The Pittsburgh Steelers will do battle against the Arizona Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII on Sunday, and the western Pennsylvania team has multiple connections to harness racing.
Team founder, the late Art Rooney, bred and raced Standardbreds and Thoroughbreds at his Shamrock Farm in western Maryland.
His sons, which include team president Dan Rooney and Tim Rooney, president of Yonkers Raceway, still own the farm and continue his tradition of breeding and racing both breeds of horses. Aside from Yonkers, the family has owned or operated multiple other tracks, including Green Mountain Park and the William Penn meet at Liberty Bell Racetrack.
Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger got a taste of harness racing as a teenager in Ohio. Roethlisberger, a record-setting quarterback at Findlay High School and Miami University, learned a bit about the sport from family friend and neighbor, Dr. Hobart Schoonover. Schoonover, 90, is a retired cow and pig veterinarian who maintains a racetrack on his farm in Findlay.
“Ben used to come over here after football practice and jog a horse,” recalled Schoonover. “Ben liked all kinds of animals, his mother [who died when Ben was very young] had saddle horses and Ben liked dogs, but maybe not cats, because he was allergic. He’d come over here after football practice and we’d save a horse for him to jog. He’d stay and help clean up and have lunch with Mother (Mrs. Schoonover) and me. He never worked for me, but he did like to come over and jog them.”
Asked if Roethlisberger could handle a spirited horse, Schoonover chuckled and said, “We'd always save one for him that wasn’t like that – maybe one that needed to be urged quite a bit.”
Dr. and Mrs. Schoonover attended many of Roethlisberger’s high school and college games. Dr. Schoonover recalled that Roethlisberger had maturity beyond his years even then.
“He always seemed like he was older than he was,” he said. “When he played in high school, the coach’s son, who was a year older than Ben, played quarterback and Ben played tight end, until his senior year. He set all kinds of records [as a quarterback] in just one year. After the game was over, don’t you know, the little kids would just run out from under the bleachers and they all wanted to talk to Ben, to sit on his knee. Ben would stay there for the longest time and talk to them all. That’s just the way he’s always been.”
The Schoonovers, who also attend the same church as the Roethlisbergers, St. Paul United Methodist in Findlay, saw Roethlisberger at his sister Carly's high school basketball games even when he was playing as a rookie with the Steelers. Dr. Schoonover still competes with young horses at the Ohio fairs, with his twin daughters, Sharon and Sandy, helping.
(HRC)