene, “He was there in an instant. He changed my son’s life, and mine.”

While viewing six hours of football at his side several weeks ago, on several home TV monitors, Gifford said he looked at Rozelle, weak and unable to speak, and suddenly realized: “My God, this is this man’s life work. He must be so proud of this.”

Rozelle retired as commissioner Nov. 5, 1989, and spent his remaining years with his wife, Carrie.

He was succeeded in office by Tagliabue, but the current commissioner said, “As everyone knows, Pete Rozelle will never be replaced.”