JRN 362 - Lecture Sixteen

JRN 362/SPS 362 Story of Football
Rich Hanley, Associate Professor
Lecture Sixteen

Review
• The startling success of the 1958
NFL Championship as a television
spectacle propelled the NFL to new
heights and set the stage for the
league to own Sunday afternoons
and, eventually, Monday & Thursday
nights.

Review
• Among the changes: pool money
from television rights to make sure
every team had a chance to win “on
any given Sunday,” a quote from NFL
commissioner Bert Bell who
preceded Pete Rozelle in that
position.

Review
• The championship game of 1958
didn’t immediately change the
footprint of the NFL, but it would set
in motion a move by a group of
wealthy business owners to form a
new league.
• And that enhanced the dream life of
ecstasy and violence.

The AFL
• In July 1959, a group of wealthy men
known self-described as the “Foolish
Club” formed the AFL, to open in
1960 with eight teams from Boston,
Buffalo, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los
Angeles, Minneapolis, and New York.

The AFL
• At the time, NFL franchises on the
two coasts bracketed teams in the
football crescent hugging the Great
Lakes, as the map shows.

The AFL
• The AFL would colonize urban areas
the NFL had either ignored or had
rejected.
• It would compete with the NFL only in
big urban centers: New York, Los
Angeles and San Francisco.

The AFL
• George Halas of the Chicago Bears -
one of the league founders who
coached at the Great Lakes Naval
Station in World War I - told reporters
that the NFL would aggressively
counter the new league by offering
franchises in cities it had previously
ignored.

The AFL
• The team from Minneapolis – the
Vikings - withdrew from the AFL in
January 1960 after the NFL offered
its owner a franchise. A team in
Oakland took its place, giving the
original AFL its initial shape.
• The NFL also awarded a franchise to
Dallas.

The AFL
• The original AFL settled on its
franchises in time for its first season
in 1960.

The AFL
• The Boston Patriots.

The AFL
• The Buffalo Bills.

The AFL
• The Dallas Texans.

The AFL
• The Denver Broncos.

The AFL
• The Houston Oilers.

The AFL
• The Los Angeles Chargers.

The AFL
• The New York Titans.

The AFL
• The Oakland Raiders.

The AFL
• The original eight owners included:
- Lamar Hunt of Kansas City
- Ralph Wilson of Buffalo
- Bud Adams of Houston
- Billy Sullivan of Boston

The AFL
- Harry Wismar of New
York
- Bob Howsam of Denver
- Baron Hilton of Los
Angeles
- Chet Soda of Oakland

The AFL
• The owners hired World War II Medal
of Honor recipient Joe Foss as its
commissioner.
• Foss earned the medal for action as
a Marine Corps pilot in the Pacific.

The AFL
• Meanwhile, Hunt, owner of the Dallas
Texans franchise, announced that he
would bid for NFL talent.
• The NFL responded by considering
new franchises in Houston, Boston,
Buffalo, Miami, Louisville, New
Orleans and Denver.

The AFL
• The war between the two leagues
was on, and it began with a back
from the deep south by the name of
Billy Cannon, the 1959 Heisman
Trophy recipient from Louisiana State
University.

The AFL
• In November 1959, the AFL held its
first draft.
• The Houston Oilers drafted Cannon.
• The NFL Los Angeles Rams also
drafted Cannon but he signed with
the Oilers.

The AFL
• In December 1959, Foss announced
the league would pool its television
revenues, making it the first pro
football league to do so.
• In June 1960, the ABC agreed to pay
$2.1 million to the AFL to broadcast
its games.

The AFL
• Unlike the NFL, the AFL’s revenue-
sharing arrangement did not seem to
concern the U.S. Justice Department.
• The Justice Department, in fact, saw
no need to file anti-trust action
against the AFL as it had against the
NFL.

The AFL
• ABC agreed to broadcast two games
on Sunday: one to the east coast, the
other to the west coast.
• ABC served as a promotional tool for
the AFL, giving it legitimacy to an
audience that could not get enough
football, particularly in regions without
NFL teams.

The AFL
• Under Roone Arledge, ABC
approached the AFL games as
entertainment spectacle, not sport,
which differed from the CBS
presentation of the NFL.
• Arledge used new camera angles,
developed technologies to acquire
on-field sound and embedded

The AFL
• As much as Spalding had tried to
convince Walter Camp to open the
game to make it more popular in the
late 19th century, Arledge did the
same to the AFL in the first two years
with extraordinary success.

