Full Color Football - #1

this is the story of another to the story of the Denver Broncos golly what's more you gotta get it somebody from the CIA came to speak to us because they were looking for secretaries and I actually was accepted to work for the CIA and had a date to go to Washington DC and friend of mine called and said there's a new football team in Boston and I called the Boston Globe got the name of the general manager general manager at McKeever is an old hand at football problems anything from getting a new player to playing the team all over the country and as part of the interview he put out a piece of paper and put 11 circles on the piece of paper and said this is the offense of a football team name the positions and I put the tackles next to the center and the guard should have been next to the center and I thought well that'll be it two days later he called me and said would you come to work for the Patriots so I started in June of 1960 John Parker's is the voice you may hear when you call Congress to 1776 our house was set up the way our antenna was turned to ABC and NBC so I used to have to beg my dad let's go up on the roof let's turn the antenna so I can see the CBS Eagles game at the Cardinals or wherever they were it got to be too much of a chore and my dad convinced me just you know watch the other channel ABC and it was a game on there yet the knives in the midst of the 40 the thing that drew me towards it were people like George Blanda Billy cannon then it became less important to watch the Eagles I remember growing up in Annapolis and sitting on the floor black-and-white TV of course after watching the first game either the Redskins of the Colts then the second AFL game would come on you know it was the way to spend the rest of the Sunday afternoon and a way to postpone homework at the time when the AFL started I was like you know 20 to 23 years old a lot of guys that were playing were friends of mine I mean guys that I played in college with the guys that I played against that's what the AFL was initially more opportunities for players to play and then as I started in coaching there was more opportunities for coaches to coach I never forget the first meeting we had in 1960 I said listen I do not know how long the American Football League has got to last what I'm going to guarantee you this we are going to be the winningest team in the history of the American Football League write that down and underline it the only history book that concerned the founders of the American Football League was the one they were writing just keep a trigger letting the ball down the field boys one that offered a perfect reflection of its time how fitting that it began on a jet ride through dreamy clouds above a fruitful nation in the hand of a humble man not yet 30 who believed the old way was not the only way you can get it done what's more you gotta get it done his words were quiet and measured his league was sound and fury his name was Lamar Hunt this story belongs to all the people whose lives he changed forever I think probably my brother must bitten by a showbusiness bug when she was pregnant with me because that's just something that's of interest to me I love show business I love working on how do you attract the public to buy a ticket well certainly Hunt was one of it one of the first sports entrepreneurs and as we would call them now he had a notion of sports as an entertainment business that preceded most of his peers you know this was a guy who jumped to the AFL from a failed venture in miniature golf franchising a bogey of a business plan wouldn't hurt Lamar Hunt who at any point could have chosen to fall back on his family's oil fortune what pumped through Lamar's veins was his love for the spectacle of sport at age 26 he watched the NFL title game on television marking out the signals Baltimore they're in a black-and-white image he saw a full-color future and professional football a growing game in a nation coming of age we're on the late 50s were a time of tremendous growth there was more free time there was more money and America is moving out to the suburbs and they are starting to enjoy the spoils of victory and two world wars as all this is happening the owners of the NFL weren't really interested in expanding they hadn't stuck together through a World War through a challenge from the all-american football conference now that the pie was finally getting larger they weren't really interested in giving somebody else some pieces of it there is no excuse for expansion in the National Football League we furnish football now for free through television expansion can only weaken the personnel Lamar Hunt wanted an NFL franchise but the owners of the NFL told him the NFL wasn't going to expand the only way he was going to get into the league was to buy a franchise and the only franchise that was even considered to be for sale where the Chicago Cardinals and he goes down to talk to the owner of the Cardinals in Miami Walter wolf nur and at one point Wulfgar boasted look bud Adams down in Houston wants a team there's people in Denver there's people in Minneapolis all these places want an NFL team I don't need to deal with you so Lamar Hunt shakes his hand gets on a plane from Miami back to Dallas and then the thought occurred to me and it was literally like a light bulb going off hey if all of these people be included wanna have