True: The Green Bay Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs on this day in 1967 to win the championship of professional football.
False: The game was officially dubbed the first “Super Bowl.”
Well, false — with a caveat.
The first two title games between the NFL and upstart AFL – the leagues’ merger was announced in 1966 – were officially “The AFL-NFL World Championship Game.” Ugh. Writers and fans were calling it the Super Bowl, though. That was Chiefs’ owner Lamar Hunt’s play on the old Super Ball.
Retroactively in 1969, the ’67 and ’68 games were designated Super Bowls 1 and II.
The Packers of Vince Lombardi won them both – 35-10 over Kansas City and 33-14 over the Oakland Raiders. The Packers received the unheard-of sum of $15,000 per man for wining.
Last year, the New England Patriots received a winner’s share of $97,000 per man.
Tonight, that first game comes full circle. Oddly, it was broadcast live by NBC and CBS, but both networks erased their tapes. But NFL Films doggedly, according to Wikipedia, “searched its enormous archives of footage and were able to locate all 145 plays from Super Bowl I from more than a couple dozen disparate sources.”
The plays were put in order, and NBC Sports radio descriptions were laid over the action.
The NFL Network will show the result of that project tonight.
Very cool.
- Also this day, in 1929? Martin Luther King Jr. was born, of course. Thirty-nine years old when he died – two months before 43-year old Bobby Kennedy. 1968. What a disastrous time for our fellow Americans.
- Listen, just don’t look at the IRA statement. Remember, you’re in it for the long haul . . . the long haul . . . the long haul. (Except what if your long haul is actually kind of short now? Um, get professional advice quickly then!) Things will bounce back. Of course they will . . .
- If Yogi Berra truly came up with “It’s like déjà vu all over again,” well, he’s just a genius. Just a damn genius. I hope he trademarked that and his other wisdom.
- You know what the hot new lead-in to a video clip is from the cable news peeps? “Take a listen!” I’m sorry, this curdles my biscuits. I know, “listen” can be used as a noun. It just sets off my jargon alarm. Hate the jargon. Don’t use the jargon. Stop it now. That is all.