December 23, 1962: A Long Day In Texas

Tommy Brooker

December 23, 1962: The longest game in professional football history, to that point, is played. But not in the National Football League. This Championship Game is often given credit for boosting interest in the American Football League.

Like the NFL, the AFL was split into geographic Divisions, East and West. Also like the NFL, the AFL's Divisions didn't make as much sense as geography would make fans think. Putting the New York Titans, the Boston Patriots and the Buffalo Bills in the East made sense. Putting the Denver Broncos, the Oakland Raiders and the San Diego Chargers in the West made sense.

But there were 2 teams in Texas, and while Texas is the country's 2nd-biggest State by area after Alaska, both were in the eastern half of Texas. And yet, they were in different divisions: The Dallas Texans, founded and owned by AFL founder Lamar Hunt, were in the West, while the Houston Oilers were in the East.

The Cotton Bowl, then home to both the Texans and the NFL's Dallas Cowboys, is at 96 degrees, 45 minutes West longitude. Jeppesen Stadium, then home to the Oilers, was at 95 degrees, 20 minutes West. So the Texans were slightly to the west of the Oilers. This wasn't as bad as the NFL, putting the Cowboys in the Eastern Division and the East Coast's Baltimore Colts in the Western.

The Oilers won the AFL East in 1960, and beat the Los Angeles Chargers in the 1st AFL Championship Game. The Chargers moved to San Diego for 1961, and the Oilers beat them in the Championship Game again. The Oilers again won the East in 1962. This time, the Texans won the West Division. Both teams finished the regular season with a record of 11-3. They had played each other in back-to-back weeks of the regular season. On October 28, at Jeppesen, the Texans had won, 31-7. That was the last regular-season game the Oilers lost. Just 7 days later, they played again at the Cotton Bowl. Again, the visiting team won: The Oilers, 14-6.

Since the AFL followed the NFL's pattern of alternating the site of its Championship Game, the Oilers would host the Texans at Jeppesen. The facility was built in 1942, as Public School Stadium, but the University of Houston campus expanded toward it, and their football team made it their home field in 1946. In 1958, it was renamed for Holger Jeppesen, a school official who had lobbied for its construction. A crowd of 37,981, roughly a sellout, came for the Championship Game.

While the AFL had a reputation for emphasizing the passing game -- people who liked the more conservative NFL called the rebel league a "basketball league" -- both Texas teams relied on the running game. They played it mostly safe, and the only score of the 1st quarter was a field goal by the Texans' Tommy Brooker, a rookie who had been a member of the University of Alabama's National Championship team the year before. At the end of the quarter, George Blanda, the Oilers' quarterback and kicker, missed a 47-yard field goal, keeping the score 3-0 in the Texans' favor.

The Texans extended their lead in the 2nd quarter, as Abner Haynes scored on a 28-yard pass from Len Dawson, and later on a 2-yard run. The Texans led, 17-0, and any thoughts of this game being regarded as a classic had faded away.

But the Oilers weren't 2-time defending champions for nothing, and fought back. In the 3rd quarter, Blanda threw a touchdown pass to Willard Dewveall, to make it 17-7. Blanda kicked a field goal in the 4th quarter, to get the Oilers within a touchdown.

He then used the passing game to creep closer, throwing passes to Charley Hennigan, whose AFL receiving totals had surpassed the longtime NFL records of Don Hutson, and former Louisiana State Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon. Later, Blanda handed the ball to Charlie Tolar, a fullback known as "the Human Bowling Ball," and he barreled in the 1-yard line, tying the game at 17. The Oilers had 1 more shot, as Blanda tried a 42-yard field goal to win it on the last play of regulation, but Dave Grayson blocked his kick. The game went to overtime.

As with the opening of games, the captains met with the officials at midfield to start the overtime. The Texans won the toss. Haynes said, "We'll kick to the clock." He thought that would give the Texans the wind advantage. But by saying, "We'll kick," the referee, Harold Bourne, gave the Oilers the choice of which goal to defend, and thus whether to start with or against the wind.

This could have cost the Texans the championship, and it could have made Haynes the biggest goat in the history of Texas professional sports. As it turned out, it didn't matter: The entire "5th quarter" was played without either team scoring.

Early in the 2nd overtime, the 6th quarter, Dawson threw a 10-yard pass to Jack Spikes. Spikes then rushed for 19 yards. The Texans were in position for a title-winning field goal. Dawson ran a couple of more rushing plays to get Brooker a better kicking position. At 2:54 of the 2nd overtime, Brooker split the uprights, and the Texans won, 20-17. The team that founded the AFL had won its 1st Championship.

But, before the next season, realizing that, despite their title, they were never going to have more fans in Dallas than the NFL's Cowboys, the Texans moved, becoming the Kansas City Chiefs. The Oilers moved to Memphis in 1997 and Nashville in 1998, becoming the Tennessee Oilers, and the Tennessee Titans in 1999. In 2002, to replace the Oilers, the NFL added an expansion team -- and named it the Houston Texans.