teams in a newly or in pro football why wouldn't a new league succeed I asked myself that question and then I thought well it will he gets some airline stationery and edges out the plans for this new league this is how many teams this is what the schedules like this is what the budgets going to be like and then typical of Lamar Hunt he gets this great idea and tells nobody and spends the next few months just very studiously very carefully planning out how he's going to begin this new football league a new league was the least of the NFL's problems Congress wanted NFL commissioner Bert Bell to explain why his league should not be prosecuted as a monopoly so when Bell learned of Hunt's plans he decided it was time everyone knew about the budding American Football League and he asked if he could announce our league in these hearings he was doing it to get some heat off of himself they were want to know why isn't the NFL expanding and so I said sure you go ahead and do that and and it got enormous attention because Bert Bell in effect announced that there was going to be a new league well that was a lot better than having Lamar hollowed out sir was going to be a new league the most exciting new development on the American sports scene came to life in 1960 with the birth of the American Football League teams at New York Buffalo Boston Oakland Los Angeles Dallas and Houston I was in the locker room with Cleveland Browns with Paul Brown got up and said there's a new league starting don't pay any attention to it's not going to succeed it's a bunch of sons of rich guys that you know don't know anything about football everyone in nice football league took us pretty much negative attitude towards a new league but underneath all of it I thought it would give us a chance to get higher salaries because now we had competition for the NFL before that the only place we could go was to Canada we had no leverage because I didn't want to go to Vancouver somewhere the NFL was paying attention its owners made hunt in Houston's Bud Adams and offer abandon your plans for a new league and you can each have an expansion franchise in the old one when both Texans refused the NFL changed its approach in late August Lamarr is back in Dallas and he gets a call on a Saturday afternoon from Associated Press reporter who wants to ask him if he's got any response to the news out of Houston suddenly the NFL which had no interest whatsoever in in expansion started a franchise in Dallas Texas which happens to be where Lamar Hunt has his team they also stole one of the AFL's planned initial franchises keep an honor your tickets now from the Minnesota Vikings ticket office Minnesota was to be a part of the AFL and the NFL turned around and offered that same older group expansion franchise in the NFL I think at that instant Lamar Hunt realized he was now in a fight they were going to try to destroy the AFL before it could start but why some say the moon why choose this as our goal and they may well ask why climb the highest mountain why 35 years ago fly the Atlantic why does Rice play Texas we choose to go to the moon we choose to go to the moon it seemed almost impossible we're gonna go to the moon yeah and I'm gonna become the Dalai Lama meaning we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard we communicate it loud and clear we can do collectively almost anything if we set our minds to it this was an age of daring America would shoot for the moon the American Football League would aim for the NFL and do it with a former fighter pilot as its commissioner most people thought it probably should be a football figure first Joe Foss was a person of significant national prominence he was one of the great heroes of World War two there is a Marine Corps pilot knocked down 26 Japanese planes she was a big good-looking guy in the governor of South Dakota questioning went along these lines have you ever played football and said oh yes I played in college well have you ever coached and I said my coaching was fighter pilots if you lost you got killed but I don't think you really want to coach what you want is somebody that can open every door in the United States and I have the confidence that I'm the guy that can do that and Lamar said saying are you interested in a commissioners job the Commissioner of the American Football League mr. Joe Foss let's welcome mr. Joe Fox he had energy he had charisma he had Drive people would call the league offices and the secretary would say commissioner Foss is enroute that meant he was flying his own plane somewhere I traveled 250,000 miles that first year I went to all the training camps I think there are only a half a dozen guys that could do more push-ups than I could almost 500 pushup he would go around and make speeches to this Chamber of Commerce or this group of Shriners and talk up the American Football League he was an outstanding representative for the American Football League and carrying our story to the American public this is it well let the ballplayers do the talking today merry Christmas to you all the league fell like a gift from the sky into the lives of men like Paul Lowe after the NFL's 49ers cut him Lowe was employed in the mailroom at Barron Hilton's charge card company in 1960 Hilton founded the AFL's Los Angeles franchise naturally the credit card man named his team the Chargers when Hilton heard of the potential talent in his