Latest news with #SuperBall
Yahoo
09-02-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
The Chiefs aim to make history where they won their first Super Bowl title. Philly stands in the way
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Clark Hunt was not quite 5 years old when he settled into his seat in Tulane Stadium beside his parents to watch the Kansas City Chiefs, the franchise his father had founded in the brazen days of the AFL, as they played the Minnesota Vikings in Super IV. Hunt doesn't remember the game itself. But once in a while, photos will surface that he has never seen before. 'I do have a photo of me sitting with my parents in the stands, right? I think they were benches. It sort of looked like a corner,' said Hunt, now 59, who assumed control of the Chiefs when his father, the visionary Lamar Hunt, died in December 2006. 'I guess that shows you how things have changed,' Hunt said. Indeed, it's a safe bet that Hunt and the rest of his family had comfortable seats in a luxury suite when the Chiefs faced the Eagles on Sunday at the Superdome. Led by Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, and with a celebrity fan base that includes Taylor Swift and Caitlin Clark, the Chiefs were chasing an unprecedented third consecutive Lombardi Trophy. The fact was not lost on Hunt that they were trying to make history in the same city where they won their first Super Bowl with a 23-7 victory over the Vikings on Jan. 11, 1970. In fact, Hunt seemed to view the coincidence as something closer to kismet, a point that he underscored by pointing out that the Chiefs spent this week practicing at Tulane University. 'I hate to say I don't have any memories from that Super Bowl,' he said, "but getting to go to Tulane where we're training and being literally a stone's throw from the old stadium where we won Super Bowl IV is really special. 'I always think about my parents Super Bowl week,' Hunt added, 'There's no way not to. But this one is going to be special.' There's an argument to be made that nobody had a greater influence on the big game than Lamar Hunt. The oil magnate was part of the 'Foolish Club' that founded the AFL, back when they were being kept out of the NFL, and he was instrumental in the merger years later that ultimately brought the two professional football leagues together. In a letter to NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, Hunt mused about the pending title game, saying: 'I have kiddingly called it the 'Super Bowl,' which obviously can be approved upon.' He was inspired by the must-have Christmas gift of the year that his wife, Norma, had gotten Clark Hunt and the rest of the kids: the Super Ball, made by toy company Wham-O. Lamar Hunt regularly attended the Super Bowl, though he never saw his Chiefs play in it again. They wouldn't make it back until Andy Reid arrived in town, and Mahomes and Kelce helped Kansas City beat the 49ers in February 2020 — five full decades after they triumphed over the 'Purple People Eaters' and the rest of the Vikings at Tulane Stadium. Norma Hunt continued to attend the Super Bowl until her death in June 2023. At the time, she was one of four people — and the only woman — who had attended every game, beginning with the Chiefs' loss to the Packers on Jan. 15, 1967. The Chiefs were back Sunday for the fifth time in six years. And they were chasing a threepeat against the Eagles, the team Kansas City beat a couple of years ago in Glendale, Arizona, to win the first of its back-to-back championships. 'I would say every Chiefs fan is spoiled, and that includes me, right? Because it has been such a special five or six years," Hunt told a small group of local reporters this week. 'And I think we know we're spoiled because of the journey that it took to get to this point, and the five decades we went without getting back to the Super Bowl.' This was the 11th time that New Orleans played host to the big game, tying Miami for the most of any city. The French Quarter had been packed all week with fans wearing Chiefs red and Eagles green, creating a kaleidoscope of Christmas colors stretching from Jackson Square to Canal Street, and bubbling all the way up to the Superdome. The home of the Saints, and the de facto replacement for Tulane Stadium, was hosting the game for the eighth time. 'I don't think any of us really could have dreamed it being like this, and having the success we've had,' Clark Hunt said. 'My dad would have loved it because in his heart, he was a fan — him and my mom were fans, first and foremost. And he would love it for our fans, because that was always a focus of his.' ___ AP NFL: Dave Skretta, The Associated Press
Associated Press
