CNBC INTERVIEW WITH COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE
(Airs Sept. 11, ’02)

Where were you the morning of Sept.11^th?

I was in my office on the morning of Sept. 11^th on a conference call. At some point, we were interrupted by one of the people on the floor saying that an airplane just crashed into the World Trade Center. A few minutes before that, my secretary walked into the office and had said that she was coming out of Grand Central Station in front of our building and witnessed an incredible sight, which was an airplane flying low over midtown Manhattan, which later crashed into the World Trade Center. We came together shortly there after we had heard about the second plane that had hit into the Trade Center. Shortly after that, we called the meeting to an end.  

You represent a major corporation and cultural institution. What kind of response do you apply in a situation like 9/11?                 

The first thing for me was the safety of our own people and their families. We have a lot of employees who live in the city, including lower Manhattan. That day there was, of course, a great concern about additional attacks, about airplanes converting into missiles, and the issue of whether there would be other bombs at transportation centers like Penn Station or Grand Central Station. So most of the concern centered around safety and our individual employees.

How did you start to plan?

It was clear that every one was dumbstruck initially and there was a great deal of fear. So we went to all 5 floors and started to talk to employees and urged them to get together in a separate location on their floor so they could start talking and so that they could await further directions. 

I took our senior group of executives and made them floor captains and they worked with people who were previously designated as fire wardens to go over procedures. We began not to just talk, but to make plans for whatever else might happen that day.

As you started to think about planning or canceling games, did Rozelle’s decision to keep playing after the assassination of JFK come into your mind?

There were two historical precedents regarding whether to play the following weekend. One was Roosevelt’s attitude toward professional sports playing during WWII after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and that I had learned through the years that the major sport then was baseball when the President had urged baseball to play. They had played during the war and the NFL was playing that Sunday December 7, 1941, and had completed the season.

That was one precedent. The other was the Sunday after President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. On that occasion, then Commissioner Pete Rozelle had spoken to President Kennedy’s press secretary, who was a close personal friend of Commissioner Rozelle. Mr.Salinger had indicated that the appropriate thing to do was to play and that’s what the NFL did.

So that was the background. I really didn’t think it had much bearing on the decision I made, or we had to make as a league, because the acts of terrorism last September 11 were so beyond the bounds of civilization when you consider that civilian airplanes had basically been commandeered and converted into intercontinental ballistic missiles. That was, I thought, beyond the scope of what is civilized, and loss of life was extraordinary. Of course, we live in an age now where there is immediacy and a visual element through television.

All these things and others were in our mind and made this an unprecedented situation.

Did you have an immediate gut reaction that day or was it a decision you later made?

Yes, I did. I thought that it would be impossible to play football but I’ve also learned over the years that gut reactions are good and important, but at some point you have to use your head and trust your gut. So we did that and considered a variety of alternatives and came back that Thursday morning and decided not to play.

Within the NFL family, owners, players, was there any debate about this?

Not so much a debate, there was discussion and mostly questions. Questions about what message could we communicate about where the nation was, where we were as individuals, where we were in the league. So the questions were if we played, would we be showing resolve? Would we be communicating a message that our society cannot be intimidated by acts of terrorism?

If we stop, would people take that as reinforcing their need to pause and grieve for the families? So it was mostly questions, no answers.

And was there also a safety issue? You’re bringing together millions of people. Were you contacted by anybody regarding this issue?

Various people on our staff had discussions with individuals in the government. I reached Mayor Guiliani and Governor Pataki and had a sense of their thinking, which was that as a people we had to be resolute and firm.

It was a new experience, and it’s still a new experience --layers upon layers of grief that exist around our nation as a result of the loss of lives. Make it unprecedented; the media coverage makes it uniquely difficult for the individual.

Did it change you?

I think it did. I think it changed most everybody in some ways. I think it’s forced me and many other people to keep focused on priorities.

I think here in New York City, certainly among our employees, and probably throughout the nation, there’s a recognition that people have to stay together, help each other, and understand each other better.

How about as a CEO, has it changed you?

I don’t know that it’s changed me as a CEO. I think in determining my priorities in terms of running the business, the one thing it has led me to do is spend a lot more time speaking directly to employees about the challenges we face in the nation, the challenges that we all face as individuals, and dealing with fears that are there when people are traveling on airplanes or through tunnels. So I’ve been much closer and have had a lot more discussion and conversations with our employees about things of those nature in terms of prioritizing and also understanding what is important are the fans and people in the league.

So in some sense, it’s changed your personal relationship with employees?

Very much so. It seems like almost every time we have discussions, we are able to talk about their priorities and interests.

What about that day, that morning? Your wife, your children, your college roommate might have been in there. We’re you really concerned?

I have a son who lives here in the city, who works in midtown, and many close friends of ours and his work here in Manhattan, family members, nephews and nieces and their spouses. In some ways I gave that baton to my wife and asked her to see if she could contact them while I was dealing with our employees throughout the day. I fairly quickly heard from my son that he was in midtown, not downtown. Most of the concern was on airplanes.

Have you ever worked with terrorist issues before?

Most of us who lived through Vietnam certainly were exposed to a loss of life -- 60,000 Americans dead through TV coverage was unprecedented. That was something that Sept.11 had, those same painful images. There was a lot of fear and raw emotion.

Do you think you made the right decision in canceling the games?

Never had any doubts about that and nor has anyone ever questioned that.

We received the support of the players and former players. I received a lot of correspondence. We received letters from Bart Starr, the great Packers quarterback, a couple of days after we made the decision. He said that not only was it the right decision, but that the NFL shield was going forward with more respect as a result of the decision.

These were the reactions, a very supportive feeling that players particularly and the league had all reacted the right way.

In some ways, the NFL led to make a point because it is the number one sport of the season anyway. Did you feel like you were going out on a limb when you made that decision, in terms of you out in front?

A lot of people would call us. I’ve been involved with the league for over 30 years and well aware of the fact that people have special expectations about what the National Football League’s going to do and they follow what we do.  So I didn’t think I was going out on a limb. I know what we were doing was right. With such a short period of time, everyone’s looking for direction and I think we gave some directions and focus.

Ten years from now, what are you going to remember?

The loss of life from that day. And also the week after Sept. 11^th, I had the time to go up to a fire station and visit with some firefighters and their kids, just to see what the reaction was through the loss of life at a firehouse and how they responded to it. I’ll always remember that day as well.

How important throughout the season and during the Super Bowl was it that the NFL paid a lot of tribute to heroes of that day, leaders of that day. What kind of place does the NFL have in terms of culture?

For a lot of different reasons, millions of people look up to athletes and NFL players and I think that athletes who compete in the National Football League achieve at an extraordinary level.

So the public sees in athletes’ people excelling, people using their talent to the hilt. So they admire those people.  Teams generally are a focal point of unity and now more than ever as we fight this war and try to avoid any recurrent of events such as those that happened on Sept. 11^th, communities want more coming together and support of the people who are on the front lines, which is very important.

The front lines are here at home but also overseas. For me, that’s a tremendous priority, as long as they are on the front line. We need to keep them on the front page and recognize the courage and recognize their talent and promote the values of staying together.

Football can be something where they can take their mind off problems and at the same time contribute to the nation’s morale.

Football is about doing incredibly difficult things against all odds. It’s unique in sports because the physical, emotional, psychological challenge of competing in this sport and not giving up is really quite extraordinary. I think that people see on the football field some of the qualities that competing on the broader field require where you have physical, psychological and emotional challenges. That’s why people identify our game as a game that represents values.