Afc Fans Need To Tune In Tuesday
HBO’s newest sports production -“Rebels With a Cause: The Story of the American Football League”- is more than just another documentary or feature film.
It’s a work of passion.
HBO’s retrospective of the old AFL, founded by Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt, conveys the emotion and affection the pioneering owners, coaches and players had for each other as they built a fledgling league into an equal with the powerful and established NFL.
John Madden, who coached the AFL’s Oakland Raiders before embarking on a career as a television analyst, is credited as “creative consultant” for the hour show that premieres on Tuesday night. He was the driving force behind the project.
“This is something I always wanted to do,” Madden said. “If it hadn’t been for the AFL, I don’t know if I ever would have gotten an opportunity at 30 years old to be in professional football. But a lot of young people watch the Raiders and Chiefs and Bills and don’t know where these teams came from.
“Every time I see Lamar Hunt since I’ve been in the league coaching and now as an announcer, I say, ‘Thank you.’ This story has to be documented. People start dying. If we’re going to do it, it had to be done now.”
Madden and HBO executive producer Ross Greenburg spent two years combing archives for footage from the early ‘60s and interviewing key AFL groundbreakers such as Hunt and Al Davis (who actually comes off as a good guy in this story) and Joe Namath, Jack Kemp, Paul Maguire and Gino Cappelletti.
Chiefs fans interested in the roots of the franchise will enjoy the tales told by Hank Stram, Abner Haynes, Otis Taylor and Len Dawson.
Hunt dug into his attic for film of one of the most hilarious stories - a Texans game at Boston in 1961. Dallas, trailing 28-21, was at the Patriot 1 with 1 second left in the game. Cotton Davidson’s pass to Chris Burford in the end zone was broken up by a fan who had jumped onto the field.
The play was ruled incomplete. Game over.
Many familiar AFL stories are told: the bidding wars, including Taylor’s sneaking out of a hotel room to sign with the Chiefs; the wide-open, razzle-dazzle style of play; the Texans’ double-overtime victory over Houston for the 1962 championship; the infamous vertical socks worn - and eventually burned - by the Denver Broncos; and the inevitable merger.
HBO chronicles the boycott of the 1965 all-star game because of the treatment of the black players in New Orleans, and how the game was moved during midweek to Houston, where only 5,000 attended.
That bit of social consciousness was a key development in forging the camaraderie enjoyed by the AFL’s players. The other bond was their resentment of the arrogant NFL, even after the leagues merged.
Kansas City’s 35-10 loss to Green Bay in Super Bowl I was exacerbated by Packers coach Vince Lombardi’s denigrating the Chiefs. Those words incited the Chiefs, and they trounced George Halas’ Chicago Bears 66-24 in a memorable exhibition game at Municipal Stadium.
“We’ll never know preseason games like that again,” Madden reflected.
The climax of the special are the upset victories by the Jets in Super Bowl III and the Chiefs in Super Bowl IV. It concludes with Hunt receiving the championship trophy in the locker room.
Namath, in a spine-tingling interview, recalled what the Jets’ victory meant to the esprit de corps of AFL.
“When we got back to the hotel after that game,” Namath said, “I can remember the three guys I saw: Emmitt Thomas, Buck Buchanan and Willie Lanier - three of the Chiefs. They greeted us as we got off the bus, and we hugged.”
Madden’s right. People need to know this story.