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Former Cowboys RB Duane Thomas
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A fog gathered in Long Beach on the morning of Super Bowl I. In the fog, the Kansas
City Chiefs gathered with their families around the buses that were to transport them to
the Los Angeles Coliseum.
The scene had something gothic about it, something touching too, with the players
embracing their wives as if they were about to go to war, which they were. To the
"War of the Worlds," with the Chiefs of the AFL challenging the Green Bay
Packers of the establishment NFL in what was called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game.
Lamar Hunt had thought up the term "Super Bowl," but it would not become
officially attached to the event for a couple years.
Super Bowl I! The games of this series tend to become a blur in my mind, but the first
one (ah, the first one) and the events surrounding it are as vivid to me as if it were
yesterday and not nearly 35 years ago. In particular, I remember that morning in Long
Beach. I can never forget it.
Among the Chiefs boarding the bus was Buck Buchanan, who, seeking to gain any insights
he could concerning the Packers, had been studying Vince Lombardi’s book, "Run
to Daylight." Buchanan would play a wondrous game that afternoon. He has since passed
on. And there was Len Dawson, "Lenny the Cool," who could make more fakes faster
than any quarterback I ever saw.
I want to make my position clear. If you were around the AFL — even on the
periphery, as a sportswriter is — you viewed what the AFL was trying to do as a
crusade. Here was this league, founded by men who regarded themselves as "the Foolish
Club," challenging the great monolith that was the NFL.
In my town, San Diego, the arrival in 1961 of the AFL franchise called the Chargers had
given the community a catalyst, something to rally ’round and to lift the city out of
the doldrums it had settled into following World War II. I became what Bill Wallace termed
on the pages of this publication "an AFL apologist," but I never thought the AFL
had anything to apologize for. I wanted to be one of the league’s champions. I feel
that way yet.
Before Super Bowl I, I secured lodgings in the place in Long Beach where the Chiefs
were quartered. I never went near the hotel in downtown Los Angeles that was the
game’s headquarters. Let me be around the Chiefs and Hank Stram, who seemed to make
it his responsibility to learn the first name of every sportswriter in America, not that
there were that many attracted to this game.
Why? It didn’t sell out. It didn’t come close.
Stram attracted some strange companions. I remember one individual who attached himself
to Stram that week was John Carradine, the skeletal Shakespearean actor who was so good in
"Stage Coach." (Stram addressed him as John).
One day, I made the drive to Santa Barbara, where the Packers were preparing. As I
arrived, the team was completing one of its practices, and Lombardi was hectoring one of
his athletes, a defensive back named Bob Brown.
"Bob Brown, halfback," snarled Lombardi. "Mr. Brown."
No one could put more venom into the world "mister" than Lombardi. I disliked
him immediately.
With me on that excursion was Jack Murphy, the late sports editor of what was then The
San Diego Union. Murphy wanted to talk to Bart Starr and knocked on the door of his
dormitory room. Starr, the consummate gentleman, invited us in.
This could never happen today at a Super Bowl, not with the media hordes that show up
at these things and turn them into displays of mob journalism. Gone is the time when a guy
like me could spend an entire season tagging around the football community and not run
into more than a handful of football writers.
Football’s leading oracle at the time of Super Bowl I was Tex Maule of Sports
Illustrated, who had predicted a Green Bay triumph by something around 66-6. I picked
the Chiefs by some huge score; I admit I was responding to Maule, whom I later would get
to know. I think he respected me. I respected him.
At halftime of Super Bowl I, the Chiefs trailed 14-10. At the back of the press box
stood Maule, looking worried.
In the third period, Kansas City was moving. Lombardi, who rarely blitzed, did with Lee
Roy Caffey, whose pressure caused Dawson to throw off his back foot toward Fred Arbanas,
his tight end. Dawson got too little on his throw, and a Willie Wood interception return
set up the touchdown that sealed what would become a 35-10 Green Bay triumph.
Lombardi was not a gracious winner. "You want to know about them?" he said.
He then ticked off a number of NFL clubs that he contended were superior to the AFL
champions. How lacking in generosity, I thought.
I wasn’t assigned to Super Bowls II and III, which were in Miami, but I rejoiced
from afar when Joe Namath escorted the Jets in Super Bowl III to a 16-7 conquest of the
Baltimore Colts and went dancing off into the Florida gloaming, a forefinger raised. I had
invited some associates to my home that afternoon to watch the game’s telecast. Late
in the game, I advised a colleague named Wayne Lockwood that Namath was two minutes from
immortality. As I have said, I was an AFL guy.
"And two minutes from immorality," said Lockwood.
My next experience at a Super Bowl was at IV in New Orleans, where it was so cold that
a fountain in front of one of the hotels froze. They restaged the Battle of New Orleans in
the minutes before the game, and some unfortunate soul had a foot shot off. They also put
some Dixie Belles in a balloon, which drifted off course and into the Tulane Stadium
seats. The incident could have been catastrophic. It wasn’t, but this wasn’t the
best of days for the NFL.
