The Maras and the Rooneys

Neal Dahlen owns seven Super Bowl rings as an executive with the San Francisco 49ers and Denver Broncos. Bill Belichick has six, four as head coach of the New England Patriots and two when he was the Giants’ defensive coordinator. Hall of Famer Charles Haley has five, the most of any player. He won his as a linebacker and defensive lineman with the 49ers and Dallas Cowboys.

But Kathleen Mara has more Super Bowl rings than any of them. Kathleen Rooney Mara has 10 — six from the Pittsburgh Steelers and four more from the Giants — the facing and stones of which have been fashioned into one blinged-out bracelet she seldom wears and her husband said can usually be found in a safe-deposit box.

That’s what can happen when you’re born into NFL royalty and then marry into another of the league’s first families.

“I like to say we have more Super Bowls than anyone because we have 10 together,” said Chris Mara, Kathleen’s husband, a son of the Giants’ late co-owner Wellington Mara and the team’s senior vice president of player evaluation. “But it’s tough getting through airports with that thing.”

“Another couple of [Super Bowl] wins … and it’s going to be hard for her to lift her arm,” said Kathleen’s dad, Tim Rooney.

But the Giants and Steelers, who will meet for the 77th time Sunday at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, have been joined at the hip — if not the hand — since long before Chris and Kathleen began dating while students at Boston College in the late 1970s.

Tim Mara, Wellington’s father, and Art Rooney, known as The Chief, got involved in the National Football League early on. Mara, a licensed bookmaker since the age of 18, paid $500 in 1925 to bring the Giants into the league. Back then the NFL wasn’t the cash cow it is today when franchises sell for in excess of $1 billion, and Forbes estimates the Giants’ present value at $3.1 billion.

Times were hard then and there was often a question whether teams would make payroll each week. By the time Rooney — a gambler who often frequented New York race tracks because horse racing was illegal in Pennsylvania at the time — decided to take the plunge in 1933, the get-in price for a franchise had jumped to $2,500. Making ends meet was a struggle, but a few years after Rooney founded the team things began to turn around for the Pittsburgh franchise then known as the Pirates — thanks to a tip from Mara, who’d first met Rooney at a track and became his bookie.

One day, as legend has it, at Moore’s Restaurant in Manhattan, Mara gave his friend a life-altering tip on a horse. Rooney parlayed that $50,000 payday at Empire City Race Track, a thoroughbred track that later became Yonkers Raceway, into more than $300,000 as he moved from track to track before his winning streak ended at Saratoga. Rooney, who won what today would be the equivalent of around $6 million, got so caught up in his run of outrageous good fortune he missed the birth of his child.

He did, however, promise to name his newborn after Mara — if it was a boy.

“That was the day I was born,” said Tim Rooney. “My father said to Tim ‘I’m never gonna let you forget this day so I’m naming my son after you.’ ”

Tim — who, for obvious reasons, has both gambling and the ponies in his blood — has owned and operated Yonkers Raceway since 1972 and is also the president and CEO of Empire City Casinos.

The close relationship between the families and franchises forged by Tim and Art may have been cemented that day and it continued when Wellington and his older brother, Jack, took over after their father’s death in 1959. Wellington, who joined the Giants as a ball boy the season his father founded the team, was widely recognized as the patriarch of the NFL and both he and the Rooneys long shared the belief that the good of the league should always come before individual team interests.

That is why the Mara family agreed to revenue sharing even though it meant less money for their team despite its presence in the nation’s largest television market. And it’s also why the Rooneys agreed to become one of three NFL teams to move to the new American Football Conference when the old American Football League merged with the NFL in 1970.

‘Another couple of [Super Bowl] wins … and it’s going to be hard for her to lift her arm’ - Tim Rooney on Kathleen Mara

Both Tim and Wellington Mara are members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame as are Art and Dan Rooney, who succeeded his father upon his death in 1988. The four men are the Hall’s only father-son inductees.

And while the league has changed immeasurably since the days of their grandfathers and even their fathers, the latest generation of Maras and Rooneys has stayed the course in an NFL that has become less and less familial and collegial.

John Mara, the eldest of Wellington and Ann Mara’s 11 children and the Giants’ president and CEO who succeeded his father after Wellington’s death in 2005, can often be found sitting with Steelers president Art Rooney II, Dan’s son, along with other members of the Rooney family in the back corner of the room at NFL owners meetings — a tradition that began with their fathers. Dan Rooney, a former U.S. ambassador to Ireland, is now the Steelers’ chairman.

“We’ve done that for about 50 years now,” John Mara said. “We sit in the same spot next to each other. There’s always been a close relationship there. … And I would say it goes all the way back to the days of my grandfather and The Chief and it has continued into the third generation.

“Both were Irish-Catholic, very religious. Both were into horse racing. … I think it was their religion, their love of sports and the fact they got into the professional football business in the same era [that drew them together].”

While the families, separated by geography, didn’t socialize much while he was growing up, other than at league functions, Mara said he remembers going to big horse races with Art Rooney.

“I can remember being at a big race or some other sporting event and sitting next to The Chief, which was a great thrill for a number of reasons. One, he was so knowledgeable and, two, he would actually place the bet for you,” John Mara said. “You didn’t have to put any money down. He’d do it for you. And I thought that was great.
Then if you won, you won and there was no risk involved. I can remember sitting with him at a number of Belmont races and then going to dinner with them afterward.”

The respect and affection the families have for each other doesn’t put them above a little good-natured needling. The Steelers won their first four Super Bowls between 1975-80 and, at that point, the Giants were in the midst of the worst period in franchise history and had not even been to a Super Bowl.

Tim Rooney, even though he had moved to the horse-racing side of the family business years earlier and divested himself of his football interests, received a ring for each of those Steelers championships.

“The rings are too heavy to wear,” he said. “But the only time I ever wore them was Christmas time one year. … Just to bug my son-in-law while we were having a drink of wine I just happened to have them all on one hand and I made sure when I picked up the glass he saw all four rings.”

On Sunday, with the gap narrowing but the Super Bowl ring count still in the Steelers’ favor, the teams will meet for the first time since 2012.

“It’s really just another game at this point,” said John Mara. “We both want to win. I think we kind of root for each other the rest of the year. … It’s special in the sense that you enjoy seeing your friends and you enjoy seeing them be successful. But you still want to beat them at the end of the day.”

After all these years Chris Mara said his wife has no conflict about which team to root for. Nor do any of their four children, including the actresses Kate and Rooney Mara.

“The game is a beautiful reminder of the legacy my great grandparents have left with us and the bond they had all those years ago that led to football teams and eventually to my parents falling in love,” said Kate, known for her roles in “We Are Marshall,” “Fantastic Four” and “House of Cards.”

“I grew up in New York and spent almost every Sunday at Giants Stadium, so my love of the team runs deep. I love the Steelers but at the end of the day, if they’re playing the Giants, I bleed blue.”

In fact, Chris said Kathleen, who declined to be interviewed, won’t even be at the game. He said she has plans be in Los Angeles with Kate and Rooney.

“They’ve got a lot of stuff going on,” he said. “But I’m sure they’ll be watching.”