Note: The following is an excerpt from a forthcoming book, "THE LITTLE LEAGUE THAT COULD: How the AFL changed the NFL forever." The book will be published by Rowman-Littlefield and is due out in 2010.
The American Football League should be remembered for its wild and woolly style of play, its willingness to tap new regions for the sport, and its staying power.
Most of all, perhaps, it should be memorialized for its cast of characters.
The upcoming season marks the 50th for the original member franchises of the American Football League. Relive its brief, yet colorful, history with this celebration. More ... » Photos: Best of the AFL
» History of the AFL, 1960-69
Such as Hank Stram, the only coach to win three AFL championships, one with the Dallas Texans and two after that franchise moved and became the Kansas City Chiefs.
"He was responsible for doing a lot of the things in the '60s that teams are still using now," said Len Dawson, the quarterback who flourished under Stram's guidance -- and, in turn, made Stram's innovations (the moving pocket, receivers in motion, offset running backs and two tight ends) work smoothly.
Stram wasn't merely a masterful coach, he was one of the great characters in a league full of them. A bon vivant in a day when most sideline bosses wore dull gray suits or topcoats, Stram could outdress opponents as well as outthink them.
At dinner in a restaurant, he would diagram plays on napkins. Dawson said Stram was discouraged from returning to some eateries because he ruined the cloth napkins with drawings of naked screens and defensive line stunts.
Stram had a way with words, famously being caught in an NFL Films segment talking about "matriculating down the field." His engaging manner entranced the media, the fans and, most importantly, the players.
"Hank had his own language," said longtime Chiefs executive Jack Steadman. "He had a name for everything. He was a funny guy. He had a great sense of humor. He worked really well ... he was a brilliant coach. He just had a great mind for offense and defense."
For Super Bowl IV, Stram was the first coach to wear a wireless microphone during a championship game, and he did it secretly, insisting that nobody be told just in case he flopped. In fact, he asked NFL Films for final approval of the film, which also featured his repetitive mantra, "65 Toss Power Trap," the running play that Mike Garrett scored a TD with.
As the Chiefs began dominating the action, Stram became more verbal, more confident, and he strode up and down the sideline with a rolled up game plan in his hand.
"I didn't really look at it," Stram said of the papers he carried. "I knew what we were going to do. I used to tell people it was a list to bring groceries home for (my wife) Phyllis."
Larry Grantham, an original New York Titan, was surrounded by a number of other colorful characters.
"They would put all the people who could play football on the offense, and then they would run guys in and out for the defense," Grantham said. "We had to introduce ourselves in the huddle to some guys.
"I tried to call the defenses, which I always did, just trying to get people in the right place, and I might not know the guy's name. Some guys came from the NFL and they knew how to line up, at least. We'd get someone else who did not even know where or how to line up, so it was kind of a mess on defense for a while."
Not so much on offense, which featured future Hall of Fame receiver Don Maynard.
"Don was the strangest teammate I ever had and I've known him since 1960, and we are great friends," Grantham said. "Don has a strange way of doing a lot of things.
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| Vernon Biever / National Football League |
| New York Titans/Jets receiver Don Maynard is a Hall of Famer, but his teammates back in the '60s just viewed him as strange. » Photos: Maynard retrospective |
"I remember he sold this product, Swipe, and was carrying it in the trunk of his car and trying to sell it to all the guys. It was some kind of cleaner.
"He also had a car rigged up to run on butane, because it was cheaper to buy in Mexico and he lived in El Paso. He'd drive over the border into Mexico and buy the butane. He could flip a switch for butane or for gas when he drove."
Many players in the league thought the "F" in AFL stood for fun. And why not, considering the antics they pulled off and the good times they enjoyed?
One of the AFL's stars in those early years was Buffalo's massive running back Cookie Gilchrist. And the Bills' most outlandish personality might have been linebacker/punter Paul Maguire, who later became a renowned TV analyst.
"Paul Maguire was a character," said former Bills all-star receiver Elbert Dubenion. "I remember before a playoff game, Lou Saban had suspended Cookie Gilchrist (for insubordination), so the team had a meeting. We discussed the situation, trying to figure out what to do with Cookie. Harry Jacobs gets up and says, 'We can help Cookie more as a human being if we vote to reinstate him.'
"So finally, Paul Maguire stood up and said, 'Nobody gives a darn about Cookie as a human being, we can't win without Cookie. Come on back, Cookie.' "
And Gilchrist played.
Conditioning certainly was different in those days, too. Booker Edgerson, a Bills defensive back for eight seasons, remembers when the team established weight training.
"The players today are stronger because of the weight programs. In a lot of cases, they're better because they're able to stay in shape year-round," Edgerson said. "We had to get a job in the offseason in order to support ourselves, because we weren't making any money. You went to camp to get in shape. These guys today go to camp already in shape.
"They didn't start using weights in Buffalo until 1968, and that was because one of the draft choices came here and said, 'Where's the weights?' In colleges, they had the weight programs and everything. And he was a high draft choice, so they started putting the weight program together. Prior to that, we didn't have a weight program ... go out there and get some cement blocks and move them around."
One AFL pioneer actually followed a coach around on the sideline. Kansas City's George Toma was considered the best groundskeeper in sports and was later put in charge of the care for Super Bowl fields.
"I remember George Toma did the fields for us and the league eventually hired him because was so great at keeping the fields in shape," Dawson said. "If a bunch of turf came up, his crew would go out on the field during a stop in play and fix it. That was the only stadium in the AFL I know where they did that.
"When we went to Arrowhead, Tommy Prothro was coaching the Chargers and he was a big smoker and George would follow him around with this big trash can. A lit cigarette butt would have burned up the field when he dropped it. So George made sure the cigarette never hit the ground."
Yes, coaches once smoked on the sidelines. They even resorted to liquor for medicinal purposes.
Well, Dolphins coach George Wilson did.
"In the early days with George Wilson as our coach and we were in New England, it was 38 degrees and had been pouring rain for about two weeks up there," remembered guard Norm Evans, an original Dolphin.
"The field was just a puddle, the whole sideline had water up to your ankles. It was in Boston College's stadium, and there had been a game the day before. It was a quagmire and it was cold, real cold. Everybody was soaked to the bone.
"Somewhere early in the game, our quarterback Rick Norton got so cold he actually had hypothermia and was shaking so hard he couldn't call the plays. Wilson saw this and they couldn't get him warm, so Wilson sent the trainer to get his briefcase from the locker room. They bring him the briefcase and George pulls out a fifth of whiskey and gives Rick a big jolt of it to 'catch his breath.' And whatever else it does, it warmed him up.
"Then everybody else on the team wanted a shot, but nobody had the guts to ask."
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