JRN 362 - Lecture Seventeen

JRN 362/SPS 362 Story of Football

Rich Hanley, Associate Professor

Lecture Seventeen



Review

• America as nation and America as

culture changed dramatically in years

between 1958 and 1970.

• But football endured, thrived and

stood poised to rule the nation via

games viewed on the device “that we

all have been waiting for,” otherwise

known as television.


Review

• The launch of the AFL in 1960

expanded the footprint of pro football

from the north in Boston to the

mountain state of Colorado and

forced the NFL to add teams in the

upper midwest reaches of the football

crescent and in the southwest.

• Television could not get enough

football.


Old Guard/New Age

• The 1960s represent the final

transition of college and pro football

from its old-timey past to modernity.

• Walter Camp himself could not

imagine that a game he developed to

encourage manliness would

ultimately glue Americans to their

couches to watch for hours.


Old Guard/New Age

• Scholar Joseph Campbell has argued

in his studies of mythology that

transition periods are marked by

chaos as the old and the new mix.

• In pro football, at least, the collision of

the old and the new led to a new

visual presentation of football’s

ecstasy and violence as myth.


Old Guard/New Age

• A number of men transformed the pro

game during this period but five stand

out as key figures in this moment.

They are:

- Johnny Unitas

- Sam Huff

- Jim Brown

- Ed and Steve Sabol

- Vince Lombardi


Old Guard/New Age

• At the college level, the key

personalities were not as widely

visible but nevertheless played

pivotal roles in transforming the

three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust

approach to one that exploited the

new technology of artificial turf.

• More on that group later.


Old Guard/New Age

• As noted earlier, the 1958 NFL

Championship game elevated the

quarterback of the Baltimore Colts,

Johnny Unitas, to the status of icon.

• Johnny U., from the football crescent

in western Pennsylvania, personified

the grit and determination of old-

school football.


Old Guard/New Age

• Unitas was drafted in the ninth round

by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1955 but

was cut.

• He played for a semi-pro team before

Weeb Ewbank of the Colts signed

him in 1956.


Old Guard/New Age

• Unitas went on to lead the Colts to

championships in 1958 and 1959 and

in Super Bowl V.

• Until the late 1960s, Unitas served as

the face of the NFL and of the

conservative old guard that resisted

cultural changes sweeping the nation.


Old Guard/New Age

• Unitas became the first star

quarterback of the television age,

primarily because of his flair for the

dramatic as exhibited in 1958.

• Nevertheless, Johnny U. represented

the pre-1960s NFL in terms of his

generational approach and personal

presentation: high-top cleats and

crew-cut style.


Old Guard/New Age

• During his 18-year career, Unitas

threw for 40,239 yards and 290

touchdowns .

• For 52 years, he held the record of at

least one touchdown pass in 47

consecutive games until Drew Brees

of the New Orleans Saints broke it in

2012.


Old Guard/New Age

• The camera focused on Unitas and

other quarterbacks because the

position was central to the game and

the action.

• But coverage also required a villain to

provide a storyline and dramatic

motivation on each play.


Old Guard/New Age

• Broadly, the defense could provide

that role.

• With a two-platoon system in place,

stars could be developed and

cultivated on that side of the ball.

• And the media noticed.


Old Guard/New Age

• Broadly, the defense could provide

that role.

• With a two-platoon system in place,

stars could be developed and

cultivated on that side of the ball.

• Among the first was Chuck Bednarik

of the Philadelphia Eagles.


Old Guard/New Age

• On Nov. 20, 1960, Bednarik’s

awkward hit on Frank Gifford of the

New York Giants became a defining

moment for defense – and startled

fans who thought Gifford might be

fatally injured.

• Gifford suffered a concussion and

returned to play two years after the

hit as a diminished presence.


Old Guard/New Age

• The middle linebacker evolved into

the villain on the defense, standing in

opposition to the quarterback within

the frame of the television and still

cameras.


Old Guard/New Age

• The first linebacker to become a

national celebrity was Sam Huff of

the New York Giants, featured on a

1958 Time magazine cover piece.


Old Guard/New Age

• Like Unitas, Huff emerged from the

football crescent as it dipped into

West Virginia near the border with

western Pennsylvania, coal-mining

country.

• The 6-foot-1, 230-pound linebacker

starred at West Virginia before the

Giants drafted him in 1956.


Old Guard/New Age

• The October 31, 1960, CBS

broadcast of a documentary titled

The Violent World of Sam Huff

featured sounds recorded on the field

to bring the viewer close to the game

as played by Huff.

• For the first time, a defensive player

would take center stage and

illuminate play on that side of the line

of scrimmage.


Old Guard/New Age

• By the mid 1960s, Huff would be

joined in the spotlight by Dick Butkus

of the Chicago Bears.