mailroom Lowe went from sorting letters to reading fan mail and became the number two all-time rusher of the league that wanted to make football fun be you you but a lot of times I just think of you know where I would be in life right now had it not been for the American Football League my name is Buster Ramsay and I've come to coach the Buffalo Bill what do you say let's get started let's talk about humble beginnings when we watched films we would hang up a sheet a white sheet and we would sit on milk cartons and we would watch the films that we go out on a field of practice in the AFL's early days some teams were a bit threadbare Denver couldn't afford to outfit its players so practice gear was strictly BYO the game uniforms they were given were ug ly mustard colored jerseys with chocolate brown pants and those vertical striped socks of reward people who would laugh at you they were baked he said we feel sorry for you which I'll have to wear stuff like that you can't see the striped socks in this footage of the AFL's first game but watch closely and you'll see Denver's al Carmichael scoring the first touchdown in league history at the start the new league wasn't always easy on the eyes whether it was the uniforms the game films or stadiums like the dilapidated Polo Grounds home to coach Sammy balls New York Titans were stay in place I ever saw they'd been rubbed out they did clean it up or anything made me sick just to go out on the field I've seen all big cities I want to see it and it's all because of you York I'm a country boy and I like to cut to me I won't walk out in the yard and take a leak I'll walk out yard and take a leak to make its grass greener the AFL needed all the help it could get I had to go to Dallas Texas July the 1st of 1960 we had a 129 guys there and I noticed that the inner practice there was a guy come out there every day and he would water the field later I found out it was Lamar Hunt these players have got the choice for the first time and I guess 10 years a source of where they can go clay Lamar hunts humility impressed everyone he met sometimes in stark contrast to the NFL's approach Pittsburgh drafted me in the NFL Buddy Parker it was a guy him and Bobby Lane came to my house drunk was on my front porch about 5:30 woke me up so we gonna draft you this morning baby so drunk they were holding each other in front of my house and the hell with any I fell I don't think they knew my dad was a minister he would have flood he said well you will my dad was a big old Mike I talked with a deep voice you won't be horn the Pittsburgh yes you the reverend Hanes was far more impressed when he met Lamar Hunt and so Abner signed with the AFL's Dallas Texans signing players was just part of Hunt's effort to build a team that could battle the rest of the AFL on the field and that Offutt could compete with the NFL's Cowboys I took the trip to Dallas slept in a princes palace in the early 60s Texas was know nationally as sort of a place for millionaires entrepreneurs big spending big hats big hair a lot of people driving around with Cadillacs with big fins suddenly in 1960 there's two professional football teams appear out of nowhere in Dallas and you pretty much picked injuries impaired the Cowboys offense but they still managed to hold their own against the toughest competition in the world the Cowboys were from the lordly NFL and they definitely didn't feel like they had to stoop to to sell tickets the AFL they felt like people have to know who we are so they did almost anything Lamar Hunt for being as unassuming as he was loved show business and he build his team as the zing team of pro football z ing one of the highlights of the texans games this past season was the best halftime in professional football featuring the fabulous Dallas Texans and now meet miss Dallas Jackson of 1960 the beautiful miss Kay Sutton the Cowboys played some games on Friday nights the Texans would often have a promotion that if you bring a ticket stub from Friday night's high school football game you get into Sunday's Texans game for free to get the crowd away from the Cotton Bowl on Friday night and going to their high school game and then that was the that was the level of which the war was fought Cowboys first three years were bad they're playing in the established league they've got the name stars showing up to the Cotton Bowl but they're losing week in and week out the Texans have this young team this exciting team Abner Hanes playing this dynamic brand of football from coast-to-coast from September to December the American Football League race is a hectic and exciting we feel like December 1961 we'll find the American Football League Championship resting in the hands of the Dallas Texas Tom Landry admitted to me years later the Texans would have beaten us it would have been a headline back then would've been huge news for the Cowboys to admit that the Texans were better down the road from Dallas the AFL's Oilers were the only pro football team in Houston from the start Houstonians had as much pride in their team as they did in their city Houston was under at that time the shadow of Dallas they thought of Texas well Dallas is big city there you said wait a minute Dallas is barely a Texas City this was our attitude because Dallas is the only place in Texas it looks north and east for approval we don't look for proof any damn person we know we're big Lee