After moving from Kansas City to other environs due to my profession, It took a long time to be able to return to Arrowhead to see a Chiefs game. I wrote about that in an article that year. The game temperature was zero degrees at kickoff. I met Clark Hunt outside the entrance and we chatted a few moments. I was impressed that he was out in that cold weather, without a stocking cap. It was 2 or 3 degrees below zero when my friend and I entered the stadium. He asked me how long had I been a fan and responded: “since 1963.” That is a truth that remains with me to this day. Kansas City had a professional football team, brought to town from Texas by Clark’s father, Lamar Hunt. I remain appreciative of this fact since that time.
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This year, in 2021? I have set my sights on being at Arrowhead for the November 7th game versus the Green Bay Packers. Why that game you may well ask?
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It’s Historic
It’s not a complicated reason. K.C. faced the Packers in the very first “Super Bowl,” what was the first AFL-NFL World Championship Game. Yeah the game was later named the Super Bowl by the Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt himself, though the nomenclature wasn’t applied until 1970’s game, which the Chiefs won versus the Minnesota Vikings 23-7, as the two leagues merged.
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In 1966, the Chiefs had a top notch football team and the Packers were the NFL team of the early part of the 60’s decade, a venerable foe coached by Vince Lombardi for whom the Super Bowl trophy would be named. This playoff between the two leagues was agreed upon when the leagues agreed to a merger in 1966.
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In 1966, the Chiefs finished 11-2-1. A truly great season. They defeated the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship game for the right to face the Packers in the first Championship game between the NFL and AFL. To win the AFL, the Chiefs traveled to Buffalo to face the Jack Kemp led Bills on foreign soil of War Memorial Stadium. It was the Chiefs second AFL Championship won by the K.C. team, but the first was won while the team was still the “Texans” of Dallas. Final Score? 31-7, Chiefs.
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The First Super Bowl
You may not recall this, but the game was broadcast on two networks: CBS for the NFL and NBC for the AFL.
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The fledgling AFL featured a lot of talent and there was much competition between the two leagues for new talent in their respective drafts. The AFL, for me, was hometown stuff and more exciting than what I had seen in the stodgy old NFL after I had become a football fan in 1958. Then? I had to choose a team to root for which had no bearing on our living in the Kansas City area at all. It was “football.”
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My father’s first home was in almost rural Kansas City, Kansas, the house on County Line Road near an old Standard Oil station down the road about a mile. Dad began looking for a farm to buy in 1958 and we finally bought the old farm in Cass County in 1961 and moved there. My grade school years were spent in Merriam, Kansas. I walked to school which was in a previously multi-grade school, in downtown Merriam and High School years in rural Missouri.
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I recall the “first Super Bowl” game, seen on color TV. We had a family Christmas gift that year and obtained a color television set in honor of the upcoming big game. What happened was individual presents for Christmas were foregone in order to obtain a color TV. So it was, with life on the farm in those days of the mid-1960s.
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Game Result: Packers 35-10 over the Chiefs in a game played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It was not a blow out until later, as the Chiefs were within striking distance at the half with the score 10-14. Two bonehead plays later resulted in two 3rd Quarter TD’s and that lead was insurmountable at 28-10. And that was all she wrote. Green Bay also scored a 4th quarter TD to seal the deal.
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Even back then in the inaugural of the AFL-NFL Championship, there was a tremendous amount of pageantry and hoopla.
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You can see a replay of the game, here –> AFL-NFL World Championship Game (1967)
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Of course, I was heartbroken, but buoyed by the Chiefs none-the-less because it was the first ever contest such as this one and the Kansas City Chiefs were part of it. I knew in my heart that they would be back, and they were after the 1969 miracle season and post-season, where the they overcame tremendous odds to win the AFL Crown and then beat the Vikings at New Orleans in 1970, Super Bowl IV.
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How It Came About: My rooting for the Chiefs and the Packers
That game is seared into my memory, but as time passed, I began to honor the Packers and their traditions, Lombardi himself and many of their players. So, I settled on rooting for the Chiefs of the old AFL and the Packers on the NFL side of the rivalry. A couple of decades later, my youngest son was born. He played football and has been a tremendous fan since Pee Wee football in Houston. He became a Green Bay Packers fan. In the family, we had teams that we could both follow and unless they met in out-of-conference play, we could root for the same team. I admit that I was thinking that the two teams might meet in the same Super Bowl 50, many years later. It didn’t happen, but it was a hope that both my son, Ian and I, had that year.
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The 2021 Matchup
There won’t be the type of hoopla that existed in their 1966 contest, but it will get hyped in the family lore some time in the future. It’s time for me to show Ian around the home stomping grounds of Kansas City, the town where I grew up, where I went to school… and the farm, the Plaza and much more. We will travel to K.C. for BBQ, touring and the game between the two teams that gave the Super Bowl it’s name.
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Kansas City, Nov 7th, Arrowhead Stadium
The Kansas City Chiefs vs. the Green Bay Packers
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Some things are historic for multiple reasons. This trip is a necessity, for more than one reason and for both my son and myself.
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From HS days long past… it was fun while I got to play the game!
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David Bell — ArrowheadOne
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