• Butkus had played at the University

of Illinois, the same school that

produced the first star of the game in

Red Grange 40 years earlier.


Old Guard/New Age

• And in large measure because of the

newfound popularity of defensive

players, a linebacker from Texas –

Tommy Nobis – commanded an

expensive contract in the bidding war

between the NFL and the AFL before

the merger.


Old Guard/New Age

• Huff, Butkus and other middle

linebackers such as Ray Nitschke of

the Packers would command

endorsements just as players on

offense did.

• And soon enough, other positions on

defense would share in the bounty

with colorful nicknames promoted by

teams and the media.


Old Guard/New Age

• The Los Angeles Rams of the 1960s

featured the Fearsome Foursome:

Lamar Lundy, Merlin Olsen, Rosy

Grier and Deacon Jones.


Old Guard/New Age

• The Minnesota Vikings promoted the

Purple People Eaters: Alan Page,

Carl Eller, Jim Marshall and Gary

Larson.


Old Guard/New Age

• Those groupings, in turn, set the

stage for Pittsburgh’s Steel Curtain in

the 1970s: Joe Greene, L.C.

Greenwood, Ernie Holmes and

Dwight White.


Old Guard/New Age

• The Violent World of Sam Huff

provided context for television story

lines featuring linebackers against

quarterbacks.

• That meant a game between the

Cleveland Browns and New York

Giants would be transformed into a

battle between Huff and Jim Brown,

the greatest back of all-time.


Old Guard/New Age

• Brown emerged as the first great

African-American star of the NFL.

• Brown was outspoken in support of

civil rights and often defended the

rights of players against owners.


Old Guard/New Age

• Brown was a top Syracuse running

back drafted by Paul Brown in 1957

to star in the Cleveland backfield.

• Brown rushed for 12,312 yards until

retiring after the 1965 season. He

was named NFL MVP in his first year

and again in 1958, 1963 and 1965.


Old Guard/New Age

• Like Grange, Brown also became a

film star.

• He retired in summer 1966 to pursue

his film career full-time instead of

returning to the Browns after a

dispute with owner Art Modell.


Old Guard/New Age

• While Unitas, Huff and Brown were

redefining the role of star for the

television age, the NFL and its

commercial television sponsors

sought to educate viewers as to the

intricacies of the game.

• This is exactly the strategy adopted

by Camp in the 19th century.


Old Guard/New Age

• The Scott Seed Company, for

example, produced a booklet to be

distributed through hardware stores

throughout the U.S.

• Its title: How to Watch Football on TV.

• Guides of all kinds were distributed in

stores frequented by suburban

families.


Old Guard/New Age

• At the same time the ground was

prepared for the vast audiences to

come, a father-and-son filmmaker

team from Philadelphia developed a

company that would frame the game

in cinematic terms that gave the NFL

mythological status, complete with

classical music.


Old Guard/New Age

• Ed Sabol secured the rights to film

NFL games in 1962.

• His first game: the 1962 NFL

Championship.

• In 1965, the NFL purchased Sabol’s

company and renamed it NFL Films.


Old Guard/New Age

• Sabol and his son Steve, an art major

at Colorado College, understood the

game as narrative.

• Instead of textual, football was visual,

more like the movies than a novel,

Steve Sabol would later say.


Old Guard/New Age

• NFL Films produced highlight reels

and programs that combined slow-

motion visual artistry with

sophisticated symphonic scores to

create a heroic version of the game

that audiences found irresistible.


Old Guard/New Age

• Ed Sabol’s inspiration: a 1946 film

titled A Duel in the Sun.

• The film used close ups of horses on

the move, kicking up dust and thus

revealing the physicality of

movement.


Old Guard/New Age

• Steve Sabol, an art major, said his

inspiration stemmed from the work of

Picasso.

• Sabol said Picasso would look at a

single image from multiple

perspectives, and he wanted to do

the same with football.


Old Guard/New Age

• In fact, Steve Sabol said in a

published study that NFL Films

sought “to show the game the way

Hollywood portrays fiction.”

• In 1967, the full style and substance

of NFL Films emerged in a work titled

“They Call It Pro Football.”


Old Guard/New Age

• They Call It Pro Football was edited

by Japanese filmmaker Yoshio Kishi.

• Kishi interpreted the footage of NFL

games in a way that changed the

highlight reel.

• He favored montages featuring what

he called the “apex of action” instead

of full plays. It worked.


Old Guard/New Age

• Kishi saw two elements in play:

- Sex

- Violence

• NFL Films documented both in

copious amounts.


Old Guard/New Age

• NFL Films turned the games into

cinematic spectacles.

• The booming voice of narrator John

Facenda served as the perfect oral

instrument to accompany the

soundtrack and the poetic language

as the action unfolded in slow-motion

on the screen.