but the rest of the world doesn't know it doesn't believe it but when the first talk again at professional football professional might be coming to you see it spread Lightning will do in a dark basement this was going to be a stamp Houston is big leaf it's now not just a big town house it's a big city I don't think there's overstating to say was the biggest news since the end of World War two in the boom town of Houston pro football began with a bang it came when Oilers owner Bud Adams doubled the offer that the NFL Rams made to college football's most explosive player cannon is onegai I can think of before Namath that really had that kind of you know marquee name Billy the atomic cannon it is my privilege to present to you the Heisman Trophy for 1959 signing Billy cannon was part of the oiler owners master plan to win points with his fans by scoring them on the field but Adams had the idea that in the early days good defensive backs and good pass coverage would not be in existence so they did build their team around offense Billy cannon out of the backfield Charlie Hannigan you want a good statement about Charlie Hannigan call car Willie Brown Willie is in the Hall of Fame as good as defensive back that ever lived and he had to cover Hennigan in practice couldn't cover him they traded him Roxy to Denver so now we go and we're playing Denver and Charlie head against the last game of the season he needs nine catches to break the record kisses into season and Willie Brown is covered we had eight passes of first half Charlie Hannigan land his receiver here caught 101 passes a pro football record directing the Oilers offense was George Blanda a backup quarterback and placekicker discarded by George Halas and the NFL's Bears out of the game in 1959 grateful for a new football life in the AFL there were a lot of players that came from the NFL that wanted to show the NFL that they made mistakes and George was one of those guys you know sometimes we think you know we carried away with he wanted to show George Halas well a lot of people want to show people but they don't have what it takes to do it George had what it took to do it we were back deep in our own territory and I could just feel on this particular down that they were going to bring in the linebackers and maybe even a safety so I called full protection and we isolated Billy cannon on their free safety he swung out of the backfield they were going to catch him Houston's offense carried it to the AFL's first two titles one of our great astronauts stationed here our Space Center Houston the city that was home to the u.s. space program was also the launch pad for the AFL's first great airshow - it's big time team Houston had an undying devotion come hell or high water to the Gulf Coast playing Oakland at 1961 and a hurricane was fixing to come in was a hurricane caller if I remember right did quite a bit of damage around here but we had a full stadium at night I remember Charlie told us matter of fact huh and that story's true if you had tickets to an oiler scheme never mind a hurricane is coming ashore the game is going to be played and damn right would be there we better get over here as the radar that's 250 mile range radar homing out in the Gulf such pictures are now very common but in those days to see this monster I said to myself what you would have said to yourself television is pictures this is the picture nobody's ever seen this told us there is the eye of the hurricane right there see it very clearly on the radar a beautiful picture television weather coverage changed that weekend every day it became clearer America's newest force of nature was television it was an engine for information and have harnessed correctly a machine to make money that lesson Lamar Hunt learned from the sport that at the time dwarfed even the National Football League Lamar Hunt had been spending much of 1958 trying to decide does he want to invest in baseball does he want to invest in football and he actually went to a meeting that branch rickey held and one of Ricky's concepts which he'd gotten from Bill Veck was the idea of sharing television revenue cuz Bill Veck had made a big stink about that saying that it was unfair that the Yankees should get all this money for the broadcasts in New York when the Cleveland Indians vivec own were an equal partner in those games and should share equally in the revenues the Yankees were enjoying he was branded a socialist for even making the suggestion but Lamar Hunt understood in a way that not many people did at the time that this was not an economic question it was a competition question for franchises in smaller cities to compete with the new yorks and Los Angeles's you had to equalize the television revenue enjoyed by those teams and so one of Lamar hunts main points was each team shares equally in a league wide network package first the AFL needed a network just months before the league's 1960 debut it found one in ABC the deal was negotiated by New York Titans owner Harry Wismer a former broadcaster who knew how to put on a good show good evening everyone this is Harry Wismer inviting you to join me on the 50-yard line of the vacants professional gridiron and he was a famous radio announcer out of the 40s and 50s and a unabashedly you know a tub-thumping kind of guy nothing wrong with that he was somebody who would at the waldorf-astoria be milling around the lobby