The AFL
• The AFL featured wide open play,
with passing considered to be a
routine (even though AFL teams ran
the ball more than they passed).

The AFL
• Sid Gillman of the Los Angeles (later
San Diego) Chargers installed a
passing-first offense that featured fast
receivers and pocket passers such as
Jack Kemp (the Giants’ third-string
quarterback in 1958) and John Hadl.

The AFL
• Gillman was born in Minneapolis,
along the edge of the football
crescent.
• He attended the Ohio State
University and later coached Miami
(Ohio) University – Paul Brown’s
alma mater - and the University of
Cincinnati.

The AFL
• Like Brown, Gillman pioneered the
use of film to study players and plays,
creating an analytical framework
found by coaches to be essential for
a complicated passing offense.
• As such, he is a pivotal figure in the
history of football.

The AFL
• Gillman coached the Los Angeles
Rams from 1955-1960, leading the
team to the NFL Championship game
in 1955.
• Even though the Rams lost to the
Browns, Gillman’s reputation was
firmly established in the pro game.

The AFL
• The Rams of the 1950s featured a
pass-happy offense that differed
greatly from the run-first teams of the
football crescent (other than the
Browns) and the east coast.

The AFL
• "Sid Gillman is still the father of the
modern-day passing game at all
levels of football," said longtime NFL
quarterback and analyst Ron
Jaworski, who played under Gillman
for three seasons in Philadelphia.
"The concepts that he developed are
still being used at every level of
football."

The AFL
• “We would sit in (meetings) and the
offensive line coach would install all
these running plays, said Jaworski.
“And Sid would go right up in front of
the team and say, 'All right, offensive
guys, we just wasted two hours trying
to gain 3 yards. Now we're going to
put in the passing plays.’”

The AFL
• Barron Hilton saw the entertainment
value in that type of offense and lured
Gillman to the Chargers in 1960.
• Gillman brought to the AFL a pass-
oriented offense built on a foundation
of a thoroughly professional,
methodical approach to game play.

The AFL
• Gillman hired assistants who shared
his analytical approach.
• They included Al Davis (Raiders),
Chuck Noll (Steelers), Chuck Knox
(Rams), Dick Vermeil (Eagles and
Rams) and Don Coryell (Chargers).

The AFL
• AFL owners also tinkered with the
ball to make the game appealing.
• The league’s ball was slimmer and
more tapered, making it more
aerodynamically efficient.
• The leather had a tackier feel than
the NFL ball.

The AFL
• The ball’s changes became more
subtle as the league matured but that
sort of innovation gave the AFL a
distinctive style of play.

The AFL
• The American Football League began
play in 1960 with two divisions of four
teams each.
• The league featured a 14-game
schedule, with each team playing the
other teams twice.

The AFL
• The emphasis would be on offense
as the league adopted the two-point
conversion, becoming the first pro
league to do.
• The plan worked.
• In 1960, each AFL team averaged
24.2 points per game, compared with
the NFL team’s 21.5 average.

The AFL
• The Houston Oilers won the first AFL
championship over the Los Angeles
Chargers, 24-16, on Jan. 1, 1961.
• The Oilers won again the following
year, this time defeating the San
Diego Chargers who had moved after
one season in Los Angeles.

The AFL
• In 1962, the Dallas Texans defeated
the Oilers, 20-17, in two overtimes.
• The Texans moved to Kansas City
after that and changed their name to
the Chiefs.

The AFL
• The AFL’s popularity soared over its
first three years on the strength of its
approach.
• The networks noticed. In 1963, NBC
gave the AFL $36 million for the
rights to its games, giving the league
cash to fund a bidding war with the
NFL. And it telecast more games
than the NFL.

The AFL
• The deal also gave the AFL
confidence.
• In December 1963, Foss wrote to the
NFL’s commissioner Pete Rozelle
offering to schedule a championship
game against each league’s title
winner.
• The NFL rejected it.

The AFL
• The leveling of the playing field on
one hand and the sense that a
changing of the guard was at hand
emerged in 1965, all on one day in
New York.