Old Guard/New Age

• And Steve Sabol’s texts as read by

Facenda supplemented the visuals

with writing straight out of Homer.

• Take this passage, for example,

about the Oakland Raiders:


Old Guard/New Age

“The Autumn Wind is a pirate

Blustering in from sea

With a rollicking song he sweeps along

swaggering boisterously

His face is weather beaten

He wears a hooded sash …


Old Guard/New Age

“With his silver hat about his head

And a bristly black moustache

He growls as he storms the country

A villain big and bold

And the trees all shake and quiver and

quake …


Old Guard/New Age

“As he robs them of their gold

The Autumn wind is a Raider

Pillaging just for fun

He’ll knock you ’round and upside down

And laugh when he’s conquered and

won.”


Old Guard/New Age

• Sabol also contributed the following

expressions to NFL mythology:

- “The frozen tundra” to describe

Lambeau Field in Green Bay.

- “It starts with a whistle and

ends with a gun.”


Old Guard/New Age

• And NFL Films coined the expression

for the Dallas Cowboys that has

persisted for decades.


Old Guard/New Age

• Ed Sabol borrowed the idea of using

microphones on players from CBS,

which first used it for the pioneering

Sam Huff documentary, and Roone

Arledge, who mic’d AFL players for

ABC.

• CBS used it in practices.

• NFL Films used it in game highlights.


Old Guard/New Age

• The use of voices of coaches and

players on the field during games

brought the action closer to the fans.

• For the first time, fans could hear the

grunts of the players and listen in as

coaches barked plays and berated

officials.


Old Guard/New Age

• Each week, NFL Films would send

highlight programs called This Week

in Pro Football and Game of the

Week to local television stations for

airings either on Saturdays or

Sundays, before kickoff.

• The programs served to give fans

insight into the game and its players.


Old Guard/New Age

• And that distribution helped

enormously when the best team of

the period played in the smallest

market – Green Bay – with a coach

who represented a time that was

quickly giving way to new social and

cultural approaches to life.


Old Guard/New Age

• Vince Lombardi represented the

personification of the Walter Camp

vision of the game: discipline,

intelligence, diligence and fidelity to

authority, in the form of the coach.

• Lombardi, in fact, embodied the

attributes of the great coaches who

shaped the game prior to the 1960s.


Old Guard/New Age

• From Walter Camp, Lombardi took

the necessity of teamwork.

• From Rockne, Lombardi took the

importance of rhetorical devises to

inspire his team.

• From Brown, Lombardi took the

tactical approach for precision.


Old Guard/New Age

• Lombardi thus stands as a

personality who represents the

apotheosis of the best characteristics

of coaching in the pre-modern (i.e.,

television) age of football.


Old Guard/New Age

• And Lombardi added something to

the mix that was present in the locker

room but not on the field: religion.

• Lombardi summoned a passage from

the Bible to use as a metaphor to

teach his approach to offensive

football.


Old Guard/New Age

• “Do you not know that those who run

in a race all run, but only one

receives the prize? Run in such a

way that you may win.” First Letter of

Paul to the Corinthians.

• And, Lombardi added, run to daylight.


Old Guard/New Age

• Lombardi was born in Brooklyn in

1913, the son of immigrants from

Salerno, Italy.

• After high school, he trained to

become a priest but left after four

years.


Old Guard/New Age

• Lombardi attended Fordham, where

he was one of the legendary Seven

Blocks of Granite in 1936, his senior

year.

• The coach of Fordham was Jim

Crowley, one of Grantland Rice’s

Four Horseman of Notre Dame.


Old Guard/New Age

• Lombardi graduated from Fordham in

1937 and went to law school in the

evenings while working for a finance

company.

• But he loved football and became a

high school teacher and coach at St.

Cecilia High School in Englewood,

N.J.


Old Guard/New Age

• He joined the coaching staff at

Fordham in 1947, and two years later

moved to the staff at West Point

under coach Red Blaik.

• There, he absorbed the two themes

that served as his coaching

scaffolding: simplicity and execution.


Old Guard/New Age

• Lombardi joined the New York Giants

coaching staff in 1955 as offensive

coordinator.

• Tom Landry, who became the first

coach of the Dallas Cowboys in 1960,

was defensive coordinator.

• The team won the NFL championship

in 1956.


Old Guard/New Age

• After the 1958 NFL Championship

game loss to the Colts, Lombardi

joined the Green Bay Packers as

head coach, his first top job since

coaching a high school team in New

Jersey a decade earlier.


Old Guard/New Age

• The Packers were among the first pro

teams to use the pass to great effect,

under coach Curley Lambeau.

• One of the great receivers of all time,

Don Hutson, played in Green Bay.

• He played 11 seasons, setting

numerous records, including some

that still stand.


