Mike Hayden: the Steelers' Biggest Fan in Washington

By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers

He's probably one of Washington's biggest Pittsburgh Steelers fans. After all, outgoing CIA Director Michael Hayden grew up in Pittsburgh and is pals with the team's owner, Dan Rooney. Hayden even has a street beside the team's stadium named after him. So it was no surprise that Hayden and his wife, Jeanine, went to Tampa for Sunday's Super Bowl at Rooney's invite.

"We were as exhausted as if we had played the game ourselves," Hayden said of himself, Rooney, and the other fervent Steelers fans in the owner's box at the game. "It was a roller coaster," he said of the team's come-from-behind 27-23 victory over the Arizona Cardinals. Or maybe it was a fairy tale. Hayden said that when he and his wife returned to their home in northern Virginia at 3 a.m., they replayed a recording of the last three minutes of the game on their television set, "just to make sure it really happened."

Despite getting only a few hours sleep, sources tell us that Hayden had a big smile on his face when he chaired a staff meeting with senior CIA officials at 8:30 a.m. Monday. Not only had his team won, he had picked the winner in the annual Scripps Howard Celebrity Super Bowl poll for the third straight year.

But maybe the highlight was his meeting before the game with former Steelers running back Jerome Bettis. After a brief chat, Hayden gave Bettis a CIA commemorative coin, and "the Bus" gave the director a hug.

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