December 31, 1967: The Ice Bowl

Lambeau Field as it appeared in 1967.

Note the shadow cast by the scoreboard

at the south end. This will matter later on.

December 31, 1967: As the narrator for a 1987 NFL Films production put it, "On a day savage enough to make a Saint Bernard whimper, they played the 1967 NFL Championship Game." Or, as it has become known in football lore, The Ice Bowl.

I don't know who the narrator was -- the Internet has failed me in this regard -- but the film was made in 1987, so it wasn't John Facenda, the voice of NFL Films from 1966 until his death in 1984. Let the record show that Facenda never actually spoke the words "the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field." ESPN's Chris Berman, imitating Facenda, made that up.

The Ice Bowl isn't even the coldest game in NFL history anymore. The 1981 AFC Championship Game, played at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati on January 10, 1982, was 9 degrees below zero without the wind chill factor, and 37 below with it. The San Diego Chargers, used to warm weather, had played one of the hottest games in NFL history just 8 days earlier, against the Miami Dolphins at the Orange Bowl, and were totally unused to this kind of cold. The Bengals won, 27-7. This one is known as the Freezer Bowl.

Many NFL Championship Games, nearly all played in December to that point, had been plagued by cold weather. Vince Lombardi had been born and raised in Brooklyn, and had coached the Green Bay Packers since 1959, so he could handle cold weather.

But from having coached in the title games of 1956, 1958 (these 2 as an assistant coach with the New York Giants), 1961, 1962 and 1965, he knew that cold weather could be a problem for football. Fortunately, since the Packers' unusual ownership structure, and his role as both head coach and general manager, left him a virtual dictator, he had the field torn up, and heating coils placed under the field. When resodded, the idea was that the coils would keep the field from freezing. It became known as "Lombardi's Electric Blanket."

Lombardi had been offensive coordinator to Giants head coach Jim Lee Howell. The defensive coordinator was Tom Landry, who became the 1st head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, the team the Packers had defeated to win the 1966 NFL Championship, and whom they would have to beat again to win for 1967. Lombardi and Landry were opposites: Landry was a great stone face, never showing emotion during the game; while Lombardi was, in the words of his Hall of Fame guard Jerry Kramer, "a raving Italian lunatic!"

But the teams were the other way around: The Cowboys -- not yet the dominant team that they would become -- were braggarts, having earned very little right to do so thus far; while the Packers let their performance do the talking for them. The exception was Hall of Fame running back Paul Hornung, but he was retired by this point. The Packers were going for their 5th NFL Championship in 7 years, which included ending the previous season by winning "The AFL-NFL World Championship Game," retroactively named "Super Bowl I."

The day before the game, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle made some phone calls, and was told that the game-time temperature would be about 5 degrees above zero. (All temperatures mentioned in this post will be in degrees Fahrenheit.)

Rozelle didn't like that, and began to consider postponing the game to the next day, Monday, New Year's Day 1968, despite the fact that it would compete for TV ratings with the college bowl games. But he was told that the oncoming cold front would make it even colder on Monday. So, already in Green Bay, he called Lombardi at his house, and Landry at his hotel, and told them the game would go on as scheduled.

But the cold front arrived sooner, and was worse than expected. As Cowboy receiver Rentzel reported, he was told that it was 15 degrees below zero. The official NFL Films record of the game shows a rotating bank clock backing that up, reading "-15°."

I couldn't find a photo online.

I had to photograph it off my computer screen.

Yes, that's me and my phone in the reflection.

When Lombardi got to Lambeau Field, he discovered that it was so cold (This was before comedians began doing things like, "How cold was it?"), the mechanism for the heating coils broke. With the machine inoperable, the field was frozen. To make matters worse, when the tarp was taken off the field, it had left moisture on it, which froze. The field was an ice rink.

At the time, Lambeau Field held 50,861 people. That was the official attendance: In spite of the cold, there was not an empty seat in the house -- until an elderly spectator died from exposure. Yes, only one fan died from the cold. Among those in attendance was a 12-year-old boy from Appleton, Wisconsin, who went on to become a renowned actor: Willem Dafoe. In 2017, NFL Films released a 50th Anniversary documentary on the Ice Bowl, with Dafoe narrating. 

