Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney might have built up enough good will to become the U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, but he’s got some more work to do before he can just go hanging around media members.

Indeed, Rooney got booted from the press box at the New Meadowlands Stadium when the Steelers played the Giants in this past weekend’s preseason action. After all, he’s not a member of the press.

Was he there simply to chat up writers before games, a level of cordiality that certainly goes above and beyond what he has to show media types? Well, of course he was, according to Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Has Rooney done this as long as Bouchette can remember? Indeed he has.

But this weekend, that wasn’t enough to save him, so Rooney left for his private box, for which he purchased a ticket to watch his team play, an event he flew in from Ireland – where, again, he is the U.S. Ambassador – to see, despite the fact that, again, it’s the preseason.

Now, again, he’s not a member of the press. But the fact that he apparently left without putting up the slightest fight was probably the first sign to the attendant who kicked him out that, well, this guy probably wouldn’t have been a problem. And when the attendant heard exactly whom he’d just ordered to leave? Probably not his proudest moment.

But it does make for a funny story. And this story, combined with the Steelers’ success, his ambassadorship, and his spearheading the effort to enhance minorities’ coaching status in the NFL – Dan Rooney’s a pretty swell guy, isn’t he?

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SportsGrid

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