Join us live at bit.ly/375NAhI or follow along here as ideastream and @TheCityClub as @rickj903 talks with Dee Haslam and Jim Rooney about about diversity & inclusion in the @NFL (and tonight’s rivalry matchup).
“...combining toughness and kindness” is something #Cleveland and #Pittsburgh do exceptionally well, Rooney says as he tells the story of his father Dan’s commitment to bribg football back to #CLE after the team’s departure in the mid-1990s.
“He’d talk about greatness all the time,” Rooney says of his dad. “He’d never talk about winning the next game.”
#RustBelt neighbors #Cleveland and #Pittsburgh really can’t quit each other (on the field or off)
Rooney: “The most important person in #Steelers history is Chuck Noll and he’s from Cleveland... he transformed us from losers to winners.”
The Rooney Rule, introduces by Dan Rooney, is an @NFL policy requiring teams to interview ethnic-minority candidates for head coaching and senior football operational jobs.
Implemented in 2003, championed and named after the Steelers’ late chairman, variations of the Rooney Rule variations are now used in other industries as well.
On #diversity in the @NFL and for the @Browns: “It’s the right thing to do and it’s a good thing to do.”
“It’s a priority and we work really hard at it.”
There’s only one female official in the @NFL *right now* but Haslam says she thinks those ranks will evolve and grow, too.
Haslam on @Kaepernick7 and his upcoming private tryout:
“I think a team will definitely pick him up... he’s a good player. You want to win football games... it’s all about getting the best players out there.”
“One of the things my father was really known for was hiring,” Rooney says. And that’s where commitment to #diversity & values comes into focus. “My father — he had great respect for the media, but my father always said you don’t let the media pick your starting quarterback.”
Final thoughts from today’s @TheCityClub forum?
Rooney: “You can be a good person and still win.”
Haslam: “You have this amazing rivalry... #Pittsburgh and #CLE, we have our differences but at the end of the day, we’re really a whole lot alike.”
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