Old Guard/New Age

• But by the time Lombardi arrived at

the end of the 1950s, Hutson had

long since retired.

• The Packers had become a bad

football team in the smallest city in

the NFL, a throwback to the league’s

early days when formed from the

remnants of the old Ohio League.


Old Guard/New Age

• Lombardi immediately put his stamp

on the team.

• He led punishing training camps,

working the players through drills that

were designed to instill a sense of

personal toughness and fidelity to the

coach.





Old Guard/New Age

• In 1960, Lombardi led the Packers to

the NFL championship game against

the Philadelphia Eagles.

• The Packers lost, and Lombardi

vowed afterward that he would never

lose another championship game, a

vow he kept throughout the 1960s.


Old Guard/New Age

• Green Bay won NFL titles against the

New York Giants in 1961, 37-0, and

again in 1962, 16-7.


Old Guard/New Age

• In December 1962, Lombardi landed

on the cover of Time magazine,

securing a foothold in the world of

celebrity by his presence under a

tagline “The Sport of the 1960s.”

• Lombardi would come to define the

decade from then until its twilight in

1969.


Old Guard/New Age

• By 1962, it had become clear

Lombardi represented the old order

as the culture shifted from the

complacent 1950s to the turbulent

1960s in all ways but one.

• Green Bay drafted and signed

African-American players even as the

Washington Redskins maintained a

whites-only roster.


Old Guard/New Age

• The playbook reflected Lombardi’s

old-school approach in all other

things.

• He took the quote from Saint Paul

quite literally – and created a plan for

his players to run to win by running to

daylight, usually by operating one

play.


Old Guard/New Age

• That play is known as the Packer

sweep.

• “There’s nothing spectacular about it.

It’s just a yard gainer, ” Lombardi

states in a training film.


Old Guard/New Age

• The Packers featured running backs

Paul Hornung of Notre Dame, Jim

Taylor of LSU and Donnie Anderson

of Texas over this period to move the

ball behind the steady QB Bart Starr

of Alabama.


Old Guard/New Age

• In 1965, Lombardi led the Packers to

the first of an unprecedented three

straight championships.

• The Packers beat Cleveland and its

great running back Jimmy Brown

(playing in his final game) in the mud.


Old Guard/New Age

• In 1966 and 1967, Lombardi met the

team coached by his former

colleague, Tom Landry, of the Dallas

Cowboys, for the NFL Championship.

• In 1966 in Dallas, Green Bay won to

earn a trip to the firs AFL-NFL

championship against Kansas City.


Old Guard/New Age

• The Packers beat the Chiefs in that

first game in the Los Angeles

Memorial Coliseum.


Old Guard/New Age

• The next year, Lombardi and Landry

met again, this time in Green Bay in a

game that became known as the Ice

Bowl.

• The Dec. 31, 1967, game was played

in temperatures that ranged from 13-

below-zero to 15-below-zero on what

became known as the “frozen tundra”

of Lambeau Field in Green Bay.


Old Guard/New Age

• The Packers took an early 14-0 lead

but Dallas rallied late.

• The Cowboys grabbed a 17-14 lead

with 4:50 left in the game.

• Green Bay quarterback Starr then led

the Packers down the field from their

own 32 yard line.


Old Guard/New Age

• Chuck Mercein, a back from Yale,

made two key runs and caught pass

in the drive that reached the Dallas

one-yard-line with 13 seconds left.

• Green Bay called a time out, and

Starr jogged to the sidelines to let

Lombardi know what he had in mind:

a quarterback sneak because the

backs could not get traction.


Old Guard/New Age

• Starr pushed forward behind a block

by guard Jerry Kramer to score and

give the Packers a 21-17 victory for

their third straight NFL Championship

and a second trip to the AFL-NFL

Championship, now called the Super

Bowl.


Old Guard/New Age

• More than 30 million fans watched

the game on television, cementing

the league’s popularity while bearing

witness to a myth-making event on

an epic scale.

• Just two years earlier, football had

become the most popular sport in

America, surpassing baseball.


Old Guard/New Age

• Green Bay went to the Super Bowl

and defeated the Oakland Raiders to

win for the second straight year.

• It would be Lombardi’s last game as

coach of the Packers, as he decided

to leave the sidelines and focus his

energies as general manager.


Old Guard/New Age

• Lombardi joined the Washington

Redskins for one season as coach in

1969.

• He died of cancer on Sept. 3, 1970,

age 57, before the start of his second

season as Washington coach.


Old Guard/New Age

• Like Rockne’s, Lombardi’s funeral

was a massive public event.

• More than 1,500 people – former

players, coaches and fans – packed

St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York

for the services.


Old Guard/New Age

• Lombardi was among the last of the

old-line coaches whose connections

ran back to the 1930s to have great

success in the league.