The marching band of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse was scheduled to perform the pregame and halftime shows. But during -- pardon the choice of words -- the warmups, the spit inside their woodwind instruments froze, rendering them impossible to play. The mouthpieces of brass instruments stuck to their players' lips. Seven members of the band were taken to the hospital for hypothermia.

The officials' whistles also had the spit freeze inside, and, during the pregame midfield meeting with the team captains, they said that play would be stopped by the officials putting their hands on the backs of players who, due to concentrating on the ballcarrier, couldn't otherwise see that play had stopped.

Frank Gifford, the Hall of Fame running back for the Giants who was serving as one of the CBS announcers for the game, said, on the air, "I'm going to take a bite of my coffee."

The game was played anyway. When it kicked off at 1:00 PM Central Standard Time -- 2:00 Eastern -- it was 13 below, with a wind-chill factor, on the since-changed current scale, of -36.

Note the ticket price: $10. That's about $83 in 2022 money.

For the Championship Game. Today, a regular-season game

would almost certainly cost you much more.

The game did affect the Cowboys more than the Packers. The film shows Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke running onto the field in short sleeves, with no gloves. He was from Chicago. He could handle it. But Meredith's face froze, to the point where he couldn't make his words understood in the huddle unless he pressed on his cheeks. Bob Hayes, the Olympic sprinting champion who'd hauled in so many of Meredith's passes, had to run with his hands tucked in a hole cut in his jersey.

The Packers opened the game with a 9-minute drive that ended with a touchdown pass from Bart Starr to Boyd Dowler. Starr connected with Dowler again in the 2nd quarter, giving the Packers a 14-0 lead. It would then have been very easy to guess that the Texas-based team were done in by the cold, and were finished.

They weren't. They showed a tremendous amount of courage, and came back. They didn't get a single 1st down in the 2nd quarter, but fumbles by Starr and of a punt return by Wood led to Cowboy scores, making it 14-10 Green Bay at the half.

In the 3rd quarter, the Packers stopped a Cowboy drive with a fumble, and ended another that resulted in a missed field goal by Danny Villanueva. At the start of the 4th quarter, Landry gambled, and called an option pass for Dan Reeves -- later to coach the Denver Broncos, the Giants and the Atlanta Falcons -- to Rentzel. It went for 50 yards and a touchdown.

Despite seemingly everything going against them, the Cowboys led 17-14. The Packers' Don Chandler missed a field goal, and it looked like the Packers would be dethroned.

With 4 minutes and 50 seconds left, the Packers took over on their own 32-yard line. Since the goalposts would be on the goal line until the 1974 season, but Chandler had already missed a 40-yard attempt, this meant that they probably needed to get the ball to the Dallas 30-yard line for a field goal -- but that would only have tied it, and sent this already-miserable experience to overtime.

Starr advanced the Packers with short passes to Dowler and Donny Anderson. But a hit knocked Dowler down, and his head hit the frozen turf. Even with the protection of a football helmet, he was knocked unconscious. As with the Super Bowl nearly a year earlier, Max McGee came in to replace him. Unlike that Super Bowl, McGee would not turn out to be the hero this time.

Lombardi's most famous play was the "power sweep": Both guards, Kramer and Fred "Fuzzy" Thurston, would pull out of the line at the snap, and run in the same direction (either left or right), and Starr would pitch to a running back, who would then run behind the guards. This had worked so many times with Hornung and Jim Taylor, and now with Anderson and Elijah Pitts.

This time, Lombardi had a trick up his sleeve, a play known in the Packer playbook as "54-Give." He called it the "sucker play": It was a fake power sweep, with Gale Gillingham, having replaced Thurston, pulling to the right. This caught the attention of the Cowboys' Hall of Fame defensive tackle, Bob Lilly, and he followed. This left a hole up the middle, and running back Chuck Mercein got to the 3-yard line.

