Most of them are gone now, the grand old names from the NFL's storied past -- Halas, Marshall, Rosenbloom, Murchison -- the men who presided over professional football teams when they were the equivalent of mom-and-pop operations, as opposed to the tycoons now running billion-dollar mega-team enterprises all around the league.

Art Rooney was among the grandest names of all. They called him ''The Chief,'' and it is said the money he earned on a big score on a parlay of long shots at the Saratoga race track enabled him to put down the $2,500 franchise fee required to become a charter member of the NFL in 1933.

Rooney's team was called the Pittsburgh Pirates because that was his favorite baseball team growing up, and the name was changed to Steelers in 1941. For many years, they were loveable losers. Then a bunch of future Hall of Famers were drafted in the late 1960s and early `70s and went on to win four Super Bowls under coach Chuck Noll.

The Rooney name has been synonymous with football and countless charitable causes in Pittsburgh for decades, and it's hard to imagine the league or the city without it. Yet last February, a Pittsburgh hedge fund billionaire named Stanley Druckenmiller made it known that he was willing to purchase a 64 percent and controlling interest in the team.

It seemed as if current controlling team owner Dan Rooney and his son, Arthur III, were embroiled in something of a family feud with Dan Rooney's four brothers -- Tim, Art Jr., John and Pat. The brothers have said they want to sell their 64 percent interest in the club, and Druckenmiller began negotiations to see if he might want to buy them out.

He was prepared to offer $840 million, according to published reports, a sum that would net each of the brothers $134.4 million. The good news is, they decided to reject the offer, perhaps making way for Dan Rooney and his son to form a group that would purchase the four brothers' interest and keep the franchise in the Rooney family, where it properly belongs.

Apparently, the four brothers also have rejected Dan Rooney's latest offer to buy them out, but there are some signs that if the price goes up, they almost surely will reconsider and do the right thing.

Dan Rooney, one of the most engaging and enlightened owners in the long history of his sport, has been advised not to comment publicly on the situation until a deal is struck, but he and Art III released a statement when Druckenmiller pulled out, saying: ``We have been told on many occasions the other family members prefer to keep the franchise in the family. We look forward to ongoing discussion with the family to that goal.''

The Rooneys surely would not be the first football family torn apart by heirs wanting a piece of the money-making NFL pie, but not the team itself. Still, thinking about the NFL without a Rooney at the helm of the Steelers also is something commissioner Roger Goodell apparently has no intention of contemplating.

Goodell has said he will move heaven and earth to keep Dan Rooney and Art III, now listed as the team president, in the league. He also has said he will not set any sort of deadline for the franchise to get its financial house in order to comply with league rules.

Dan Rooney has told friends that chances are now slim that someone from the outside will come in and obtain majority ownership. For the moment, at least, a grand old name is still at the top of the Pittsburgh Steelers corporate ladder, and for the good of the league and the city of Pittsburgh, that's just the way it always should be.

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