• Even George Halas of the Bears,

whose connections with the league

stretched back to its founding in

1920, called it quits, finally, in 1967.


Old Guard/New Age

• Two years earlier in 1965, Amos

Alonzo Stagg, an end on the first All-

American team in 1889 and an

innovative coach who perfected the

center snap and awarded varsity

letters, died at the age of 102.


Old Guard/New Age

• Over the next generation, coaches

would become less like Lombardi and

more like Paul Brown: men whose

scientific approach would lead to

continuous innovations unseen since

the development of the T-formation in

the late 1930s by Halas himself.

• Even the mud of November and

December would disappear in time.


Old Guard/New Age

• And acceleration would be the key,

both on and off the field in terms of

speed, finances and celebrity power:

speed as represented by Bob Hayes,

finances as represented by TV

money and celebrity as represented

by Joe Namath and presented by

Arledge, whose innovations with AFL

coverage were widely copied.




Old Guard/New Age

• Lombardi represented the last of

buzz-cut pro football in terms of his

approach to the game: rigorous and

relentless repetition of simple plays

such as the Packer sweep.

• The world, though, had changed, and

so had the NFL by the time he died in

1970.


Old Guard/New Age

• Two men played pivotal roles in the

change from the Lombardi era to one

signified by celebrity and spectacle:

Namath on the field and Arledge off

it.

• A third man, a player named George

Sauer, detected something had gone

awry in both the old and the new eras

and did something about it.


Old Guard/New Age

• Namath would leave Alabama and

coach Bear Bryant as a coveted

player in the 1965 draft.

• Drafted by the Jets after Alabama lost

the Orange Bowl, Namath arrived in

New York with a $427,000 salary and

swagger to match.


Old Guard/New Age

• The AFL-NFL merger was driven in

part by sizeable contracts signed by

college stars such as Namath with

the Jets and Tommy Nobis with the

NFL Atlanta Falcons.

• But it was Namath who had the

wattage to illuminate the game’s

ascendancy from sports to popular

culture.


Old Guard/New Age

• Ironically, Namath shared the same

geographical background as the

great Johnny Unitas.

• Both were from western

Pennsylvania, in the football

crescent, and Namath would be

coached by Weeb Ewbank, who won

the 1958 NFL Championship.


Old Guard/New Age

• Namath emerged as a bona fide

celebrity a decade after that game.

• The quarterback led the Jets to an

11-3, including a game that

underscored his importance to the

NFL and of the NFL to the nation.

• It was the “best game no one saw.”


Old Guard/New Age

• On Nov. 17, 1968, the Jets played

the Raiders in Oakland. It was the

West Coast game for NBC.

• The lead changed six times in the

first 59 minutes, with the Jets taking a

32-29 lead with 1:05 left on a field

goal by Jim Turner.


Old Guard/New Age

• The Raiders launched a drive after

the Jets’ field goal and were moving

when NBC cut to Heidi on all affiliates

east of Denver after a commercial.

• The reaction was immediate and

massive.


Old Guard/New Age

• Phone lines jammed NBC’s

switchboard, making it impossible for

executives to call the west coast to

reconnect the game feed.

• The New York Police Department

received so many calls that true

emergencies went unanswered for

awhile.


Old Guard/New Age

• The Raiders, meanwhile, scored a

touchdown with 42 seconds left to

take the lead.

• The Jets fumbled the ensuing kickoff,

and the Raiders scored again to win.

• NBC ran a crawl to inform viewers of

the score but the network even blew

that.


Old Guard/New Age

• According to published accounts, the

crawl occurred just when Heidi’s

paralytic cousin tried to walk, sucking

the emotion out of the scene.

• NBC issued a formal apology 90

minutes after the game.


Old Guard/New Age

• That would be the last time the Jets

would lose that season.

• The Jets met the Raiders again in the

AFL championship game at Shea

Stadium in New York, and a Namath

pass to Don Maynard – who played in

the 1958 game – set up the winning

score.


Old Guard/New Age

• In the NFL, meanwhile, the 13-1

Baltimore Colts met the 10-4

Cleveland Browns in the

championship game to determine

who would meet in the Super Bowl.

• Led by backup quarterback Earl

Morrall substituting for the injured

Unitas, the Colts routed the Browns

in Cleveland, 34-0.


Old Guard/New Age

• That set up a Super Bowl III

showdown between the team that

defeated the Giants in 1958 against

another team from New York, this

one led by a quarterback who

reflected the emerging culture of the

period.


Old Guard/New Age

• Baltimore coach Don Shula was born

in the football crescent in Ohio and

had played under Paul Brown in

Cleveland.

• In 1963, he replaced Ewbank – a

Paul Brown assistant coach at one

time - as coach of the Colts.