and then sneak off to a pay phone to call the front desk at the hotel and asked to have Harry Wismer paged and someone would assume that something important is going on with Harry Wismer again who's ever heard of a of a Titan number one that course Whismur knew what it was all about Titans are bigger than Giants and he wanted something that was perceived as being bigger than the New York Giants well you know I hate to disillusion him but there's nothing bigger than the New York jobs were back in those days the Giants would be in Yankee Stadium and we'd be at the Polo Grounds and a lot of people would come over and park their car in the parking lot at the Polo Grounds and then they would take the subway back over to Yankee Stadium so the parking lot crowds were a lot bigger than the stadium crowds I was able to go up and shake hands with everyone that was there and congratulate him on coming to the game but half of them said no I'm here on a comp and I said well they're just to get you started bringing payin customer next time mr. Whismur really thought we were gonna have average crowd of 40 to 50,000 people and when that didn't happen he was on such a short budget that he just couldn't function here's Frank Gifford all-pro halfback hey Terry you still use that greasy kid stuff in your ear what else Vitalis the Giants were doing television commercials at that rub it in good and we were lucky if we could get a dry clean towel then pry Vitalis so Harry tried a novel technique to refinance the team he married the widow of a former Newark hoodlum named long e's Willman long he had gone water skiing in the Passaic River with lead skis and of course died hmm and it was assumed that mrs. Willman had quite a stash of long easy money now it turned out mrs. Whismur or mrs. Willman Whismur didn't really have a stash of money but we were kind of hopeful actually that's how desperate we were we didn't care where the money came from oh yeah great game here this afternoon folks is Hyde playing football the kind of you came to see we hope that you enjoyed it it was a pleasure refereeing a game with people wanting to see a good football game playing on the ideal conditions that we play under the American Football League thank you I seem to maybe be the only one in my group of peers that was talking the league up they were hearing and reading things about how it was a second-rate league how players who played in it or second-rate as well I actually almost felt that it was mine in my neighborhood cuz nobody else was interested in it I'm not sure if my father even listened watched the Patriots games and his own daughter was working for them everybody I knew knew they were a football team I'm sure they couldn't name two or three of the players and we had here a league who had players Billy Cannon and some others who were known but most of them were not known we had to somehow get people caring whether they watched the games or not I mean everybody cared if the Giants were playing the Bears we spent a lot of time trying to personalize some of these players the first of all what they looked like and secondly what kind of people they were and so we started weaving interviews and things like that in already I've been writing regular the tight end for the Dalit spectrum it's also why we started supering their names we were able with the AFL because it was brand new to do some things we probably couldn't have done if we'd had the NFL at that time sound nobody ever heard the sound of a punt or contact of lines and things so we developed these mics so that you could pick that all up ball a night the American Football League increasing was becoming a must-see TV particularly for those who are not dyed in the wool football fans it was seen as better entertainment ABC's bells and whistles captured the spectacle of the AFL the network was the perfect partner for the innovative league which brought the two-point conversion to pro football along with names on the backs of jerseys divided a couple of guys reference to me that you know Marty you're really a big name in pro football you know that don't you and I said what what do you mean well look at your name it's 14 letter that's a big name in pro football it did pose some issues for our equipment staff so they FL allow these kinds of things clearly aware that they were trying to juice up the presentation there is definitely a kind of a ragtag mickey rooney let's put on a show in the backyard kind of quality to halftime at Patriots games is a showcase for talent in the Greater Boston area this is the famous Boston Latin School band these young ladies are / was lyndale hi it's a little cool out there even for synthetic bastards but the fans love it we had to make it fun we had to make the experience good I mean we're we're in Oakland fighting for our lives against 49ers yeah and we have to you know it has to be more fun to go to a Raider game Denver was home to unintentional comedy the Broncos hosiery was the cruelest joke of all if they were ever going to have the last laugh the Broncos would need to hold a roast for their funny socks they decided to have a big night they took and they piled up all the old uniforms including the socks these two guys came out onto the field with torches and they circled the field with Leonard of fans and drop the torches into the pile of the old uniforms and that was the end of them Denver fans were