09-02-2025
- Sport
- Associated Press
The Chiefs aim to make history where they won their first Super Bowl title. Philly stands in the way
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Clark Hunt was not quite 5 years old when he settled into his seat in Tulane Stadium beside his parents to watch the Kansas City Chiefs, the franchise his father had founded in the brazen days of the AFL, as they played the Minnesota Vikings in Super IV. Hunt doesn't remember the game itself. But once in a while, photos will surface that he has never seen before. 'I do have a photo of me sitting with my parents in the stands, right? I think they were benches. It sort of looked like a corner,' said Hunt, now 59, who assumed control of the Chiefs when his father, the visionary Lamar Hunt, died in December 2006. 'I guess that shows you how things have changed,' Hunt said. Indeed, it's a safe bet that Hunt and the rest of his family had comfortable seats in a luxury suite when the Chiefs faced the Eagles on Sunday at the Superdome. Led by Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, and with a celebrity fan base that includes Taylor Swift and Caitlin Clark, the Chiefs were chasing an unprecedented third consecutive Lombardi Trophy. The fact was not lost on Hunt that they were trying to make history in the same city where they won their first Super Bowl with a 23-7 victory over the Vikings on Jan. 11, 1970. In fact, Hunt seemed to view the coincidence as something closer to kismet, a point that he underscored by pointing out that the Chiefs spent this week practicing at Tulane University. 'I hate to say I don't have any memories from that Super Bowl,' he said, 'but getting to go to Tulane where we're training and being literally a stone's throw from the old stadium where we won Super Bowl IV is really special. 'I always think about my parents Super Bowl week,' Hunt added, 'There's no way not to. But this one is going to be special.' There's an argument to be made that nobody had a greater influence on the big game than Lamar Hunt. The oil magnate was part of the 'Foolish Club' that founded the AFL, back when they were being kept out of the NFL, and he was instrumental in the merger years later that ultimately brought the two professional football leagues together. In a letter to NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, Hunt mused about the pending title game, saying: 'I have kiddingly called it the 'Super Bowl,' which obviously can be approved upon.' He was inspired by the must-have Christmas gift of the year that his wife, Norma, had gotten Clark Hunt and the rest of the kids: the Super Ball, made by toy company Wham-O. Lamar Hunt regularly attended the Super Bowl, though he never saw his Chiefs play in it again. They wouldn't make it back until Andy Reid arrived in town, and Mahomes and Kelce helped Kansas City beat the 49ers in February 2020 — five full decades after they triumphed over the 'Purple People Eaters' and the rest of the Vikings at Tulane Stadium. Norma Hunt continued to attend the Super Bowl until her death in June 2023. At the time, she was one of four people — and the only woman — who had attended every game, beginning with the Chiefs' loss to the Packers on Jan. 15, 1967. The Chiefs were back Sunday for the fifth time in six years. And they were chasing a threepeat against the Eagles, the team Kansas City beat a couple of years ago in Glendale, Arizona, to win the first of its back-to-back championships. 'I would say every Chiefs fan is spoiled, and that includes me, right? Because it has been such a special five or six years,' Hunt told a small group of local reporters this week. 'And I think we know we're spoiled because of the journey that it took to get to this point, and the five decades we went without getting back to the Super Bowl.' This was the 11th time that New Orleans played host to the big game, tying Miami for the most of any city. The French Quarter had been packed all week with fans wearing Chiefs red and Eagles green, creating a kaleidoscope of Christmas colors stretching from Jackson Square to Canal Street, and bubbling all the way up to the Superdome. The home of the Saints, and the de facto replacement for Tulane Stadium, was hosting the game for the eighth time. 'I don't think any of us really could have dreamed it being like this, and having the success we've had,' Clark Hunt said. 'My dad would have loved it because in his heart, he was a fan — him and my mom were fans, first and foremost. And he would love it for our fans, because that was always a focus of his.'
USA Today
09-02-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Why is the NFL's championship game called the Super Bowl?