Old Guard/New Age

• Baltimore was favored by as many as

16 points, as few gave the Jets and

the AFL much of a chance against

the establishment Colts who had

manhandled the Browns in the NFL

championship game.

• And the Colts had Johnny Unitas in

case the game turned against them.


Old Guard/New Age

• Namath and Unitas were opposites

from head to toe. Namath wore white

cleats; Unitas high-top black ones.

• He also had long hair, not a crew cut.

• Tex Maule of Sports Illustrated

described Namath as “the folk hero of

a new generation.”


Old Guard/New Age

• Even the helmet decals represented

the old against the new:

- The Colts’ horseshoe

emblematic of the old West.

- The Jets name and projected

movement emblematic of the

jet age.

• The NFL Films myth-making account

focused on these distinctions.


Old Guard/New Age

• Namath added a sense of unbridled

confidence as well, shattering the pro

forma humility embedded in football’s

honor code.

• He not only predicted the Jets would

win; he guaranteed it.

• And he remained true to that.


Old Guard/New Age

• The Jets proved to be more physical

and skilled than the experts had

reckoned when installing the Colts as

a 16-point favorite.


Old Guard/New Age

• Namath threw a total of 28 times,

completing 17 for 206 yards.

• The Jets’ Matt Snell ran for a

touchdown and Jim Turner kicked

three field goals to lead New York to

the 16-7 win.




Old Guard/New Age

• The counterculture had seemingly

won football.

• Namath became the most celebrated

athlete in America after that victory

that shocked the nation and gave the

AFL the credibility its teams needed

as it headed toward the full merger in

1970.


Old Guard/New Age

• A year later, the Kansas City Chiefs,

showcasing a plan known as the

“offense of the 70s” for its creative

vitality, stunned the old-school-style

Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV,

giving the AFL its second straight win

against the establishment.

• That win confirmed what the Jets

accomplished.


Old Guard/New Age

• Outside the game, Namath

represented the transformation of

athlete into a celebrity for the age of

color television, rock music, sex,

drugs and all the other signifiers of

the period.

• But Namath appealed to the older

generation, too, who admired his

boyish charm and sex appeal.


Old Guard/New Age

• In the process, Namath redefined

masculinity as presented by NFL

players.

• He wore furs, and he served as a

spokesperson for pantyhose, for

example, and his apartment featured

shag carpeting among other hip

design elements.


Old Guard/New Age

• This was the birth of the cool for the

NFL.


Old Guard/New Age

• The reality of Namath, however, was

something different.

• He retained the conservative

intellectual infrastructure common to

pro football’s culture.

• After the Super Bowl, he appeared on

the Ed Sullivan Show and toured U.S.

military posts with the USO.


Old Guard/New Age

• And his celebrity as an individual

would only be permitted to go so far.

• When confronted by commissioner

Pete Rozelle with allegations that

gamblers cavorted at his nightclub

Bachelor’s 3, Namath said he would

retire rather than sell it at a tearful -

unusual for a football player - news

conference.


Old Guard/New Age

• Namath later agreed to sell his

interest in the club so he could play

football.

• The tears at the press conference

announcing his retirement would

soon evaporate.


Old Guard/New Age

• Namath would never win another

championship after that culture-

changing victory over the Colts and

Johnny U.

• Like Grange and Jim Brown, Namath

heard Hollywood’s call and starred in

film and appeared on stage.

• He even had his own talk show.


Old Guard/New Age

• Namath would retire in the mid 1970s

after a series of knee injuries and a

short-lived move to Los Angeles.

• But he had set the template for the

quarterback as celebrity, and he

single-handedly proved that a star

could carry the game into prime-time

television.


Old Guard/New Age

• As Namath pushed the idea of

quarterback as modern celebrity,

Roone Arledge pushed it firmly in the

direction of entertainment as head of

ABC Sports.

• Arledge would take the epic myths

constructed by NFL Films and

transform the stories into prime-time

entertainment programming.


Old Guard/New Age

• The origin story of prime-time NFL

football begins with the 1966 merger

with the AFL.

• NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle,

who engineered the pact and the

multiple anti-trust exemptions from

the U.S. Congress, wanted to extend

the NFL into prime-time.


Old Guard/New Age

• With Friday and Saturday nights

blocked due to the agreement with

Congress for the exemption, the NFL

looked for another night to colonize.

• NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle and

Arledge collaborated on the decision.


Old Guard/New Age

• Arledge had earlier established his

football credentials with his work in

televising the early AFL games.

• He later invented one of the most

popular sport programs in television

history.


Old Guard/New Age

• In Wide World of Sports, Arledge

combined a sophisticated

appreciation of technology to old-

fashioned showmanship to his

productions.

• Arledge was among the first to use

satellites for live coverage of sporting

events from Europe, for example.


Old Guard/New Age

• But why pro football – a game

available on Sundays - in primetime?

