Chiefs: Revisiting a Sad Day in Houston – Lloyd Wells Passes

Chiefs: Revisiting a Sad Day in Houston – Lloyd Well’s Passes – In many ways, 1958 was a turning point for NFL Football and also the nation as it turns out. I was watching the televised NFL Championship game from which Lamar Hunt coerced himself to make a decision to seek to purchase an NFL Franchise occurred. Then the failure of acquiring the then Chicago Cardinals became an earmark moment and from their conversations, began with Hunt and Bud Adams, about forming a new professional football league.

Fast Forward to 2005

It was a sad day in Houston when they laid Lloyd C.A.Wells to rest. He was a friend and confidant of many sports figures around the country, was involved in the success of the Kansas City Chiefs early on and was the first full time African American Scout of the NFL. What might not be understood was that Lloyd Wells was a civil Rights Pioneer. I will try to get to that view in the process of taking a look at this Chiefs, and NFL, icon.

Wells passed away at the age of 78 in Houston. Lamar Hunt joked about Wells joining the Chiefs saying he didn’t know how that happened. Hunt went from his home in Dallas on at trip to Houston to meet with Bud Adams, the 2nd “AFL Team Owner” and between the two of them they formed the nucleus of the creative genius from which the fledgling AFL came into being.
Indeed, Hunt and Adams were “Charter members of the Foolish Club”*

It was at this meeting with K.S. “Bud” Adams, the man who would become his first partner in a venture that eventually became known as the American Football League.

A view from Bob Gretz, Columnist

Bob Gretz, in an article he wrote in 2005, characterized Lloyd Wells as a local legend in Houston, known as the “Judge.”

Houston was also the home of Lloyd CA Wells. It was Wells and his contacts in sports around the country that aided Hunt in building the team that had so much success in the first and only Decade of the AFL. As Bob Gretz observed in his 2005 article, it was Wells who helped Otis Taylor escape through a motel room window and sign with the Chiefs, who convinced Jim Kearney to leave the Detroit Lions and who signed (RB) Mack Lee Hill to a contract when hardly anybody else in pro football even knew about the running back from SMU. Buck Buchanan, Robert Holmes, Gloster Richardson, Warren McVea… Wells had a hand in all of those players eventually ending up with the Kansas City Chiefs”, Gretz wrote. later on, Wells would be instrumental in bringing Willie Lanier to KC. In all, he brought 8 players who became AFL All Pro and 3 NFL Hall of Famers to the Chiefs Kingdom.

“In my mind the signature play of the franchise is Otis Taylor’s touchdown catch in the Super Bowl.”

Lamar Hunt said this about Wells in 2005).

“Without Lloyd Wells, that would not have happened.”

I too think that that single play was the earmark play of the decade, the TD that sealed the victory against the lofty Minnesota Vikings. I was a Sr. in HS and ecstatic. Hunt observed:

“The success we had as a franchise on the field in the AFL came from our ability to find and develop talent and Lloyd was a big part of that.”

It was that formational trip to Houston where Hunt was to receive a reward where he recalled meeting Wells but he wasn’t sure about how Wells came to be a Chiefs Scout. But he did. Or maybe he didn’t want to reveal that.

Here is how meeting Wells was characterized in the Gretz article:

“I was invited down to Houston to accept an award from a group that Lloyd was involved in. It was around 1960, or 1961, after we started the AFL. They presented me with the ‘100 Percent Wrong Award’, kind of a spoof to honor the new league and our success getting it off the ground despite the fact so many thought it would never happen.

“That was the first time I met him. I also met Bill Russell at this event and at that time he was a very big deal, as they were winning all those championships with the Celtics. That’s when I kind of got a hint that Lloyd had some pull.”

What I recall and have learned

It was the import of Well’s communication and connection with the black community that has to be understood to be of utmost importance. Also important was that Hunt did not care from where or the color of the players the Chiefs acquired and fed to Hank Stram nor was that an issue for Stram either.

That has great significance as well in the milieu in which these events occurred and that is very important in the intellectual and social history of the United States. I think everyone needs to reflect on this: that Well’s importance went far beyond just the NFL.

Wells was also a confidant of many college Coaches around the country, but especially among the small “black colleges in and around the south.”. Too, he was a friend, confidant and advisor to Mohammed Ali. If you go back in time and watch the great Ali fights, you will see Lloyd Wells getting into the ring with the Ali after the victory.