The Packers then needed to get to the 1-yard line for a 1st down, and did. Some of the Cowboys thought Anderson had scored. Had there been a rule at the time, allowing a coach to challenge a call via instant replay, what happened next might not have happened, and Anderson would have been the big hero of the game. But the officials didn't see the ball cross the plane of the goal line, and so it was 1st and goal on the 1.

It was getting late. Lambeau Field did have lights, so darkness was not going to be an issue. But a lack of sunlight was. To make matters worse, the action was now at the south end of the field, where the shadow of the scoreboard loomed, making it even colder. I've seen sources say that, with the wind chill factor (on the old scale), it was as low as 48, or even 55, degrees below zero.

There was less than a minute left. On 1st down, Starr handed off to Anderson, but he slipped on the icy field. On 2nd down, Anderson slipped even before Starr could get the ball to him. Now, it was 3rd and goal on the 1. The Packers called their last timeout. There were 16 seconds left.

On the film, Lilly can be shown kicking the field, and he kicks up specks of frost. The Cowboys actually considered getting a drill, and drilling holes in the field, to get a better footing. I don't know if that was legal at the time, or if they would have had time for it, even if they took all their remaining timeouts.

The Packers' dilemma was equally tricky. Run the ball and fail, and they wouldn't be able to stop the clock in time to kick the tying field goal. Pass the ball, and it could fall incomplete, leaving 4th down with the clock stopped with a few seconds left, and you could still kick the field goal -- but it could also be intercepted, as Tom Brown did with Meredith's desperation pass with just under a minute to play, which clinched the Packer victory in the Championship Game the year before, in Dallas. Kick the field goal now, on 3rd down, and Chandler could miss again; and, even if he makes it, the game is still only tied.

Starr wasn't as good a passer as his contemporaries Johnny Unitas, Sonny Jurgensen and Joe Namath, but he was smarter than any of them. He recommended a play called "31-Wedge," telling Lombardi, "Coach, the linemen can get their footing on the wedge, but the backs are slipping. I'm right there. I can just shuffle my feet and lunge in."

At this point, Lombardi, who had famously said, "Fatigue makes cowards of us all," was as cold and as tired as anyone, and was not looking forward to overtime, so he told Starr, "Run it, and let's get the hell out of here!"

Starr called the play. It required guard Kramer and center Ken Bowman to double-team the Cowboys' other tackle, Jethro Pugh. Bowman snapped the ball, Starr took it, lowered his head, and followed the block.

Touchdown. On the film, Mercein can be shown raising his hands. He's not signaling, "Touchdown!" He's showing the referee that he's not illegally helping Starr. To this day, Cowboy fans insist that Kramer was offside. As if the Cowboys wouldn't win a whole slew of games due to cheating and favorable officials' calls in the years to come. Besides, Anderson might have broken the plane of the goal line 3 plays earlier, and the refs missed that.

Starr (15) over the goal line. Mercein (30) with his hands up.

Kramer (64) having blocked Pugh (75).

This is Walter Iooss Jr.'s photo for Sports Illustrated.

The most familiar shot of the touchdown is in black & white,

and I wanted a color photo.

In his 1981 book Pro Football's 10 Greatest Games, in which he included both this game and the previous season's NFL Championship Game between the Packers and the Cowboys, sports historian (usually specializing in baseball) John Thorn wrote, "It is the most famous touchdown in football history."

He published that book before the 1982 Dwight Clark "The Catch," but put Starr's Sneak ahead of the 1958 Alan Ameche overtime score (he included that title game in the book), and the 1974 Clarence Davis "Sea of Hands" catch (he included that game, too), and apparently ahead of the 1972 Franco Harris "Immaculate Reception" (he did not include that game).

Chandler kicked the extra point to make it 21-17. There were still 13 seconds left. The Packers kicked off, and the Cowboys let it go into the end zone. Meredith threw 2 incompletions, and, at 3:44 PM Central Time (4:44 Eastern), the game was over.

How anybody still had any desire to remain outside

long enough to tear down the goalposts, I'll never know.