overjoyed to see their Broncos in new uniforms costume changes were common in this backyard show of a football league before they were the silver and black the Raiders spent three seasons as the black and gold beautiful thing Bill's founder Ralph Wilson once owned part of the NFL's Lions when he came to Buffalo so did Detroit's silver and blue two years later the Bills donned red white and blue and every Sunday their fans partied like it was the fourth of July at War Memorial Stadium there were no rules there were no regulations people would bring grills in the aisles and just pass kegs of beer tapping it they was a party was a festival run AFL might as well have stood for always fun no one knew what they might see next we're playing the Boston Patriots in Boston the Boston field all the fans they thought the game was over so they all came down on the feel in that quarter the end zone and we got time left for one play we call the slant pass to Chris Burford Burford is wide open but suddenly something hits the ball and it flies out of the end zone game completely lose the ballgame cottoned Davison after the game he comes over to me very dejected he's a coach a guy and a khaki jacket knocked that ball down we get the film's the next day and sure enough when a ball was snapped a guy bounced across like a ballet dancer reached up took the ball and that was it I said Caesar I wish we could find out who there was that was the best defensive play we saw all year long in American football Hank Stram got his first head coaching opportunity in the AFL with the Dallas Texans in 1960 before that Stram had been an assistant coach in college football where he'd learned from the legends spring practice for the Crimson Tide of Alabama and everything's fair Bryant coached in a tower and a lot of coaches in that era said well I'm gonna get on Tower because bear does it so Hank Stram poached from a tower and practices Texan practices well he liked it so much second year 1961 said let's take that tower down to the Cotton Bowl and I'm gonna coach there this weekend so the people who bought the good seats can't see the game they're yelling at him and throwing stuff he coached the game from the tower and after one game I think Lamar and some of the people you just can't do that Hank got things in his head and he was determined to see them through Hank's ran was the best quarterback coach that I ever had he was my coach at Purdue for a couple of years and he had helped develop my skills getting ready for the 62 season Lindy had been in the National Football League for five years and threw like 24 passes and he's very disappointed and very disgruntled about the fact that he wasn't playing so I told him at that time it's Eleni like if anything if I could get you so if you have a chance of anyway you can get away from where you are let me know and we'll bring it to Dallas say well sure enough in the spring of the year he calls me and he said coach Brown said that he would put me on waivers and that I would be available for you and I never forget that I talked to Paul Brown and coach Brown said now Hank he said I want to tell you something I know you're very loyal and I know you have a strong feeling for Leonard Dawson but that kid is lost it and he said if you insist on keeping them you're gonna lose your job reunited with his college mentor Len Dawson spent 1962 matriculating towards stardom each of the winners will receive an s 55 mercury convertible presented by lincoln mercury the first presentation won't be to Lenny Dawson Player of the Year as the season went on they start dominating people we had Abner Haynes in the backfield was having a phenomenal year and all of a sudden what they could pay we could be the team to win it all this year on the field Lamar hunts team was winning off of it his league was still struggling to compete with the NFL especially in two team towns like Dallas and New York Chargers owner Barron Hilton conceded Los Angeles to the NFL's Rams moving south to San Diego in 1961 that same year the Oakland Raiders were close to abandoning the bay area they were thinking it either scented us to Seattle or New Orleans and our owners were gonna back out because they needed money and Wayne valiant old Ralph Wilson I think we're gonna have to shut it down and Ralph to his credit realized we can't go on with seven teams you can't have a pro football league with seven teams Wilson kept the Raiders alive by loaning them $400,000 Oakland general partner Wayne Valle joked that the AFL owners had become a foolish Club everyone was losing money some more visibly than others HL hunt Lamar hunts father was asked we understand your son's and football franchise lost a million dollars this year HL hunt sir well at that rate he can only go another hundred years he can last a hundred years I guess he's only got 123 years left I've heard many different numbers and all of them are overly flattering numbers by the way not every owner was able to hold out for a hundred years by 1962 New York's Polo Grounds had become a graveyard where Titans owner Harry Wismer was buried in debt I remember it was a November day very sunny at the Polo Grounds we're practicing and suddenly there was a kind of an emptiness of hollowness and the coaches had surreptitiously slithered off the field somebody said paychecks I'll bet their paychecks up in the locker room we realize that the coaches