Another Super Bowl is upon us as the two-time defending champion Kansas City Chiefs take on the Philadelphia Eagles at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans on Sunday night. It will be the 59th iteration of a game that has become the nation's most anticipated sporting event. But how did the NFL's championship game acquire the name 'Super Bowl'? The game itself is much younger than organized professional football. The National Football League was founded in 1920, and for the first four decades of its existence, the postseason format looked quite a bit different than it does today. DIVE DEEPER INTO FOR THE WIN: Start your day with The Morning Win newsletter for columns, insights and irreverent musings from the world of sports and pop culture There was no playoff system. Rather, the league's two champions faced off in what was then called the NFL championship game at the end of the season. The situation changed in the 1960s when the American Football League, which began operations in 1960, was launched as a competitor. The leagues would ultimately officially merge in 1970 with the AFL becoming the AFC, but prior to the merger fully going into effect, both leagues' champions would face off in what was called 'AFL-NFL World Championship Game.' That didn't exactly roll off the tongue, but it was soon supplanted by a much more popular nickname. Then-Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt is credited with being the first to call the game the Super Bowl ahead of the first AFL-NFL World Championship Game — retroactively known as Super Bowl I — in 1967, possibly in reference to a toy called the 'Super Ball.' The name quickly caught on in the press with its informal usage circulating. Beginning with Super Bowl III in 1969, the name of the championship game became official and has remained ever since.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Commentary: Sure, a Chiefs Super Bowl three-peat would be unprecedented, but don't forget Packers
We need the Super Bowl for more than multimillion-dollar TV ads and sexy extravaganza halftime shows. We also need it to happily prod us into mindless discussions about semi-meaningless things. So, let's take a look at this NFL three-peat thing. As the Kansas City Chiefs closed their recent semifinal victory, the discussion in the network broadcast booth turned to the Chiefs' opportunity to win their third straight Super Bowl. That three-peat was labeled 'unprecedented,' and thousands of Green Bay Packers fans, when they heard that, sat straight up in their easy chairs. The word 'unprecedented' is actually accurate, but dependent on semantics. It is unprecedented for the official Super Bowl but there are asterisks. The Packers, who won NFL titles under Curly Lambeau in 1929, '30 and '31, won the title again under Vince Lombardi to end the 1965 season, beating the Cleveland Browns in the championship game 23-12. The game was played Jan. 2, 1966, marking the first NFL title game played in January. It also became the first leg of the next Packers triple, 1965 to 1967. Read more: Dick Vermeil, who coached Eagles and Chiefs, says Super Bowl LIX will be one for ages On Jan. 1, 1967, the Packers beat the Cowboys in Dallas 34-27 for their second straight NFL title, but there was a new wrinkle. The rival American Football League needed to be shown that it was inferior, so that ongoing negotiations for a merger of the leagues would give the most leverage to the assumed-superior NFL. Nothing like a good beating on the field to bring dividends at the bargaining table. So, a game was created, and it didn't have a super name — the AFL-NFL World Championship Game. It matched the poor little Chiefs, champions of the AFL, against the big NFL bullies, the Packers. The game was scheduled at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It didn't come close to selling out and the media mingled with the players and coaches around hotel swimming pools, just like they might have before an exhibition game in August — pretty much what this was. The NFL quest for a bargaining chip worked. On Jan. 15, 1967, the Packers, several of them reportedly seeing the sights of L.A. well into the night before the game, still beat up on the Chiefs, 35-10. This game was not instantly labeled 'Super Bowl.' commissioner Pete Rozelle of the NFL hated the label, once it was brought up by AFL commissioner Lamar Hunt, who had gotten the idea from one of his children's toys, a Super Ball. Rozelle thought the word 'super' was mostly slang and too undignified for his