Are Cowboys 'America's Team' Because Steelers Turned Down Nickname?

Are The Cowboys 'America's Team' Only Because The Steelers Turned Down Nickname? Folks In Pittsburgh Tell A Story That Differs From The Dallas Truth

FRISCO - It's a story that will delight Pittsburgh Steelers fans. It's a story that will enrage Dallas Cowboys fans. It's a story that might even have a sliver of truth to it.

Or not.

Dave Wannstedt is the storyteller here, and it's important to note he has a double-allegiance of sorts. He won Super Bowls as Jimmy Johnson's defensive coordinator in Dallas ... but he's a Pittsburgh area native. And the way his story goes ...

“I’m going in there,'' Wannstedt said about a 1992 interview for the Steelers head coaching vacancy, "and I’m talking about 'America’s Team' and the Dallas Cowboys. And Dan Rooney, who was interviewing me, said, ‘Stop right there. Let me tell you a little story about 'America’s Team.'''

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And then Rooney told the Pittsburgh version of the events, saying that his dad, team owner/founder Art Rooney, was approached by the NFL after the Steelers beat the Cowboys in Super Bowl X and offered the nickname.

Art took a puff of his cigar and said to then-commissioner Pete Rozelle, “Pete, let me tell you something. We are not America’s Team. We are the Pittsburgh Steelers.''

And then and then only, the way the Rooneys tell it, via Wannstedt, did the league turn to Cowboys boss Tex Schramm to offer the monicker to the Cowboys.

This is another log on the fire of the long-standing rivalry between the Cowboys and the Steelers, all due to their Super Bowl tangles - and a grudge match that continues on Sunday when the undefeated Steelers visit AT&T Stadium as a 13-point favorite over the struggling Cowboys.

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It's worth noting that in Texas, of course, this is not considered the correct version of the story. Schramm accepted the nickname for Dallas when Bob Ryan of NFL Films thought it up and used the nickname as a title on a 1978 Cowboys season highlight reel.

While the Rooney family story is a romantic one - full of pride and cigar smoke - Ryan, a 20-time EMMY winner, has reiterated the true version many times. And so the Cowboys were and are "America's Team,'' no matter how many times other franchises want to claim the nickname ... or in the case of the Pittsburgh Steelers, pretend they never wanted it.