The Tennessee team could take the Titans name because the New York team abandoned it in 1963, becoming the Jets. The New England moved to the Boston suburbs in 1971, and changed their name to the New England Patriots. The San Diego Chargers moved back to Los Angeles in 2017. The Raiders moved to Los Angeles in 1982, back to Oakland in 1995, and to Las Vegas in 2020.

The AFL Championship was won by the Oilers in 1960 and 1961; the Texans/Chiefs in 1962, 1966 and 1969; the Chargers in 1963; the Buffalo Bills in 1964 and 1965; the Raiders in 1967; and the Jets in 1968.

The fact that the Texans' title came before the advent of the Super Bowl means that it gets discounted: Even before the distance of time became what it is now, NFL fans have come to regard any title won before the Super Bowl, NFL or AFL, as not a "real" championship. 

In 1980, Jeppesen Stadium was renamed Corbin J. Robertson Stadium, after a University of Houston regent who had funded renovations. In 1996, it was renamed John O'Quinn Field at Corbin J. Robertson Stadium. O'Quinn was a Houston attorney who had donated to the latest round of renovations. The Houston Dynamo of Major League Soccer moved in for the 2006 season, and won back-to-back MLS Cups.

Robertson Stadium was demolished following the 2012 season, and John O'Quinn Field at TDECU Stadium opened on the site in 2014. UH plays football there, while in 2012, the Dynamo moved to a new soccer-specific stadium, currently named Shell Energy Stadium. (UPDATE: For 2026, UH's stadium will be renamed Space City Financial Stadium, due to TDECU's merger with another company.)

Tommy Brooker, who kicked the winning field goal, remained with the Chiefs through the 1966 season, and died in 2019.

*

December 23, 1962 was a Sunday. The NFL was in the off-week between the end of its regular season and its Championship Game. That game was played 1 week later. The Green Bay Packers beat the New York Giants, 16-7 at Yankee Stadium.

Baseball was out of season. The NBA was in season, but no games were scheduled for that day. But the NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Chicago Black Hawks, 3-1 at the original Madison Square Garden.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins, 5-4 at the Boston Garden.

* And the Montreal Canadiens and the Detroit Red Wings played to a tie, 2-2 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

January 1, 1961: The 1st AFL Championship

January 1, 1961: The American Football League concludes its 1st season with its 1st Championship Game.

Like the NFL, the AFL divided itself into geographical divisions. Like the NFL's,  the AFL's divisions did not make complete sense. In the Eastern, in alphabetical order: The Boston Patriots, the Buffalo Bills, the Houston Oilers and the New York Jets. In the Western: The Dallas Texans, the Denver Broncos, the Los Angeles Chargers and the Oakland Raiders.

Keen observers will note that Dallas and Houston are in the same State, Texas, which kind of makes the "Texans" name for the Dallas team a bit silly. (It had been used before, though, in the NFL in 1952.) Granted, Texas is huge, with Interstate 10 running 877 miles between El Paso and Port Arthur; but, despite the 242-mile northwest-to-southeast distance between the teams' stadiums, Houston is only 92 miles east of Dallas.

Like the NFL, the AFL established a format in which Championship Games would be alternated each year between the Division winners. The first game was originally scheduled to be played in the 103,000-seat Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. But the Chargers had drawn less than 10,000 fans per home game. With the league fea-ring that ABC would pull its contract because of low ticket sales, the Chargers, the Oilers and the League met, and decided to move the game to the Oilers' home, Jeppesen Stadium.

Built in 1942 as a 14,500-seat high school football stadium, it was close enough to the University of Houston campus that UH could use it as a home field. In 1958, the school district renamed it for school board member Holger Jeppesen, who had vigorously lobbied for its construction.

When the Oilers arrived in 1960, team owner Kenneth Stanley Adams Jr., a.k.a. Bud Adams, a wealthy Oklahoma oilman -- his father, K.S. "Boots" Adams, ran Phillips Petroleum, and sponsored the Phillips 66ers, one of the top "amateur" basketball teams in America -- funded the stadium's expansion, and the AFL Championship Game drew a near-capacity crowd of 32,183.

Jeppesen Stadium in its final form,

as Robertson Stadium

However, it rained for 5 straight days before the game, and the field was a muddy mess. This played into the hands of the Oilers, who, with quarterback George Blanda and receiver Charley Hennigan, had done much to give the AFL its original reputation, as a pass-happy, high-offense, "basketball league," compared to the more conservative, more run-oriented, and some AFL fans saying "boring" NFL.

Ben Agajanian was 1 of only 2 players to play in the All-America Football Conference, the NFL and the AFL; the other was Hardy Brown. Agajanian, who preceded Tom Dempsey as an NFL kicker who had only half a foot and had to wear a special shoe, kicked 2 field goals in the 1st quarter, giving the Chargers a 6-0 lead.

