The man who brought football to Kansas City

Late on the night of Dec. 13, 2006, the founder of the "Foolish Club," the man who challenged the supremacy of the National Football League, passed forever into the pages of history. Lamar Hunt is dead.

One thing about the Grim Reaper. When he knocks on your door, you answer.

I knew Hunt when we were young and football was still a game.

Hunt was just 31 years old when he decided Dallas wasn't big enough to support two football teams and either his AFL Texans or Tex Schramm's NFL Cowboys would have to leave town, podnuh. Hunt decided the two teams should meet one another in the closed confines of Cobb Stadium near downtown Dallas. There they would play a game and the loser would leave town. Fair enough? Schramm declined the invitation and Hunt looked for a new home.

It was in those early days in Kansas City that I met Lamar Hunt. We were never intimates, or anything like that. He was just sort of a common acting guy back in the old days. I'd see him on the sidelines before Chiefs games, talking to Red Coaters or whatever. Games at Municipal Stadium were much more collegiate than today. There was a giant tom-tom on the sideline that said B.C. Christopher & Sons on it. At Arrowhead, it became a recording. The Wolfpack wolf disappeared along with the whole pack. Warpaint got old and quit running around the stadium after touchdowns. Hunt got a private suite and you hardly saw him anymore except before and after games.

Hunt knew I was interested in his father, H.L., and I always asked him when we met, "How is your dad?" Hunt would reply, "Fine."

When I was in Atlanta in 1970, the Chiefs played the Falcons in an exhibition game and I found my way into the runway after the game in order to see my friend, Jerrel Wilson. As we stood talking, Hunt walked by on the way to his waiting limousine. Hunt stopped, smiled, and said, "Are you bringing your fan club now, Jerrel?" And before anyone could say anything, Hunt interjected, "My dad's fine."

I suppose the last time I talked to Hunt was probably 1986 or so after. I was sorely disappointed when Len Dawson failed to make the Hall of Fame that year. I telephoned Hunt's office in Dallas, never thinking I would get ahold of him. His secretary said he was out and got my number. About 15 minutes later I got a call, and to my surprise the feminine voice said, "Please hold for Lamar Hunt."

We talked, and the results of the conversations were in a Nevada Daily Mail story.

Hunt's father always carried his lunch to work at Hunt Oil in a paper sack. He, and his son in those days, always flew coach. Sure, things changed.

The unlikely story of what would become the Kansas City Chiefs began in 1959 when the NFL turned down Hunt's bid to purchase an expansion franchise and awarded it to Schramm. Miffed, Hunt started his own league. The American Football League with members: Boston Patriots, Buffalo Bills, Dallas Texans, Houston Oilers, New York Titans, Los Angeles Chargers, Denver Broncos and Minneapolis Vikings was formed on Nov. 22, 1959. Shortly thereafter, the Vikings reneged and went to the NFL. Oakland replaced them.

The league undoubtedly made it simply because of two reasons. ABC awarded the league television rights, giving it exposure. And several owners had enough money to bid for star players against the established league as the Chiefs got people like Johnny Robinson right away.

Many might have thought Hunt had made a mistake when he brought the Chiefs to Kansas City. They played a game and nobody came. Well, practically nobody. The first game in Kansas City history, an exhibition against Buffalo on Aug. 9, 1963, drew 5,721 fans. Smaller than the smallest crowd they ever drew in Dallas. You wonder what Hunt was thinking that day.

Charlie Finley tried to convince Hunt that Kansas City was a bush league town. He wanted to take both teams in tandem to Atlanta. Hunt told him, in not too pleasant terms, to fly a kite. Hunt stuck with the Chiefs, and the rest, as they say, is history.

In 1966, the war was over and the leagues merged. The NFL let the AFL teams become members of its exclusive club simply because it was getting too expensive to have to bid for every player's services.

Hunt, you know, invented the term Super Bowl. It came from the old ball, the Super Ball, if you remember it. It was a rubber ball that if you dropped was supposed to bounce twice the distance it fell. (We dropped one off a tower in Arkansas to see if it worked, but never found the ball) All the kids had one, including Hunt's. I wonder what happened to them?

I feel badly because Hunt never made it back to the Super Bowl after 1970.

I quit going to Chiefs games after the 1988 season. The traffic just got to be too much of a killer for me. And for that reason, I still remember Hunt the way he was. Young and vibrant. I'd see a recent photo of him and couldn't believe Hunt had aged so much. But he was, after all, 74 years old.

And when the Grim Reaper, knocks on your door, that bank account means little. We all get old and infirm, even Lamar Hunt. The football world will miss him. Heck, the whole world will miss him. I guess Buck O'Neil has someone new to talk to.