league. By word of mouth, however, and probably the need of some newspaper columnists to jazz up the game, Super Bowl stuck. It was made the official moniker in 1969, but used freely before that. Read more: Super Bowl LIX: Start time, teams, how to watch and halftime show In the middle of all this negotiating and game-naming confusion, the Packers won again, taking the NFL title on Dec. 31, 1967 in the famous Ice Bowl game in Green Bay. At last word-of-mouth count, 11,056,200 people had reported they were there. It is a Wisconsin badge of honor to have been at the Ice Bowl, an indication of both Midwestern hardiness and insanity. The temperature was minus-13 with a wind-chill of minus-36. The players couldn't start their cars to go home afterward, and the referees had to keep their whistles out of their mouths for fear of having them freeze to their lips. The Packers won on a last-second quarterback sneak by Bart Starr, following the block of center Ken Bowman and right guard Jerry Kramer, who eventually turned the moment into a bestselling book called 'Instant Replay.' The final scores were 21-17 for the Packers and hundreds of thousands of dollars in book sales for Kramer. In the book, and on several speaking tours, Kramer explained the genesis of the moment. 'I noticed in films that [Cowboys tackle] Jethro Pugh would stand up before he charged,' Kramer wrote. 'I told coach Lombardi about that in the week before the game, he watched the film and agreed that we could wedge Jethro.' Lombardi called the play, Pugh stood up, Kramer was able to get under him for leverage, and Starr snuck into the end zone right behind Kramer. Immediately, 11,056,200 headed for the exits, with joy in their hearts and frostbite over the rest of their bodies. That was a Packers two-peat. Or, in the minds of many Packers followers, a Packers four-peat — an NFL title in '65, another in '66, plus the first non-Super Bowl Super Bowl in '67, and another NFL title in the Ice Bowl at the end of the '67 season. Or, maybe even a five-peat, with a 33-14 beating of the Oakland Raiders in Miami on Jan. 14, 1968, in the second non-Super Bowl Super Bowl. Actually, the concept of the Packers' streak being anything more than the three-peat they have always been credited for is semantics, fan talk ... a little bit of apples and oranges. The Packers finished three seasons on top. Two of those league titles simply led to another game. A Chiefs victory in the upcoming Super Bowl would be an unprecedented three-peat in the NFL, as currently constructed. Sorry, Packers fans. Tony Romo was right. Deal with it. The game really became the Super Bowl, officially and in U.S. sports lore, in Super Bowl III, when Joe Namath sat with a bunch of reporters around a pool in Miami, site of the game for the second straight year, and guaranteed victory. That, of course, was heresy, since Namath played for the AFL's New York Jets and the big boys from the NFL champion Baltimore Colts, led by Johnny Unitas, were 19-point favorites. On Jan. 12, 1969, Namath and the Jets won, 16-7, and the merger became official in 1970. On the back of Namath, the fledgling AFL had earned its spurs. There was no turning back. Even Rozelle, were he still alive, would agree now that it is all pretty 'super.' Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
31-01-2025
- Sport
- Los Angeles Times
Commentary: Sure, a Chiefs Super Bowl three-peat would be unprecedented, but don't forget Packers
We need the Super Bowl for more than multimillion-dollar TV ads and sexy extravaganza halftime shows. We also need it to happily prod us into mindless discussions about semi-meaningless things. So, let's take a look at this NFL three-peat thing. As the Kansas City Chiefs closed their recent semifinal victory, the discussion in the network broadcast booth turned to the Chiefs' opportunity to win their third straight Super Bowl. That three-peat was labeled 'unprecedented,' and thousands of Green Bay Packers fans, when they heard that, sat straight up in their easy chairs. The word 'unprecedented' is actually accurate, but dependent on semantics. It is unprecedented for the official Super Bowl but there are asterisks. The Packers, who won NFL titles under Curly Lambeau in 1929, '30 and '31, won the title again under Vince Lombardi to end the 1965 season, beating the Cleveland Browns in the championship game 23-12. The game was played Jan. 2, 1966, marking the first NFL title game played in January. It also became the first leg of the next Packers triple, 1965 to 1967. On Jan. 1, 1967, the