AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2006 > December > 14 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USHunt an everyman tycoon, AFL pioneer
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Editor’s note: Lamar Hunt, 74, died Wednesday night in a Dallas hospital after a long bout with prostate cancer.
Let me say this for openers: If there had been no Lamar Hunt, there would have been no American Football League; if there had been no American Football League, there would be no National Football League as we know it today; and if there had been no AFL and NFL, there would have been no Super Bowl, which might be America’s most stupendous sports event.
So we’ll start with that. That’s pretty strong stuff to say about a 26-year-old Texan who belied all the Texas stereotypes, broad-shouldered John Waynes with a strut and a swagger. Lamar Hunt wore glasses and looked like the class valedictorian. He had played football — about 20 minutes as a reserve end at SMU. He was the son of a billionaire, H.L. Hunt of oil; and the brother of a swaggerer who once cornered the silver market. The brothers were as different as a Brooks Bros. suit and a pair of overalls.
He neither smoked nor drank, and I’ve read that if he had one addiction, it was ice cream, and more ice cream. It surely wasn’t self-embellishment. He was probably the only owner of an NFL team who got his shoes half-soled. Hank Stram, who was his first choice in coaches, once swore that Lamar owned only one pair of shoes.
“Well, you can only wear one pair at a time,” it was said that he said. He once went to an owners meeting with one shoe half-soled, a hole in the other. The cobbler told him he didn’t have time to do two.
With a group of guys in Dallas for something, I was invited to his home one evening. We had finished our nourishment, and being well-mannered, began looking for the washing machine in which to deposit our plates. There was none.
“We don’t have a dish-washer,” his wife said. She was Norma, his second and his last, a patient soul. He drove cars that looked as if they had survived a demolition derby. Once, when Stram was dispatched to a parking lot to pick up the Hunt car for a trip to the airport, he was expecting something like a Mercedes or Cadillac.
“The attendant drove up in a four-year-old Oldsmobile that looked as if it had been run through a minefield,” Stram says in his book. “It was dirty, rusted and had a big hole in the front seat. ‘No, no,’ I told the guy, ‘I want Mr. Hunt’s car.’
“This is Mr. Hunt’s car,” the attendant said. “I’ve been trying to buy it for a month, offered his $600. He wants $800.”
Well, enough of that. Yes, Lamar Hunt lived frugally. It was simply his way of life, but it detracted none from his kind of person. I don’t care if you were some secretary of state or sports writer from Dubuque, he greeted you with the same kind of cordiality. It was a testimonial to him that he was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton without any crossfire in 1972. And there was overwhelming sporting evidence.
He wanted to have a professional football team in Dallas, but first, he had to have a league. He had tried to break in as part owner of two NFL franchises, but the parts he could have had didn’t include a vote. Finally, after doing a tour and drumming up seven potential owners, it came down to Atlanta or Oakland to complete a full hand. Oakland had no place to play, and all Atlanta could offer was an improvised Ponce de Leon Park, with under-funded ownership.
So with Oakland in hand, the AFL set out, like a leaking ship. It is amazing that it not only survived, but thrived. Hunt himself had to move his franchise to Kansas City. Dueling with the Cowboys in Dallas was too much. For a man who viewed spending money as offensive, to have stayed with it is puzzling. And later he did say, as Joe McGuff, the Kansas City sports editor, records in his book, “Winning It All,” “had he been aware of the costs involved in starting a new league, he would never have undertaken it.”
Most historians lavish Super Bowl III with drooling ingratiation, but it was the fourth that vindicated Lamar Hunt and his crusade. The Chiefs had been crushed by Green Bay in the first championship game, but in chilling New Orleans weather, they did a job on the Vikings. Not only was the upstart AFL firmly established, but Lamar Hunt’s search for happiness in pro football was achieved. By this time, the game’s name was established, and once again the trigger man was Hunt. One of his children played with a funny bouncing toy called “Super Ball.” Ah, “Super Bowl.” The name came to Hunt in a flash, and thus the name of an American classic. Or, so the story goes.
Thus, we say farewell to “the man who brought about the greatest upheaval professional sports had ever known in this country,” Joe McGuff wrote many years in advance of his passing.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Furman Bisher
Comments
By Thedream21479
December 15, 2006 01:42 AM | Link to this
as usual Mr. Bisher, you make leave me in awe of all the people and experiences you’ve had in your lifetime. Truly excellent article and probably the exact way Mr. Hunt would have described himself.
Thank you and keep up the good work.
By Herb Bell
December 15, 2006 02:22 AM | Link to this
My personal experience with the Hunt family testifies to their touch with people: As a professional fund raiser, I was making a presentation to a hospital board in Dallas. In my introductory comments, I mentioned that my teenage son was envious of me today since I was in Dallas and he was a huge Cowboys fan. After the presentation, a dignified lady board member introduced herself to me as Norma Hunt. She asked me to give her my son’s name and address and she’d send some Cowboys momentoes to my son. When the package of pennants and an autographed picture of Roger Staubach arrived, I became a big hero to my son! Keep up the good work down memory lane, Mr. Bisher!
By Jim in Pine Mountain
December 15, 2006 06:40 AM | Link to this
I sure wish we could purchase a book of Furman’s sports memories. It is time for a book Mr Bisher.
By Jim
December 15, 2006 08:13 AM | Link to this
Mr. Bisher is one of the truly great journalists of our time.
I, too, would like for him to write a book of his memories.
By old fart 63
December 15, 2006 12:10 PM | Link to this
Come on Furman. The clock is ticking. Get a publisher. We want a compilation of your best columns.
By Bart
December 15, 2006 07:25 PM | Link to this
Did anyone know that he owned more soccer teams (4) than football teams (2)? He did, and was a great soccer visionary. My gratitude goes out to him.