had gotten theirs and they had a two or three subway stop head start on us headed to the one bank Irving trust and the one branch 39th Street and the one teller who was authorized to cash a Titan paycheck he had a window and he had the total in front of him and every time somebody cashed a check and it gave him money he subtracted that and when he got to zero he closed the window you know we couldn't cash a check or run a bill that mr. Lettieri owes grocery store across from the apartment I mean mr. Lettieri oh is it fine Italian gentleman at one time or another he'd probably taken care everybody in the neighborhood but he just apologized he said I read about your husband's football team and I can't let you have this sausage three years earlier Harry Wismer had been a founding member of the foolish Club sharing a common dream with Bud Adams and Lamar Hunt by the end of the 62 season his Titans were bankrupt the league needed a success story in New York so whismur's former partners put his franchise up for sale whoever owned it next would have to put on a better show than Whismur ever did even though teams were losing a million dollars or more a year and the people who were most closely involved were frequently discouraged they understood that they really had something here the league was within the reach of finally being successful the first debate I was driving from Orlando down in Miami and so I heard it on radio and I got to my radio station and I said boy that was really close and Nixon was bright Kenny was bright they agreed on a lot of things and he gonna change the numbers at all and they were all everyone they was saying you didn't see it I said no Kennedy killed him if you would sat with a transcript of that debate Nixon won but Kennedy looked young and vigorous and Nixon looked old and tired it was another part of American life was transformed by television television could turn perception into reality and back again in 1958 it transformed the NFL into a rising power among American sports four years later on December 23rd 1962 the Houston Oilers and Dallas Texans would play in a AFL's third title game live on ABC this was the day the new league would take its first step into the American spotlight we threw 2 or 3 interceptions in the first half and we got down 17 to nothing very very quickly at the face of it going to Haiti the Texans looked like they would cruise to their first championship but in blue that famous Houston weather and with it the winds of change in the second half the Oilers roared back to tie the game at 17 like the NFL four years earlier the AFL was producing a sudden-death drama on live television this was theater and thanks to ABC's emphasis on sound the lead roles would have speaking parts but I think at the 50-yard line right here in the playing field very shortly we're going to have the toss of the coin as the overtime period will come about strand decided having 40 mile-an-hour winds at Dallas back was more important than getting the ball first so he told Abner Hanes to choose the wind if Dallas won the toss well the coins in there call it loudly head Dallas one you have your choice of course receiving your kitchen will keep to the top you're going to kick yeah do it pop right by ballot for gains misspoke he thought he was taking the wind but the words will kick man Dallas had made its choice and would kick off Houston then chose which end zone to defend the Oilers would begin overtime with the wind and the ball it was a dramatic twist a nation of viewers got to see and hear Earth I asked one of the Dallas players what it was all about and he simply said Abner Haynes had made a mistake Stram was you know on the sidelines talking to to Haynes in a very consoling way obviously he knew he'd made a huge mistake it was a great insight into a player coach relationship in such a critical game it's jak RIT achill situation neither team scored in the first overtime in the second the team's switch sides and Dallas finally had the wind at its back Dawson would hold for rookie Tommy Brooker who had a chance to kick Dallas to a championship I said Tommy just keep your head down keep it still and pump it through there baby he said don't worry about a coach I'll kick that sucker right through there like a tie the game for there's no way 'they come away from her I'd say this was one of the greatest football games ever played all of that the magic carpet of television brought right into you Dallas's victory ended Houston's two-year run as champions it also came on a day in which weather was particularly bad up in the Northeast there were a lot of people watching the game on TV ain't congratulations thank you very much Jack and it was an excellently played game it was a dramatic game it was the AFL's real coming-of-age party where did you polish the way that we can win the championship and bring it back to Dallas Texas I thought geez this is it the Cowboys are gonna be leaving they'll have to leave Dallas now because we are the champions but that was case the case was that Lamar Hunt one of the league to succeed Lamar Hunt realized even though he wanted to stay in Dallas he could not be truly successful in a town that was divided the Cowboys could wait it out longer because the NFL was going to be around the NFL was clearly there to stay the AFL was much more of a touch-and-go proposition what he needed to do was create the