justplainbil

Just Plain Bill

I attended the first Super Bowl game – except that it wasn’t yet “Super”…

Back in the day…better yet…Once upon a time, there were two professional football leagues - the American Football League, or AFL, and the well-established National Football League, or NFL. There were ongoing and often-spirited discussions as to which league was the “best”, and so the powers that be decided to have a game to determine a “champion.”

As we approach the 49^th anniversary of the Super Bowl, I remember the 1964 season well. I was a loyal fan of the upstart Oakland Raiders in the AFL. I was able to purchase an end zone ticket for $6.00. Six dollars!

That season’s AFL champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, were scheduled to play the NFL champion Green Bay Packers in what was billed as the AFL-NFL World Championship Game that would take place in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Even though the attendance was announced as over 61,000 in the near 100,000 capacity stadium, I know for a fact the number was closer to 40,000. In fact, just prior to the start of the game, those of us in the end zones were asked to fill in the seats between the 20-yard lines, to give the national television audiences the appearance of a stadium much fuller than it actually was. My use of the plural “audiences” is intentional. There were only three major networks at the time and two of them carried the game!

The halftime entertainment consisted of performances by college bands instead of the latest recording stars. I remember a man dressed in a space suit, complete with a jet pack on his back, demonstrating what was proclaimed to be the first manned free-flight as he rose and hovered 100 feet over the field for about a minute or so. Cool - for the mid ‘60s.

The one thing that has stuck with me the most over the years is something that does not show up in any report of the game, not even in the next day’s paper, but I know it occurred because I saw it with my own eyes. It involved the second half kickoff by the Chiefs. The referee spotted the ball; the Chiefs kicked the ball to the Packers, and then stopped them deep in their own territory, about the 17-yard line or so.

It’s what happened next that has stuck with me. The referee then blew his whistle, picked up the ball, placed it back on the Chiefs’ 20-yard line, and had them re-kick it. It appeared that the television commercials had not ended the first time the ball was kicked to start the second half. (This was before the man on the field with the red sleeve on his shirt would indicate when it was OK to resume play.)

The ensuing re-kick was run back to the Chiefs’ side of the field, giving the Packers much better field position, and was soon followed by a Packers’ touchdown…no doubt due to the resulting momentum gifted to them by the referee’s screw up.

I suspect this “oops play” has stuck with me as a not-so-subconscious reminder of the day I first witnessed for myself, the networks taking control of the sport.

Who knows how the game might have turned out if it had not been for that not forgotten “oops”?