David Oriard: Brother’s time with Kansas City Chiefs much different than today’s NFL

The NFL of the early 1970s was different than today. Different in so many ways.

It was a league that had just doubled in size after merging with the AFL. It was a league of little imagination on offense; a league that was barely integrated and a league in which teams didn’t put a lot of effort into finding or paying their players.

It was also a league in which a 230-pound lineman from Spokane could play center and complete a four-year career while attending grad school in the offseason.

My brother, Mike Oriard, was a fifth-round draft pick of the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs in 1970. An undersized lineman out of Gonzaga Prep, he was an invited walk-on at Notre Dame, became the starting center his junior year and was named co-captain his senior year. Someone in the Chiefs’ organization took notice and the team drafted him just a few months after defeating the Minnesota Vikings 23-7 in Super Bowl IV.

“The football world was completely different then, both at the college and NFL level,” Mike told me during a brother-to-brother telephone interview. “College recruiting was not nearly as intense. Players in the pool had not committed their lives to playing the sport. NFL scouting was very casual.”

At first, he said nobody in the Chiefs’ organization saw him play his senior year at Notre Dame. Then he paused and speculated that someone must have watched him. Regardless, there wasn’t much hint of what was in store for draft day.

“My only contact with the Chiefs before the draft was somebody the night before the draft called me and said, ‘Are you 6-foot-5 or 6-3?’ I said 6-5 and that was the entirety of my contact with them.”

Kansas City was our mother’s hometown and our recently widowed grandfather could use a roommate, so back home in Spokane the Chiefs looked like a great match. It turned out well for Mike. He made the team as a rookie, spending most of the season on the taxi squad before being promoted to the regular roster for the season finale. He played three more full seasons as a backup center and special teams regular before the team cut him at the end of training camp prior to the 1974 season.

His NFL career was “a very positive experience. I didn’t have the burning desire, or need, to prove myself like I did in college. I would have preferred to be a starter, but I didn’t feel like a failure. It wasn’t questioned to be a backup or special teams player,” he said.

“I was exposed to a really interesting group of men. And it was particularly an enlightening racial experience. It was the first place I had ever been where there were a large number of African Americans. In fact, the majority of the team was. The Chiefs were famous for being the first NFL team to have a majority African American team. That was fascinating and enlightening for me in all sorts of ways.”

Mike pointed out that even at Notre Dame there were only four or five Black players on the team his senior year and in at least two games that 1969 season – against Georgia Tech and Tulane – the Fighting Irish played a team that was not integrated at all.

The following season, Mike joined a Chiefs team that was not only integrated but loaded with future Hall of Famers. Quarterback Len Dawson, kicker Jan Stenerud and more than half of the starters on defense – Willie Lanier, Buck Buchanan, Curley Culp, Johnny Robinson, Emmitt Thomas and Bobby Bell – have been enshrined. The coach – Hank Stram – would be a Hall of Famer and the owner – Lamar Hunt – was a founder of the AFL, fought for an NFL-AFL championship game and even named the Super Bowl. Yes, he is in the Hall of Fame. That 1970 season was disappointing as the Chiefs, plush from their Super Bowl success, underachieved and failed to make the playoffs.

“This is the meaningful thing about my experience with the Chiefs in relation to the Super Bowl,” Mike said. “I join the team immediately after they win the Super Bowl. They are the best team in the NFL. They have the best talent. They are a veteran team. The winners of the 1970 Super Bowl got $15,000 apiece (the winners’ bonus is now more than $100,000) and the average salary in the NFL was $23,000. A lot of those guys made as much for the Super Bowl as they did for their salaries. Even the stars on the team probably made half their salary for winning the Super Bowl, so winning the Super Bowl financially was this enormous windfall.”

Perhaps the sense of luxury led to the disappointment of the 1970 season, but the Chiefs found their passion again in 1971. At 10-3-1, the Chiefs and Dolphins shared the best record in the AFC and met in the first round of the playoffs on Christmas Day. Miami won the longest game in NFL history, 27-24, when Garo Yepremian kicked a 37-yard field goal after 7 minutes, 40 seconds of the second overtime period. Miami went on to win the AFC and advance to the Super Bowl, losing 24-3 to the Dallas Cowboys. In 1972, the Dolphins had their famous undefeated season and the Chiefs missed the playoffs. Kansas City didn’t return to the playoffs until 1986 and didn’t win a playoff game until 1991.

“In 1971, we had the best team in the NFL and we stumbled against Miami. … We should have moved on from there to the Super Bowl,” Mike said.

Looking back on his NFL experience, “it was interesting to be a part of that world,” Mike said. “I never had any illusion that it was the most important part of my life or anything like that. I was going to graduate school after the season and really, for me, football was the offseason and graduate school was preparing for what I would do the rest of my life.”

Mike completed his Ph.D. in American Literature at Stanford and was hired at Oregon State in 1976. He spent 28 years in the English department and nine years as an Associate Dean in the College of Liberal Arts while continuing to teach. Now 72, he retired from OSU in 2013. He is a noted football historian, having published several books on the cultural history of football and has appeared in numerous football documentaries.

“I have absolutely no regrets about those four years – five years by the time I finished up in Canada. I’m in pretty good physical shape. I have some issues, but at this point they’ve never required surgery and my (mind) seems to be intact. I didn’t pay an undue price for those five years,” Mike said.

He enjoys watching the Chiefs, though “my personal connection to the team is very, very slight. I left the team almost 50 years ago when they cut me.

“Mostly, it’s as a football fan that I really enjoy them and enjoy them for their enormous talents and skills. Not just the tremendous speed but also the things they can do with the speed.

“They are enormously fun to watch on the field but also they are fun to watch on the sidelines. It is the truly team-oriented mentality that they all seem to have – the friendship, the camaraderie and support of each other.”

Mike pointed to the players’ reaction after Mecole Hardman muffed a punt that led to a touchdown and a 9-0 deficit in the AFC championship against Buffalo. For one, he saw quarterback Patrick Mahomes approach Hardman and encourage him, saying, “Be us. Be us.”

“What a great line,” Mike said. “Be us. Be who we are. These guys play like a team in that kind of sentimental, stereotypical sense, but it does seem to be genuine.

“I choose the teams I like to watch for a variety of reasons. It’s the quality of the play but also the quality of the players. And I like the quality of the players and coaches in Kansas City as well as their talent on the field.”

David Oriard is a former deputy sports editor at The Spokesman-Review. He lives in Ecuador with his wife, Alane.