perception and also the reality that the league was becoming more successful and the only way to do that was to move his franchise for Hank Stram to win the championship in 1962 and then move he said he just he just cried his eyes out Lamar sat him down and said look we are not make it this way broke his heart too in the years to come the AFL would need more than a few successful teams it would need a league of strong franchises it would need palatial new homes and compelling new faces but before any of that could happen Lamar Hunt would have to put the league before his team for hunt for his Kansas City Chiefs for the AFL for everyone history was about to crack wide open when Tex Schramm talked about the war in the 60s he wasn't referring to Vietnam he was talking about the NFL in the AFL and that was the war that these men were fighting and they were going to succeed at all costs just war against the NFL to get the players the 1967 AFL championship belong to Oakland they beat Houston in this game new tram only played football players we reserve the right to play them where they can make the greatest contribution to this organization a major reason behind Denver's vault in the second place in the rushing department with the acquisition of powerful fullback cookie Gilchrist from the Buffalo Bill we went out to get a taxi taxes were lined up out in front of the hotel and cook a guilt Kris Munroe where is it hey we want a taxi and the guy's got a call y'all a fella can cook again hey I don't care what call the cab is I just wanted taxi I can't be riding one of these so we decided we're gonna go into that next club we get ready to go in this little guy standing there pulls out a gun you are not coming in here you are not coming in here in the south and southwest desegregation was far from what the law required it to be you know it was unheard of or for black to be a leak safety our middle linebacker our quarterback and this was like standard kind of talk I mean people believe this [ __ ] about white send blacks there's no magic formula to it other than maybe hard work and having a horses I'm time to do this thing in terms of quarterback center and studs upfront everything that Paul Brown did 95% of that is what we do today from scouting players to breaking down film to game planning to on the field teaching coaching drills and so forth 50 years later everybody's still basically doing the same thing to me that's the father of professional football if it weren't for the AFL what opportunities what I have had to coach every time I saw Lamar Hunt I thanked him our philosophy moving the pocket make sure the innovation offensively was predominantly in the AFL then in motion shifting complex formations those things were not common in the National Football League at the time pump it in there baby just keep a trick you lating the ball down the field boys I mean you talk about dressing up to coach a football game his sartorial splendor was was everything every Sunday and he always took it to the hilt they were a team that projected the image that Hank Stram wanted to project and it was a far different image than the image of Al Davis and later John Madden and the Oakland Raiders and so that rivalry in many ways the defining rivalry of the 10 years of the AFL came out of those terrific contrasts a lot of players didn't like each other let's get right down to it you know that was back in the days when you could really I mean God you can blast people out there and they just clothesline you they get you out of bounds he's all that bad stuff that's too bad the games not like that anymore Zack camp was very tough he once broke his hand and while the hand was healing he had the doctor warm it around a football so that when it healed he would be still be able to hold the ball and throw it when we left the Yale Bowl the traffic was horrendous we first thought it was because of all the people going back to New York after the football game we found out that it was really because of what's them 60s will be described as a decade in which football became the number one sport in America the AFL made it automatic hit on television the most thrilling first play ever made by any new team took gilben kippo we went a hundred yards we went nuts their first choice back Oh Jay Simpson the University of Southern California nobody could run football on Jay budget [ __ ] instrument got a tune is this right little at a time Namath has not been bashful this week and he is said that the Jets are going to win he doesn't even predict it he says we're gonna win the game I guarantee you they're beating the fence but the NFL has to walk around here today the AFL finally earns the respect it has desire and the ironies it earns that respect at the moment it ceases to exist it was time for some man to stand up and be counted I think that's what we did you

Channel: TheAFLHistory

Views: 228,098

Keywords: TheNCAAHistory, TheNBAHistorian, TheNFLHistorian, TheUSFLhistory, TheMLBHistory, NegroLeagueHistory, TheNHLHistory, TheOlympicsHistory, TheBoxingHistory, TheAFLHistory, Full Color Football: The History Of The American Football League (TV Program), Lamar Hunt, Al Davis, Bud Adams, Bob Howsam, Max Winter, Ralph Wilson, Barron Hilton, Harry Wismer, Billy Sullivan, Joe Foss, AFL History, Documentary

Id: _7OA6koTK_E

Length: 56min 1sec (3361 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 05 2014