It hasn’t been the rivalry it once was for years now but Pittsburgher’s still have a strong distain for “America’s Team”, the Dallas Cowboys.
But the moniker “America’s Team” only belongs to the Cowboys because the Steelers didn’t want it.
FOX Sports NFL analyst Dave Wannstedt (a Baldwin native and former Pitt football head coach), says the late Dan Rooney told him the story after Wannstedt interviewed for the Steelers coaching job after Chuck Noll retired. That position was ultimately filled by Bill Cowher.
“I’m going in there and I’m talking about America’s Team and the Dallas Cowboys and Dan Rooney, who was interviewing me he said, ‘stop right there, let me tell you a little story about America’s Team,’” said Wannstedt.
Wannstedt explained that Rooney told him after the Steelers beat the Cowboys in Super Bowl X the commissioner at the time Pete Rozelle, called team owner/founder Art Rooney and told him they were making the highlight film for the Steelers and wanted to name them America’s team.
Wannstedt says Art told him his dad took a puff of his cigar and said, “Pete, let me tell you something we are not America’s Team we are the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Wannstedt claims after that, then president and general manager of the Cowboys Tex Schramm took the nickname for Dallas.
But Bob Ryan of NFL Films says the name came from seeing how popular the Cowboys were when they traveled to other cities, but we like Wannstedt’s story more.