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With
the next Super Bowl almost upon the globe and ready to take center stage,
we flash back to the first one whose name officially was the AFL-NFL
Championship Game. My book has many oral history memories. Herewith,
just a few of those who were there at the game remember the time:
ANN BUSSEL: At that time I was living with my
husband in New Jersey, and he was in the scrap iron and metal business. We
were attending in Los Angeles a convention, a meeting between dealers in
that industry. A gentleman had extra tickets that he could not sell
to the Super Bowl. That was hard to believe. So he offered them for
free to men attending the convention. My husband was a big football fan, a
fan of the New York Giants. He was thrilled to go.
This gentleman rented a bus and offered free
transportation to and from the game. That is how I was had the privilege to
attend the first Super Bowl. We got on the bus that he chartered. It was
loaded up with about 30 or 40 people, all in a happy and party mood.
Lo and behold, we arrived at the Coliseum and
wow, the tickets were on the 50 yard line. I really did not know anything
about the Kansas City Chiefs and not much about Green Bay aside from Bart
Starr. Out of gratitude for the man who gave us the tickets, we rooted for
Kansas City. Their fans there were pretty happy the first half of the
game.
It was a pleasant day. It was a plus plus
day. And when I tell my children and especially my grandchildren that their
grandmother attended the first Super Bowl, they say “What?”
I did not think to save my program or my
ticket.
FRED WALLIN: We were among a minority that
watched the game on television in the Los Angeles area. We had a
directional antenna on the roof to get reception from San Diego. We
had thirty friends over to the house. Everyone had a good time. In the
second half, the picture became fuzzy. Dad asked me to go up onto the roof
to move the antenna. It was quite a day. The next week we attached a rotor
so that could adjust the antenna electronically.
DOUG KELLY: I was a senior in high school. We
were living in Menlo Park, California. The television set was in the living
room, and it was in color which had recently come into vogue. We had to get
up from time to time and adjust the color. We watched on CBS. My Dad loved
Ray Scott. Looking at that first game and all the stuff that surrounded it,
you would never guess in a million years that it would become what it is
today.
Little did I realize that I would join
the Kansas City Chiefs organization in 1974, working in public relations.
There was still a pretty good core of players who had played in that first
Super Bowl, but the problem was they were all 7 years older.
LU VAUGHN: I’d never been on a junket before
but through the Meadowbrook Country Club in Kansas City, a group of guys
got together, and we chartered a jet to go out to Los Angeles for the Super
Bowl. The trip cost me about $200. I think the ticket was around $10 for
the game. I was about 34-35 years old at that time.
We went to Las Vegas first where we were
comped food, beverages, and lodging. We were at the Sands
Hotel, one of the earliest of the great places out there. We even were
comped to see a show at the Flamingo. Bill Cosby was the celebrity.
Our flight from Vegas to LA did not happen – Los Angeles was souped in. So
they woke us up at 5 o’clock in the morning at the hotel to bus us from Las
Vegas to the LA Coliseum. We had 3 buses for about 100 of us, all Kansas
City Chief fans.
After about a 5 hour journey, we arrived. We
missed the first quarter. Our seats were not really good, more to the
end zone than anyplace else. We wore jackets and shirts and other things
that let people know that we were Kansas City Chiefs fans. And we were
harassed. People teased us and said Kansas City was going to be badly
beaten. But of course we thought otherwise. We felt that we stood a good
chance of being competitive in the ball game, and maybe winning.
STEVE FOLVEN: I was about 19 years old and
living at home in Lowell, Mass and in my first year of college. The biggest
game of the year at the Boston Garden was at twelve o’clock – the Celtics
versus Philadelphia. Bill Russell versus Wilt Chamberlain.
My
two buddies Billy Brooks and Charlie Gallagher and I were going to the
game. In those days you could go the day of the game and actually get a
ticket. Billy Brooks had the car. He said we would all have to leave the
Celtic game a bit early to get home in time to see the big football game
between Kansas City and Green bay. That was at 4 o’clock.
We got to the Garden about eleven o’clock or so. I had attended early Mass.
We tried to sneak in and pay the ushers some money, but there weren’t any
ushers around. We got in for six bucks or something like that. We had
pretty good seats, and it was a great game. It was too bad we had to leave
early in the fourth quarter.
I was a Boston Patriots fan in the AFL. But to me the AFL was a minor
league compared to the NFL. I thought it was nice that finally the two
leagues were meeting in a championship game. I felt the Chiefs were going
to get creamed.
The first half I was surprised. The Chiefs
looked okay. But I wanted the Packers to win. They had Lombardi and Starr
and Hornung and Taylor and all that great talent. They were always winning,
always on television.
Our only TV set was black and white, a small
one, in the living room. I watched the entire game on NBC –Gowdy and Christman.
The next day I read about the game in the newspapers – it didn’t get that
much play.
BILL GUTMAN: I followed the birth of the
American Football League. In the New York City area and its surroundings
there was interest in the game not only among fans but also the media. I
was living in Stamford, Connecticut and was two years away from beginning
my writing career.
The talk in the media and popular
conversation was about the need of the NFL to win that game. A defeat in
that game would have been crushing to the old league. There was also talk:
"Thank God, it's Lombardi" and the Packers who are there
representing the National Football League.”
My feeling was it was an unknown thing
- two teams, two leagues that have never met before. You just did not know
what to expect. At the first snap, however, when the two lines collided
then you realized it was just another football game and all the talk meant
nothing.
I watched the game on both CBS Channel 2 and
NBC 4 in my room alone at home. The set had a 13 inch black and white
screen. The antenna was rabbit ears, but the reception was pretty good.
I was a sports fan, not a fan of either league. I enjoyed the
game.
SUSAN LOMBARDI: I was in Marymount
College in Boca Raton. It was a finishing school and there were a lot of
politicians’ daughters there. It was warm but I wanted to go to the
game in California but I knew my father being the teacher that he was would
never pull me out. He wanted me to be in
school.
I watched the game on a 19 inch nothing
TV in the middle of the community area in our dorm with my college
girlfriends. The nuns, our teachers, wandered in and out. They let us have
snacks. I was just another student. This was the first time I ever
watched my father on TV. I had a difficult time watching it because I had
always been at the game watching him live. At Lambeau, in Green Bay we had
A1 seats on the 50 yard line. When we went to away games, the seats were
good but nothing like Lambeau. For me being in Boca in a community room watching
my father and the Packers on TV - -it was a strange experience.
(Autographed, mint, discounted copies of WHEN
IT WAS JUST A GAME are available direct from the author)
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