Art Rooney Sr. passed away on this day (8/25) in 1988. "His greatest asset...was his warm heart, that made everyone in Pittsburgh feel like Art Rooney's best friend," said the late Steve Sabol in a feature he did about the play "The Chief."
Tom Atkins, who portrayed Art Rooney Sr. in that play said, "He was the sweetest, most gentle, old guy, that ever graced the streets of the North Side of Pittsburgh, or this country, for that matter."
"The Chief," which was written by Rob Zellers and Gene Collier, is a 90 minute one-man play about Art Rooney Sr. that debuted in 2003. In 2010, it was turned into a feature film, that Franco Harris calls "inspiring an incredibly entertaining."
I found the feature that Steve Sabol did, and it is a really great piece. You can watch that below. I also included a video from the early 1980's that the United Way did about Art Rooney Sr., and the post-game footage in which Rooney was presented with the Lombardi Trophy after the Steelers won their third Super Bowl in January 1979.