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Adam Schefter's "Around the League" reports and commentaries can be
seen regularly on NFL Total Access.
NORTHBROOK, Ill. (Aug. 8, 2006) -- His is a story as American as
football itself.
One of Roger Goodell's very first jobs in football was at one of its
lowest levels, clipping newspaper articles for the New York Jets public
relations department. Now, more than 25 years later, Goodell is Paul
Tagliabue's successor, the next commissioner of the NFL. The types of
articles that Goodell once used to clip now are about him.
They detail the story of a man paying his dues, rising through the
ranks, earning the respect of his peers and the owners that eventually
tapped him as the most powerful man in the NFL.
For years, Goodell stood in the background, less noticeable than a
pylon. Behind the scenes, as a man who rose from an intern to the
league's Chief Operating Officer, Goodell helped key almost every major
move, whether it was expansion, stadium construction or the creation of
a new collective bargaining agreement.
But now one of the league's most invisible men will be its most visible,
with his face as out front as Tagliablue's has been the past 17 years.
Fans will get to know Goodell the way they know their favorite players.
And this is some of what they will learn: Goodell's father, Charles, was
the New York Republican Congressman that was appointed to fill the seat
that was vacated when Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Goodell's wife, Jane Skinner, serves as a daytime news anchor on the FOX
News Channel, providing news updates at the top and bottom of the hour.
Her latest report can be about the man she wed. Roger Goodell, the man
who made his mark listening to others and killing with competence, is
now the most renown member of his family.
He is the new commissioner of the NFL.
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