Bob Gretz - Tales from the Kansas City Chiefs Sideline: A Collection of the Greatest Chiefs Stories Ever Told

Copyright 2015 by Bob Gretz

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Tom Lau

Cover photo credit: Associated Press

ISBN: 978-1-61321-813-6

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61321-857-0

Printed in the United States of America

For Anita

C ONTENTS

P ROLOGUE

M y first exposure to Lamar Hunt was his rear end.

It came on my first road trip covering the Kansas City Chiefs. This was back in 1981 when the team allowed the media to travel on their charter flights. I had been on the Chiefs beat at the Kansas City Times and Star for two months and it turned out the first regular season game that year was in Pittsburgh against the Steelers, the team I had covered in the previous three years.

I was excited by the new job, the new team and especially the homecoming where I would see family and friends. The teams TWA charter landed at the Greater Pittsburgh Airport and the traveling party boarded buses. The caravan rolled up in front of the Greentree Marriott where the team was staying. We then waited for our bags to come out from the storage area under the bus. Like everyone else, I stood and watched what I thought was the bus driver tossing bags out. All I could see was his rear end in grey slacks and a blue jacket. His shoes needed resoling.

As it turned out, it wasnt the bus driver. It was Lamar Hunt, who was pulling luggage out of the bottom of the bus. He turned around and handed off a few bags and then said, Hi Bob, we havent met yet, Im Lamar Hunt.

Having grown up in western Pennsylvania, my knowledge of the American Football League fell somewhere between never heard of it and none. Landing in Kansas City, I started to gain knowledge of Lamar Hunts baby. I was fascinated by the stories I heard and read about the early days of the Chiefs in Kansas City.

I also know that many Chiefs fans do not know the stories of the Texans and their battle to survive in the AFLs first seasons in Dallas against the NFL Cowboys. Ive worked through the microfilm of the Kansas City papers and found little in those days about the AFL in general and the Texans in particular.

Over the years Ive collected so many wonderful stories about Lamar Hunt, Hank Stram, Jack Steadman, and the early days from men like Walt Corey, Jerry Cornelison, Bobby Ply, Tommy Brooker, Smokey Stover, Chris Burford, Abner Haynes, E.J. Holub, Jerry Mays, and so many others. I was educated on the early days of the Chiefs thanks to conversations with Bobby Bell, Buck Buchanan, Willie Lanier, Jim Lynch, Otis Taylor, Jack Rudnay, Ed Budde, and Len Dawson.

Truly the most interesting character around the Chiefs in my view was Lamar Hunt. There were times when his actions or inaction related to his football team were simply baffling. As an absentee owner, Lamar missed a lot, but his perspective and willingness to share his thoughts and memories, along with his inability to stay mad at anybody for long, was unique.

Some thirty years after meeting Lamars rear end in Pittsburgh, I was sitting with him in the Gold Suite at Arrowhead Stadium. It was during the football offseason and he was in town at that point for business involving the Wizards soccer team. At the time, he was using a cane to get around. His skin was pale and hair patchy from the chemotherapy he was receiving for cancer.

My list of questions about the early days of the AFL would have taken not hours to answer, but days. With a scratchy voice, he handled them as best he could. Off the top of his head, he remembered the number of season tickets the Chiefs sold in 1965. He constantly deflected questions from anything about him and made fun of himself and his ability to make his way around the country and the world without a single dollar in his pocket. As we talked about those days in late 1959 and early 1960 when the NFL tried to sabotage his AFL, he warmed to some subjects, not so much to others.

I told him I spent several years studying those early days. Lamar, I didnt realize some of the things that happened in those days, they were really out to get you, I said. Lamar, you had some balls back then, not running from that fight.

He curled his lips in a small smile and didnt seem offended by my language.

I just didnt think we were bothering anybody, he said. I just wanted a team.

In the following pages, you will read about Lamar Hunts team, including plenty about those early days and tales of the Texans and Chiefs that became part of football legend and lore. I think its important to know the backstory of people, places, and things. It was pretty amazing to hear so many stories right from the man in the middle of these tales.

Spending thirty-five seasons hanging around the Chiefs has been quite a ride. There are so many stories and in writing this book, Ive remembered some while struggling to recall others. Hopefully you will enjoy reading about Lamar Hunt and his team as much as I enjoyed pulling these tales together.

C HAPTER O NE

Lamar Hunt and the Birth of the AFL

T HE L IGHT B ULB M OMENT

T he propellers on the American Airlines plane cut through the afternoon clouds that always seem to hover over South Florida. The flight to Dallas had just taken off and a bespectacled young man sitting in the coach cabin was headed home, carrying yet another disappointment.

Lamar Hunt was just a few weeks short of twenty-seven years old and although he lacked for nothing as a son of one of the worlds richest men, he wanted something that he could not get his hands on. Hunts dream was to own a professional football team.

Hunt chased ownership of a team in the National Football League with the idea of relocating it to Dallas. I had several conversations with the family that owned the Chicago Cardinals, Hunt remembered many years later of the Bidwill/Wolfner family. I went to Miami to speak with them and they said they were not interested in selling the franchise.

But something else was on Hunts mind as the plane gained altitude over the Everglades.

They asked if I knew these other people who talked with them about buying the Cardinals, Hunt said. I just remember thinking if there were these people interested in buying a team, why not bring them together and start another league.

Hunt liked to say that moment came to him in the manner of those light bulbs that pop up above a characters head in a cartoon. His fellow passengers did not notice anything other than a young man furiously scribbling on stationery he requested from a stewardess. By the time he was done, there were three pages outlining the early rules and regulations of a new football business.