Wells was an icon to young black athletes, Wells was an adviser, a champion, a representative, a surrogate….“Oh, he was the man,” said former Chiefs safety Jim Kearney. “In Houston, there was nobody bigger than Lloyd. Nobody.” writes Gretz.

Wells was a Sergeant in the USMC, a photographer and writer and editor for black newspapers in Houston, the Forward-Times, the Informer and the Defender. He was involved with Haskins and Texas Western team and specifically Lattin, a player on that team which beat Adolph Rupp’s Kentucky Wildcat team in 1966, an all black team, a small school, an unknown HC beating the nationally renowned Kentucky team (made of all white players).

Hunt was always complimentary of Lloyd Wells and observed for Gretz that:

“We never pretended we made a conscious effort to open things up…. We made the conscious effort to go out and find the best players anywhere that we could. At the time, it was tough to get information about the players with the smaller black schools because they didn’t have the equipment to produce films the way some of the bigger schools did, like those in the Big Ten and the Southwest Conferences.”

This same view is presented by McCambridge in the Hunt Biography, see blow for a reference for that.

How Wells Fits In

So Wells became the key that unlocked all the talent and the information that was needed by Hunt and the Chiefs and how his newspaper activity and the knowledge about the black colleges around the south became so integral to the process of obtaining players. Including Kearney and especially a star running back who would die tragically during a freak operating room event where the Chiefs lost their first football hero: Mack Lee Hill, for whom the Award is now named.

Hill was a talent of KU’s Gale Sayers type, from a small Black College, Howard University, who died having knee surgery in 1965. I recall how shocked the Kansas City public was about Hill’s death. It was as if a total eclipse silenced a city, something quite similar to what occurred when Derrick Thomas had his tragic car accident and later passed away due to complications from the injuries.

Eight of Wells’ recruits became All-Pro for the AFL and three NFL Hall of Fame players plus his own special plaque for the HoF as well. It is my view that Wells was a crucial part of the reason the early success of the Kansas City Chiefs. He was a great man and helped make those around him better people for having known him.

Lloyd C.A. Wells, former Muhammad Ali confidant, scout for the American Football League’s Kansas City Chiefs and a longtime figure on the Houston sports scene. Ali said of him at the time of his death:

“He was as close to me as my brother… I feel like I’ve lost a part of myself.” -Mohammed Ali

Besides Ali, Wells worked for Thomas Hearns and George Foreman.

For the Chiefs he was responsible for bringing several great players to the Chiefs roster as has been observed but also think back to the 1966 NCAA Championship game. Wells had been instrumental in getting David Lattin to Don Haskin’s Texas Western Team. it was that team that had all black starters and they won the NCAA title versus the Adolph Rupp Kentucky team of national renown. Don Haskins would later go on to coach the Houston Cougars.  It was Lattin’s dunk over Kentucky’s Pat Riley that sealed the fate of the Wildcats (of course, Riley of LA Lakers fame).

When asked what Wells meant to him, Lattin said:

“Everything. He was a very close friend, like a father, a mentor, someone I could talk to about anything in regard to wisdom. I learned how to dress, how to deal with people. In fact, I just learned everything from him.”

Well’s was ill for 3 years and was cared for at a local facility before passing away but this is the nature of Alzheimer’s and how it leaves it’s victims. A local Sportscaster probably said it best:

“The ol’ Marine sergeant is gone.”

What Wells Did Stands Tall

No matter how you cut it, the number of talented players that Wells brought to the Chiefs has got to be acknowledged. Those players were responsible for more than a decade of success for the Chiefs. I do think that it must be recognized that Lamar Hunt’s hiring of Lloyd Wells was “daring” itself as noted by Sportswriter and Hunt Biographer Michael MacCambridge, author of “Lamar Hunt: A Life in Sports,” and “America’s Game.” He said during a phone interview.

“You have to remember, it’s not that he was just the first black scout to be hired full-time—there weren’t that many scouts around, period. Black or white.”

In the press? Wells was vilified at times and Hunt was called a communist. How ludicrous it seems now. Or does it?

Lloyd’s Beat

Lloyd would get in his car and drive. He went from Houston across the south to the east ending in Florida, then he”d head north, get George, SC, NC, TN and up to VA and MD especially MD Eastern Shore. That was his “beat.”