• Arledge said in published interviews

that each game would be an event

unto itself as there were so few

football games anyway.


Old Guard/New Age

• Arledge said that he saw the way the

lights bounced off the helmets,

creating an aura around the players,

creating a sense of both sex and

drama under the lights.

• He convinced ABC affiliates that a

single game on a single night would

draw viewers in every market

regardless of the teams involved.


Old Guard/New Age

• The game would be presented not as

“coverage” but as an entertainment

spectacle in its own right.

• That gave the game a production

value that enhanced the drama and

narrative trajectory.


Old Guard/New Age

• Arledge deployed techniques he

perfected in Wide World of Sports

programs and later in broadcasts of

the Olympic Games.


Old Guard/New Age

• “What we set out to do was get the

audience involved emotionally,”

Arledge said in an article in Sports

Illustrated. “If they didn’t give a damn

about the game, they might still enjoy

the program.”


Old Guard/New Age

• Just as the Sabols had perfected

their cinematic presentation with on-

player microphones and tight shots of

the action, Arledge sought to make

the game “up close and personal” for

the television audience only in real

time, without the benefit of the art of

film editing.


Old Guard/New Age

• Arledge deployed the use of multiple

games pointed, counter intuitively,

away from the action.

• That transformed coverage toward

the spectacle of the game to widen

the audience.


Old Guard/New Age

• For example, cameras focused on

cheerleaders, which helped to draw

in male viewers, and unusual

characters in the crowd.

• Each shot was short, leaving the

viewer wanting more.

• Shots of players in tight-fitting

uniforms attracted the female viewer.


Old Guard/New Age

• The Monday Night Football broadcast

used nine cameras instead of the

usual five deployed for Sunday

broadcasts to keep the show moving.

• MNF also introduced handheld

cameras for sideline tight shots of

players and cheerleaders, getting the

close-ups Arledge required.


Old Guard/New Age

Director Chet Forte explained his tactics

in moving the action around the game:


Old Guard/New Age

• “What I wanted to do on Monday

Night Football was get away from the

conformity of CBS and the dictum

they laid down for their directors: a

wide shot to a tight shot, a wide to a

tight, over and over. I wanted to gain

impact with enormous close-ups …


Old Guard/New Age

• “I wanted to see all the action

bigger…. More meaning by going

tighter. It’s a little more strain on the

cameramen, but they never

complain.”

• Arledge, meanwhile, completed the

show-biz approach with a team

guaranteed to create fireworks – and

ratings.


Old Guard/New Age

• For its September 1970 debut, MNF

teamed a professional play-by-play

announcer, Keith Jackson, with the

glamorous former New York Giant

Frank Gifford and the opinionated

Howard Cosell to provide some sharp

edges to analysis instead of the usual

fare.


Old Guard/New Age

• The first game in September 1970

featured Joe Namath and the Jets

against the Cleveland Browns.

• The Browns won the game, and

Monday Night Football was here to

stay


Old Guard/New Age

• But Arledge worked to refine the form

over the next year to move even

closer to making the announcing

team entertainers.

• He replaced Jackson with Don

Meredith, a folksy former quarterback

for the Dallas Cowboys who played in

the famous Ice Bowl in 1967.


Old Guard/New Age

• With Gifford handling play by play,

Meredith and Cosell provided a

running commentary based on the

old hayseed versus city slicker trope.


Old Guard/New Age

• Monday Night Football became an

event above the game it nominally

covered with the tight shots, quick

edits and chatter in the booth,

particularly between Meredith and

Cosell.

• In the language of the day, Monday

Night Football became “a

happening.”.


Old Guard/New Age

• That “game as happening” meant that

the NFL had transcended sport.

• With Monday Night Football, the NFL

merged pop culture and would come

to dominate the instrument that

lorded over American culture for

generations: television.


Old Guard/New Age

• The triumph of Monday Night Football

as the focal point of pop culture

meant that it could replicate and

strengthen itself simply by being

itself.

• Celebrities such as John Lennon

showed up in the booth to be part of

the spectacle.


Old Guard/New Age

• In December 1980, reality intruded in

this grand spectacle.

• Cosell at first did not want to go live

on the air with it, but he eventually

delivered the news that Lennon had

been shot and killed in New York.

• The news stunned the audience.


Old Guard/New Age

• In triumph and tragedy, Monday Night

Football underscored the NFL’s

cultural role as more show than

anything else.

• Arledge’s approach influenced how

NBC and CBS covered games,

transforming bland pre-game and

post-game shows and intros into pure

entertainment.


Old Guard/New Age

• But ABC’s Monday Night Football

had its critics – particularly among

traditionalists – who saw how Old

Guard/New Age had trumped the

essence of Walter Camp’s game.

• The celebrity aspect undermined

team and humility gave way to show-

boating.