On a flight the following morning, after the Chiefs had outscored Minnesota 23-7,
Vikings QB Joe Kapp heaved himself into the seat next to mine. "Get me a Bloody Mary,
quick," he cried.
Kapp referred to me as "Jack Magee from Tennessee," which rhymed but
wasn’t entirely accurate. He still was full of fight. "If I get me a couple of
catches," he said, his voice trailing off. All he got was bruised, mostly by Aaron
Brown, a Kansas City defensive end who had one of the great games by a defender of the
Super Bowl series. Brown is deceased.
In Super Bowl V, it was a 32-yard field goal by Jim O’Brien that etched out a
16-13 victory by Baltimore over Dallas in one of the most loosely played of the Super
Bowls. Super Bowl VI introduced Cowboys RB Duane Thomas, as Dallas outpointed Miami 24-3.
After the game, an interviewer said to Thomas, "You’re pretty fast, aren’t
you?"
"Evidently," Thomas said.
In recent years, Thomas has taken up residence in San Diego. Once, he was an enigma.
Now, he is a person who visits the armed forces in Europe and is in all ways scrutable. He
has autographed his picture for me; I have it hanging on a wall in my home.
Super Bowl VII was Garo Yepremian of "I keek a touchdown" fame, attempting a
pass that was intercepted and returned for a Washington touchdown. No matter. Miami won
14-7, a victory that George Allen accepted as a rebuke to his work ethic.
"I had worked so hard," Allen complained.
Super Bowl VIII was in Houston’s Rice Stadium. I remember the fog, and of
Miami’s excellence shining through it like a beacon while the Dolphins handled
Minnesota 24-7.
I could go on like this, moving from game to game, but I won’t. There have been
too many games, too many people. I prefer to share some of my impressions. Let me recite
some:
- Being in Tom Landry’s presence. The man had absolutely nothing false about him.
When he told you something, you could believe it. I consider him as strong a subject for
an interview as I have encountered.
- Observing Pittsburgh’s four Super Bowl championships. No one has approached these
games as enthusiastically as Terry Bradshaw. I can recall how he came sprinting into the
Rose Bowl on the afternoon of Super Bowl XIV. I sensed then it would be a trying occasion
for the Los Angeles Rams. It was. The Steelers won 31-19.
- Having an association with the late Art Rooney. When I first met Rooney, he was sitting
around with a cop and a bus driver. Rooney did not have to walk with the mighty. After he
became aware of my fondness for cigars, he would send me a box of them every Christmas
with a little note. The cigars, I should note, were far better than any I could have
afforded.
After Rooney’s death, I visited the site in Pittsburgh where he is buried. Rest well,
Chief.
- Being in the press rooms. Hey, I’m a guy who likes to hang out with my peers.
Through the Super Bowl’s beginning years, the press rooms were my kind of places,
with poker games going on until all hours and debates ensuing. I’m sure I was in
’em, the debates, that is. We had differences of opinion in those days. These days,
the press rooms are like drawing rooms. Pretty dull.
- And the teams. The Buffalo Bills. Now there was a team with true grit. The Bills taught
us something about majesty, about losing and continuing to strive. They were frustrated
four times in games with Roman numerals. Honor them. I do.
I think of Marcus Allen and how splendidly he ran for the Raiders against Washington in
Super Bowl XVIII. Of how Joe Montana four times commanded the Super Bowl. Of Montana
escorting the 49ers from behind against Cincinnati in XXIII. Of the two games, XXII and
XXXII, that were in my town of San Diego. Of the quarter the Redskins played in XXII, when
they rushed across 35 points in the second period against Denver.
I go back to the team I consider was more ready to play a Super Bowl than any I have
seen, Red Miller’s Broncos in XII. Only the Broncos didn’t have enough to deal
with Dallas.
I remember walking through the mists of the French Quarter following one of the Super
Bowls in New Orleans and thinking, "Spirits do dwell here."
The voodoo priestess I once sought out in New Orleans I remember. She seemed more at
peace than any person I have met.
And the questions. The Chicago Bears of XX had this practice of barking on the
sideline. " ‘Woof’ or ‘arf’?" a guy asked one of the Bears.
" ‘Woof,’ " the player said.
Then there has been the woman who went around asking players, "If you were a tree,
what tree would you be?"
I think of the year the Super Bowl’s press quarters was in a room in Newport Beach
with a piano, and the supposed wretches of the media would gather ’round it and sing.
Spoiling their image, if you ask me.
I recall a lot of the guys in my dodge who aren’t around any longer, Maule and
Steve Schoenfeld and John Steadman and too many others.
And I must not forget Pete Rozelle. The Super Bowls are his legacy to all of us. They
have enriched me. You as well, I trust.
Jerry Magee has covered pro football for the San Diego Union-Tribune since 1961 and for
PFW since its inception in 1967 |