About one thing I am certain: The Chiefs would not have appeared in the first Bowl and in Super Bowl #4 if it weren’t for Lloyd Wells and the players he brought to the Chiefs.

So this will segway into the finale or anti-climax of this particular rendering about Lloyd Wells. This is perhaps the earmark of the rivalry and intensity of the NFL and the AFL of the era must be noted. Without Taylor, top play of the game wouldn’t have occurred nor would it have sealed the victory which it did. So that was a huge difference in the game right there. In fact, you cannot say that it was assured the Chiefs would win that game with that TD either.

Momentum could have gone the other way.

Hence the snub in getting into the NFL HoF is doubly damning. That win was the 4th and earmark of the cement that made the merger solid. 2 wins of 4 games, the first 2 going to the Packers… but the Jets and Chiefs actually shocked the NFL nation with their victories.

The Chiefs had had Taylor up at KC and felt they had him locked up but the Cowboys also wanted Taylor and the went to Prairie View and invited Taylor and teammate Seth Cartwright to Dallas for Thanksgiving. McCambridge, in his book, calls this a ‘baby sitter kidknapping‘. The Boys were hiding Taylor and Cartwright from the Chiefs and would try to get them both signed on board.

The way that Lloyd Wells tells the story is as follows, saying about getting Taylor that, “It wasn’t that easy” and that he had been on the way to get Nolan Smith out of Tennessee State and when he returned the Chiefs had thought they had Taylor locked up but the NFL had got him away from home and had him secreted in a hotel room in Texas.

Lamar Hunt called Wells and said, “No he is gone and you have to go to Houston to get him.” Wells did so, snuck Taylor out of the Hotel room through a window where he was staying, right out from underneath the noses of the NFL handlers.

As it unfolds, the situation comes to a crisis since Wells can’t find Taylor anywhere in Dallas. Wells makes several phone calls including to Taylor’s mother from whom he gets the phone number of a Taylor acquaintance who knew where Taylor was.

Wells said that he knew that Taylor liked the girls and asked for Taylor’s friend, Gerald McIntire’s phone number was. Wells called the number, and found out about some girl Otis liked down at Richardson Tx, near Dallas and McIntire told him that Taylor was staying at a motel in Richardson.

Wells went out to Richardson and to the Hotel where the NFL body guards stopped him and threatened to kill him if he didn’t leave the premises… so he left but got a friend and they went back to the motel at 3 AM. Here is how Wells recounted the event to Lenny Moon:

“I came back to the motel at 3 AM, jumped over a fence, through some people’s yard and back by the pool and knocked on his door and he and Seth Cartwright and me caught a plane to Kansas City where he later signed and became one of the greatest players to ever play flanker in the history of the national football league.”

The rest? It’s History. Ain’t it?

David Bell – ArrowheadOne

Notes:

• Foolish Club was the name the original 8 owners of AFL Teams gave themselves.
• 3 HoF Players: linebacker Willie Lanier(Morgan State), Buck Buchanan (Grambling) and Emmitt Thomas (Bishop).
•  “(Wide receiver) Otis Taylor (Prairie View A&M), who is also going to be inducted in the Black College Hall of Fame in March, was another. Obviously those individuals had a whole lot to do with being able to create a competitive balance and the opportunity to win the only Super Bowl in the franchise’s history

Here is the Wiki notation: Foolish Club
The Foolish Club were the owners of the eight original franchises of the American Football League. When Texas oil magnates Lamar Hunt and Bud Adams, Jr. were refused entry to the established NFL in 1959, they contacted other businessmen to form an eight-team professional football league, and called it the American Football League.

1. Lloyd Wells: Trailblazing NFL Scout – https://footballmaven.io/talkoffame/nfl/state-your-case-lloyd-wells-was-a-trailblazing-nfl-scout-_EAEwG_HxkGhQi6lVzxlrg/
2. Lloyd Wells: Obit in the Houston Chronicle – https://www.chron.com/news/houston-deaths/article/Lloyd-C-A-Wells-adviser-to-Ali-dies-at-78-1952227.php
3. Lloyd Wells: Civil Rights Pioneer – https://www.houstonpress.com/news/lloyd-ca-wells-civil-rights-pioneer-for-sportswriters-deserves-spot-on-astros-wall-of-fame-6739652

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