Old Guard/New Age

• Not since the Harvard player accused

Princeton players of assault in the

1920s had players emerged to

publicly assail the game with such

energy and vitriol.

• Former players wrote books highly

critical of the game that had provided

their livelihood for years.


Old Guard/New Age

• In 1971, Bernie Parrish, a defensive

back for the Cleveland Browns, wrote

about the 1964 championship season

in the context of farce.

• He revealed stories of owners

cavorting with gamblers and the

infiltration of the game by organized

crime, among other things.


Old Guard/New Age

• It was a best-seller, showing that the

country wanted to read about the

inside story of football instead of

simply consuming the positive

material coming from the television

networks and the NFL.


Old Guard/New Age

• Dave Meggysey of the St. Louis

Cardinals wrote non-fiction books

and appeared on television talk

shows to discuss the game’s

brutality, racism, drug abuse and win-

at-all-costs mentality, among other

things.


Old Guard/New Age

• In 1968, Meggyesy became probably

the first NFL player to use the

national anthem as a platform for a

protest. Rozelle told players they

should stand during the anthem, with

helmet under left arm, right hand on

heart, facing the flag.

• Meggyesy held his helmet down and

looked down to the ground.


Old Guard/New Age

• In Out of Their League, Meggyesy

noted the violence, he noted how

players were scared, and he

documented the treatment of players

by sadistic coaches and how college

coaches exploited players and held

little respect for academics.


Old Guard/New Age

• “If we can play football, the country is

not disintegrating,” said Meggyesy

about the decision to play football two

days after the Kennedy assassination

in the context of showing how the

game served as a distraction from

larger, darker issues confronting the

country.


Old Guard/New Age

• In 1973, a former wide receiver for

the Dallas Cowboys named Pete

Gent fictionalized his experiences in

the NFL with North Dallas Forty.

• Gent compressed a season of

pathologies into an eight-day period

in the life of the book’s protagonist,

wide receiver Phil Elliott.


Old Guard/New Age

• Elliott describes the violence in

football as reflecting “the

technomilitary complex that was

trying to be America.“

• The movie, released in 1979, starred

Nick Nolte as Elliott.


Old Guard/New Age

• George Sauer emerged as one of the

more interesting former players who

openly criticized football.

• His criticism stung more than that of

others; his dad was a star at

Nebraska and the family hailed from

the heart of the football crescent in

Ohio.


Old Guard/New Age

• Sauer played for the University of

Texas but sought to leave after the

1964 season and the team’s loss to

Alabama and Joe Namath in the

Orange Bowl.

• He wanted to sign with the Jets.


Old Guard/New Age

• Texas’ coach Darryl Royal refused to

let Sauer leave, stating he had a year

of eligibility left and thus could not

play in the pro league.

• But Sauer won the argument and

turned pro, to join Namath in New

York.


Old Guard/New Age

• Sauer teamed with Don Maynard to

give Namath a lethal combination of

receivers.

• Sauer was a more than capable wide

receiver, if not a major star,

throughout his career.

• In 1966, for example, he was team

MVP.


Old Guard/New Age

• In the epic Super Bowl victory against

the Colts, Namath consistently turned

to Sauer who caught eight passes,

the most on the team.

• That isn’t surprising, given that

Namath and the introverted Sauer

were close despite the sharp

differences in personality.






Old Guard/New Age

• But in 1971, at the age of 27, Sauer

retired to become a writer.

• Sauer said at the time he was

“generally dissatisfied with the game

the way it is played now.”


Old Guard/New Age

• Sauer elaborated in a critique of

football in the San Francisco

Examiner.

• In it, he wrote that “I know that

several times I have found myself in

the locker room, caught up in it all

and acting like a 7-year-old. After

years of this kind of living, what else

can you be but an adolescent?”


Old Guard/New Age

• Sauer added that the game “can

really touch you as a human being if

you are permitted to touch others as

human beings. But this is difficult

when you have the Vince Lombardi-

style of coach hollering at you to hate

the opponent, who really is just a guy

like you in a different color uniform.”


Old Guard/New Age

• In 1983, Sauer wrote in the New York

Times that, “Football is an ambiguous

sport, depending both on grace and

violence. It both glorifies and destroys

bodies. At the time, I could not

reconcile the apparent inconsistency.


Old Guard/New Age

• “I care even less about being a public

person. You stick out too much, the

world enlarges around you to

dangerous proportions, and you are

too evident to too many others. There

is a vulnerability in this and, oddly

enough, some guilt involved in

standing out.”


Old Guard/New Age

• Despite these critiques, football

thrived as never before.

• Innovations in rules and tactics and

new stars kept football fresh.

• Critics gnawed around the edges, but

they never touched the game’s place

at the core of America’s dream life.

Education

JRN 362 - Lecture Seventeen