{"id":758425,"date":"2026-02-17T14:19:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T14:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/758425\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T14:19:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T14:19:14","slug":"the-most-powerful-presence-jim-rooney-shares-thoughts-on-former-steelers-hc-mike-tomlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/758425\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Most Powerful Presence’: Jim Rooney Shares Thoughts On Former Steelers HC Mike Tomlin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steelers owner Art Rooney II wanted to remain in the Mike Tomlin business, and it sounds like his brother concurs. Though he is not part of the organization, Jim Rooney has been around the Steelers for a long time. Recently speaking at the National Coalition of Minority Football Coaches, he shared his thoughts on the former Steelers head coach as one of the great leaders he\u2019s known, via Dee Chambers of Sports&Coffee<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I know folks beyond the Steelers. I would say, he\u2019s got a lot of gray in his beard these days, but Mike Tomlin is certainly one of them. Getting to spend the last 20 years of my life with Mike, I\u2019ve never\u2014and Chuck Noll raised me\u2014I\u2019ve never been in the presence of someone like Mike Tomlin. When he walks in the room, the energy of the room changes. He is the most powerful presence of any human being I\u2019ve ever been around, and I got to hang around with Barack Obama when my father was his ambassador. That\u2019s the level of presence that Mike has, and Mike loves football. I don\u2019t know what he\u2019s gonna do, but I can\u2019t imagine he\u2019s not interested in finding some more of those trailblazers.<\/p>\n

The Steelers hired Mike Tomlin in 2007, and he remained their head coach for 19 years. He only resigned last month, doing so of his choosing, as Art Rooney confirmed. While not shocking, the decision surprised Rooney and many others\u2014particularly those in the locker room<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While Tomlin failed to find postseason success in the latter half of his Steelers career, he kept the team competitive. As fans love to hear, he never had a losing season, frequently making the playoffs. But he also frequently lost in the first round, indeed six times in a row to end his career.<\/p>\n

The Steelers did not struggle in the postseason due to a lack of leadership on Mike Tomlin\u2019s part, though. And that is the part Jim Rooney was talking about when he described him as \u201cthe most powerful presence of any human being I\u2019ve been around\u201d.<\/p>\n

Jim\u2019s father, Dan, served as ambassador to Ireland under former U.S. President Barack Obama, as he mentioned. And he assisted his father in some of those responsibilities. While one\u2019s individual politics may differ, it\u2019s a matter of record that Obama\u2019s oratory prowess and leadership played a critical role in his successful electoral campaign. As such, comparing Tomlin favorably to such a presence is not something one says lightly.<\/p>\n

Of course, Tomlin\u2019s leadership skills were never the centerpiece of criticism against him. Sure, many questioned whether his messaging had grown stale, but generally, his ability to lead was not the concern. The results, at the end of the day, mattered most. And while he delivered well enough in the regular season, we know how the rest unfolded. Now his former players are sparring<\/a> as they reckon with his legacy and others wonder what his next move is<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steelers owner Art Rooney II wanted to remain in the Mike Tomlin business, and it sounds like his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":758426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[108398,7,108399,1255,6,520,57,2360,426,691],"class_list":{"0":"post-758425","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-dee-chambers","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-jim-rooney","11":"tag-mike-tomlin","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-pittsburgh","14":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","15":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","16":"tag-steelers","17":"tag-trending"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116086411441205986","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}