The AFL
• On the morning of Jan. 22, 1965, the
legendary quarterback for the New
York Giants, Y.A. Tittle, announced
his retirement.
• Tittle had led the Giants to three
straight NFL championship games in
1961, 1962 and 1963, losing twice to
Green Bay and once to the Chicago
Bears.

The AFL
• He was also remembered for a game
in his last season, 1964, when a
photographer captured an image of a
dazed and bloodied Tittle on his
knees after a hit in a game against
Pittsburgh.

The AFL
• On the afternoon of January 22,
1965, the team founded as the Titans
of New York but changed to the New
York Jets in 1963 held a press
conference to announce the signing
of Alabama quarterback Joe Namath
for the unheard sum of $427,000.

The AFL
• The Jets and other teams had been
helped by NBC, which gave each
AFL team $250,000 to help fund
signings of star NFL players and
collegians, according to researchers.
• That action alone triggered the first
discussions between the AFL and the
NFL about a merger.

The AFL
• One player, however, went counter to
that trend: Pete Gogolak of the
Buffalo Bills.
• Gogolak was a kicker whose style
was considered as “unorthodox.”
• In other words, he kicked soccer-
style, from the side rather than
straight on.

The AFL
• In 1966, Gogolak signed with the
New York Giants.
• That move to sign a kicker – can’t
take the foot out of football –
intensified merger talks.

The AFL
• Neither league could afford to pay the
escalating salaries triggered by the
bidding war.
• They would be stronger – and vastly
richer – if combined into a single
league.

The AFL
• At any rate, both leagues understood
they could gain more by merging than
by fighting over players.
• Expansion had accelerated the
colonization of fresh markets for the
modern pro game, particularly in the
middle of the U.S.

The AFL
• And at least one NFL team – the
Chicago Cardinals, the oldest pro
team – moved to a new market for
pro football when the team packed its
bags for St. Louis in 1960.

The AFL
• The gave the NFL a presence south
of the football crescent and north of
Texas.
• That still left the Deep South and the
Pacific Northwest without a team, but
the major population centers of
industrial America featured NFL
teams.

The AFL
• When overlaid with AFL teams, the
map shows the middle of the country
represented by pro football as the
NFL and the AFL maneuvered for
advantage.
• Pro football, however, was absent
from the Deep South, a hotbed for
college football and a region with a
growing population.

The AFL
• In 1966, the AFL and NFL merged,
after receiving the blessing of the
U.S. Congress with favorable
legislation that handed the merged
league an exemption from anti-trust
laws.
• In short, Congress expanded the
NFL’s existing exemption to include
the merged entity.

The AFL
• The Congressional legislation
granting an anti-trust exemption
included a curious section that gave
the NFL non-profit status.
• Individual teams would be taxed but
the NFL as a “trade organization”
would not face an IRS bill (the NFL
no longer uses that status).

The AFL
• Under terms of the merger, the AFL
paid the NFL $18 million (spread over
20 years).
• Rozelle would be commissioner of
the new league.

The AFL
• The two leagues could not formally
unite until 1970 when television
contracts expired.
• The league would consist of two
conferences: the AFC and the NFC.

The AFL
• As part of the deal, the Baltimore
Colts, Cleveland Browns and
Pittsburgh Steelers would move to
the AFC to balance the conference
structure.

The AFL
• The league would hold a unified draft
to keep rookie salaries at bay.
• And it would hold a championship
game between the AFL and NFL
champions before the merger took
effect.

The AFL
• The game would be called The Super
Bowl, a name thought of by Lamar
Hunt after he saw his children playing
with a new toy called a Super Ball.

The AFL
• By the time of the merger, both
leagues had granted franchises to
teams in the deep south.
• In 1966, the Atlanta Falcons joined
the NFL, and the Miami Dolphins
became part of the AFL.

The AFL
• The merged NFL would now cover
most of the U.S. and its television
markets, leaving only the Pacific
Northwest empty.

The AFL
• A year later, the NFL granted a
franchise to a city whose history of
segregation led to a boycott of an all-
star game by AFL players.
• Research by Dr. J. Mark Souther
revealed the history of football in New
Orleans as one marked by
segregation.

The AFL
• The AFL had scheduled its all-star
game for New Orleans in January
1965, at Tulane Stadium.
• The game would be played just 10
days after the city hosted the first
completely integrated Sugar Bowl.
Syracuse, with eight African
American players, lost to LSU 13-0.