In the 2nd quarter, Blanda threw a 17-yard touchdown pass to Dave Smith, giving the Oilers a 7-6 lead. Before the half was out, Agajanian and Blanda would each kick a field goal, making the score 10-9 Houston. In the 3rd quarter, Blanda threw a 7-yard touchdown pass to Bill Groman. The Chargers closed to within 17-16 on a 2-yard touchdown run by Paul Lowe.

But in the 4th quarter, Blanda threw a short pass to Billy Cannon, who had led Louisiana State University (LSU) to the National Championship in 1958, and had won the Heisman Trophy in 1959. Cannon took that pass, defied the mud, and ran 88 yards for a touchdown. That put the Oilers ahead, 24-16, and that would be the final score. The Houston Oilers were the 1st American Football League Champions.

Billy Cannon. The Oilers wore blue helmets

from 1960 to 1965, silver from 1966 to 1971,

blue again from 1972 to 1974, and white from 1975 to 1996.

The Oilers moved into the larger Rice Stadium in 1965, and the Astrodome in 1968, making them the 1st pro football team to play on artificial turf. The Chargers moved from Balboa Stadium (which, like Jeppesen Stadium, had been built for high school football and was too small) to San Diego Stadium in 1967. That facility would become home to baseball's expansion San Diego Padres in 1969, and was renamed Jack Murphy Stadium in 1981 and Qualcomm Stadium in 1997.

Corbin J. Robertson, former University of Houston Board of Regents member and Athletics Committee Chairman, funded the renovation of Jeppesen Stadium in 1970, and the University bought it, renaming it Robertson Stadium in his honor. In 1999, the playing field was named for another big donor, John O'Quinn Field. MLS' Houston Dynamo began play there in 2006. The stadium was demolished in 2012, and, the next year, a replacement opened on the site: John O'Quinn field at TDECU Stadium. UH still plays there, while the Dynamo have moved to a soccer-specific stadium.

The Chargers realized they couldn't compete with the NFL's Rams, and college football's USC and UCLA, for Los Angeles football fans' attention. So they moved down the Pacific Coast to San Diego. The Oilers beat the Chargers again in the 1961 AFL Championship Game.

Bud Adams with an Oilers helmet, a bust of himself,

and the 1st 2 AFL Championship trophies

In 1962, the Oilers nearly made it 3 straight, but lost the Championship Game to the Dallas Texans, who nonetheless moved to become the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chargers won the AFL Championship in 1963, beating the Boston Patriots, then lost the Championship Game to the Buffalo Bills in 1964, and again in 1965. The Oilers lost it to the Oakland Raiders in 1967.

Both teams then went into a down period. A 1973 episode of The Odd Couple featured Jack Klugman's character, sportswriter Oscar Madison, saying that the Oilers and the Chargers were going to play each other, and that they were the 2 worst teams in the post-1970s merged NFL. Both teams would get good again in the late 1970s, and be Playoff perennials for a few years, then tail off again in the mid-1980s, then get good again in the 1990s. The Chargers won the AFC Championship in 1994, but lost Super Bowl XXIX to the San Francisco 49ers.

But both teams' owners began to complain about their stadium leases. In 1997, Oilers founding owner Bud Adams moved them, and they became the Tennessee Titans. In 1999, they won the AFC Championship, but lost Super Bowl XXXIV to the St. Louis Rams, who had left Los Angeles in 1995. In spite of the complete change of location and identity, the Titans have a team hall of fame that combines the Oilers and the Titans, and they continue to keep the Oilers' retired uniform numbers out of circulation. The expansion Houston Texans began play in 2002, at what is now known as NRG Stadium.

In 2017, Chargers operating owner Dean Spanos moved his team back to Los Angeles -- as had the Rams, the year before, getting a big head-start on reclaiming L.A. football fandom. Although both teams now use SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, the Rams' owner, Stan Kroenke, owns it, although he gives the Chargers decent scheduling selection.

The fact that the Oilers'/Titans' titles came before the advent of the Super Bowl means that they get discounted: Even before the distance of time became what it is now, NFL fans have come to regard any title won before the Super Bowl, NFL or AFL, as not a "real" championship. 

*

January 1, 1961 was a Sunday. The game was scheduled for New Year's Day because the previous Sunday was Christmas Day, and they didn't want to go up against the NFL Championship Game. As it turned out, the NFL moved its Championship Game to the next day. At least the AFL didn't have to conflict with the annual New Year's Day college bowl games: As was usually done when New Year's Day fell on a Sunday, they moved their games to Monday, January 2.

The NBA scheduled 3 games:

* The Boston Celtics beat the Syracuse Nationals, 113-96 at the Onondaga County War Memorial (now the Upstate Medical University Arena) in Syracuse, New York.

* The Cincinnati Royals beat the St. Louis Hawks, 114-112 at the Cincinnati Gardens.

* And the Detroit Pistons beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 116-105 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit. Elgin Baylor led all scorers on the day, with 39 in defeat.

And, although it would be decades before the NHL began scheduling an outdoor "Winter Classic" on New Year's Day, its entire "Original Six" were in action:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-1 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-2 at the Boston Garden.

* And the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Detroit Red Wings, 3-0 at the Chicago Stadium.