Packers beat the Cowboys in Dallas 34-27 for their second straight NFL title, but there was a new wrinkle. The rival American Football League needed to be shown that it was inferior, so that ongoing negotiations for a merger of the leagues would give the most leverage to the assumed-superior NFL. Nothing like a good beating on the field to bring dividends at the bargaining table. So, a game was created, and it didn't have a super name — the AFL-NFL World Championship Game. It matched the poor little Chiefs, champions of the AFL, against the big NFL bullies, the Packers. The game was scheduled at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It didn't come close to selling out and the media mingled with the players and coaches around hotel swimming pools, just like they might have before an exhibition game in August — pretty much what this was. The NFL quest for a bargaining chip worked. On Jan. 15, 1967, the Packers, several of them reportedly seeing the sights of L.A. well into the night before the game, still beat up on the Chiefs, 35-10. This game was not instantly labeled 'Super Bowl.' commissioner Pete Rozelle of the NFL hated the label, once it was brought up by AFL commissioner Lamar Hunt, who had gotten the idea from one of his children's toys, a Super Ball. Rozelle thought the word 'super' was mostly slang and too undignified for his league. By word of mouth, however, and probably the need of some newspaper columnists to jazz up the game, Super Bowl stuck. It was made the official moniker in 1969, but used freely before that. In the middle of all this negotiating and game-naming confusion, the Packers won again, taking the NFL title on Dec. 31, 1967 in the famous Ice Bowl game in Green Bay. At last word-of-mouth count, 11,056,200 people had reported they were there. It is a Wisconsin badge of honor to have been at the Ice Bowl, an indication of both Midwestern hardiness and insanity. The temperature was minus-13 with a wind-chill of minus-36. The players couldn't start their cars to go home afterward, and the referees had to keep their whistles out of their mouths for fear of having them freeze to their lips. The Packers won on a last-second quarterback sneak by Bart Starr, following the block of center Ken Bowman and right guard Jerry Kramer, who eventually turned the moment into a bestselling book called 'Instant Replay.' The final scores were 21-17 for the Packers and hundreds of thousands of dollars in book sales for Kramer. In the book, and on several speaking tours, Kramer explained the genesis of the moment. 'I noticed in films that [Cowboys tackle] Jethro Pugh would stand up before he charged,' Kramer wrote. 'I told coach Lombardi about that in the week before the game, he watched the film and agreed that we could wedge Jethro.' Lombardi called the play, Pugh stood up, Kramer was able to get under him for leverage, and Starr snuck into the end zone right behind Kramer. Immediately, 11,056,200 headed for the exits, with joy in their hearts and frostbite over the rest of their bodies. That was a Packers two-peat. Or, in the minds of many Packers followers, a Packers four-peat — an NFL title in '65, another in '66, plus the first non-Super Bowl Super Bowl in '67, and another NFL title in the Ice Bowl at the end of the '67 season. Or, maybe even a five-peat, with a 33-14 beating of the Oakland Raiders in Miami on Jan. 14, 1968, in the second non-Super Bowl Super Bowl. Actually, the concept of the Packers' streak being anything more than the three-peat they have always been credited for is semantics, fan talk ... a little bit of apples and oranges. The Packers finished three seasons on top. Two of those league titles simply led to another game. A Chiefs victory in the upcoming Super Bowl would be an unprecedented three-peat in the NFL, as currently constructed. Sorry, Packers fans. Tony Romo was right. Deal with it. The game really became the Super Bowl, officially and in U.S. sports lore, in Super Bowl III, when Joe Namath sat with a bunch of reporters around a pool in Miami, site of the game for the second straight year, and guaranteed victory. That, of course, was heresy, since Namath played for the AFL's New York Jets and the big boys from the NFL champion Baltimore Colts, led by Johnny Unitas, were 19-point favorites. On Jan. 12, 1969, Namath and the Jets won, 16-7, and the merger became official in 1970. On the back of Namath, the fledgling AFL had earned its spurs. There was no turning back. Even Rozelle, were he still alive, would agree now that it is all pretty 'super.'