The AFL
• New Orleans had a long history of
segregation that came to a head
earlier, in the 1950s.
• In 1955, the Sugar Bowl, played
since 1934, invited Pittsburgh to play
Georgia Tech on Jan. 1, 1956, even
though Pitts had an African-American
player.

The AFL
• Georgia’s governor told Georgia Tech
to stay home from the game but
eventually relented after the Board of
Regents decided to ban all future
participation in integrated events,
according to Souther.

The AFL
• Ultimately, Sugar Bowl officials
worked a compromise that allocated
just 75 seats to African Americans for
the game, which took place in the
82,000-seat Tulane Stadium.

The AFL
• The AFL all-stars and the champion
Buffalo Bills – who would be playing
each other under the structure that
year - found that laws barring
mingling would be enforced
throughout the city as late as 1965,
10 years after the Sugar Bowl that
allowed African-Americans to attend
at a modest level.

The AFL
• African-American AFL players could
not get a cab, for one.
• Players were barred from nightclubs
and restaurants that catered to white
patrons.

The AFL
• The 21 African-American players
decided not to play the game.
• AFL commissioner Foss moved the
contest to Houston in response to the
treatment of players by New Orleans.

The AFL
• In 1963, a businessman by the name
of David Dixon wanted to lure a NFL
franchise to New Orleans to give the
city a big-league veneer (Souther).
• A year later, he invited the NFL to
play a double-header at Tulane.

The AFL
• After some arm-twisting, Tulane
agreed to host the game.
• The doubleheader (Dallas v. Detroit
and the Colts v. the Bears) turned out
to be the most integrated pro game
held in the south as about 30 percent
of the crowd as African-American.

The AFL
• The drive for a New Orleans team
coincided with the NFL’s desire for
the federal anti-trust exemption it
required to merge with the AFL.
• The NFL’s record on integration was
mixed.

The AFL
• The league allowed the Washington
Redskins to remain a segregated
team into the 1960s.
• Opposition to integration was intense
in Washington and elsewhere.

The AFL
• The Redskins stood as the
southernmost NFL team east of the
Mississippi River.
• Owner George Preston Marshall said
he believed that white fans would
only support white players.
• The crowds at home games,
however, were integrated.

The AFL
• Nevertheless, the Redskins did not
have an African-American player on
their roster.
• It took a proposed move to a new
stadium to integrate the team.

The AFL
• In 1961, John F. Kennedy’s Secretary
of the Interior, Stewart Udall, told the
Redskins that because they would
play in a stadium built on federal
land, discrimination would be illegal.
• That meant the team could not play
there.

The AFL
• In December 1961, the Redskins
drafted their first black player, running
back Ernie Davis of Syracuse.
• The team then traded Davis to
Cleveland for Bobby Mitchell, a black
wide receiver.

The AFL
• In September 1962, Mitchell played,
becoming the first African-American
to play for Washington.
• The NFL finally was fully integrated
for the first time since 1932.

The AFL
• The NFL, meanwhile, cautiously
treated the application of New
Orleans’ businessmen for a franchise
in that segregated city – until political
realities forced its hand and its
opposition quickly disappeared.

The AFL
• Two Members of Congress from
Louisiana - U.S. Senator Russell B.
Long and U.S. Representative Hale
T. Boggs – told the NFL they would
support the antitrust exemption in
return for placing a NFL team in New
Orleans.

The AFL
• The NFL used the integrated double-
header games and other progress in
integrating New Orleans to support
the bid for a franchise there.
• In 1967, the New Orleans Saints
would begin play, expanding the NFL
deep into the south.

The AFL
• A year later, the AFL added a team at
the bottom of the football crescent in
Cincinnati.

The AFL
• The team owner? Paul Brown, who
named it the Bengals and adopted
the colors of his former team in
Cleveland, which fired him in 1963.
• The Cincinnati Bengals would spawn
a new offense even though a
championship proved to be elusive.

The AFL
• Within a decade, the NFL would
expand to the only area of the
country without a team: the Pacific
Northwest.
• The league had covered the nation
with professional football.

JRN 362 - Lecture Sixteen

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JRN 362 - Lecture Sixteen