The Packers went Super Bowl II, in considerably friendlier weather at the Orange Bowl in Miami, and beat the AFL Champion Oakland Raiders, 33-14. Lombardi retired as head coach after that game, but stayed on as general manager. As with the 1964-65 Yankees, the team seemed to get old all at once, and the dynasty collapsed. The team wouldn't reach the title game again for 29 years, winning Super Bowl XXXI in the 1996-97 season.

After the 1968 season, Lombardi accepted Edward Bennett Williams' offer to be head coach and general manager of the Washington Redskins, and began to rebuild them in 1969. But he developed colon cancer -- much more easily treatable now, but fatal then. He died on September 3, 1970, only 57 years old. The Redskins hired George Allen away from the Los Angeles Rams, and reached Super Bowl VII 3 seasons later.

The Cowboys got tagged as a team that "can't win the big one." They reached Super Bowl V, but lost to the Baltimore Colts. Finally, they came to dominate the NFC in the 1970s, reaching 5 Super Bowls, winning Super Bowls VI and XII. They began calling themselves "America's Team." They were featured on TV so much that people joked that CBS stood for "Cowboys Broadcasting System." Landry remained head coach until 1989, and died in 2000.

The Ice Bowl lives on in sports memory. It still gives chills, even to people like me who weren't even born yet. In 2019, a poll ranked this game 3rd on a list of the 100 Greatest Games of the NFL's 1st 100 years.

*

December 31, 1967 was a Sunday. The 1967 AFL Championship Game was played the same day. The Oakland Raiders beat the Houston Oilers, 40-7 at the Oakland Coliseum. While that stadium has been known for chilly conditions, there was no issue with the weather there on that day.

There were 2 games played in the NBA. The Los Angeles Lakers beat the expansion San Diego Rockets, 147-118. It was the 1st game the Lakers played at their new arena, The Forum, outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

And the San Francisco Warriors beat the other expansion team, the Seattle SuperSonics, 126-124 at the Seattle Center Coliseum. For the Warriors, Nate Thurmond had 34 points and 25 rebounds.

There was 1 game played in the American Basketball Association, which was in its 1st season: The Pittsburgh Pipers beat the Indiana Pacers, 121-106 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh. The Pipers would go on to win the 1st ABA Championship. But before the 1972-73 season, they were out of business. The Pacers would win the ABA title in 1970, '72 and '73, and were 1 of the 4 teams absorbed from the ABA into the NBA in 1976.

There were 4 games played in the NHL that day:

* The New York Rangers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-0, in one of the last events at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Los Angeles Kings, 9-1 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Boston Bruins, 6-4 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* The Chicago Blackhawks beat the Oakland Seals, 3-0 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Montreal Canadiens, the Pittsburgh Penguins, the St. Louis Blues and the Minnesota North Stars were not scheduled.

December 31, 1961: Those Who Stayed Were Champions

December 31, 1961: The NFL Championship Game is played at the 2nd City Stadium in Green Bay, Wisconsin. In 1965, it will be renamed Lambeau Field.

In spite of the previous success of the Green Bay Packers, this is the 1st time the game is played in Green Bay. The previous City Stadium had never hosted it. The Packers had finished 1st in the NFL in 1929, 1930 and 1931; and 2nd behind a team that would have been in the Eastern Division in 1927. But there was no NFL Championship Game for them to host, or for which to be the visiting team, until 1933.

Once that was established, the way the old system worked out, the Championship Game was hosted by the Eastern Division winners in even-numbered years, and the Western Division winners in odd-numbered years. The Packers won the West in 1936, 1938, 1944 and 1960, and played the Championship Game on the road. Their only previous time hosting was in 1939, and with a seating capacity of just 25,000, City Stadium was considered too small, so they moved it to Wisconsin State Fair Park in the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis. They won, beating the New York Giants, 27-0.

In 1956, the NFL gave the Packers an ultimatum: Build a bigger stadium, or move. They built what became Lambeau Field in 1957, and seating capacity was 32,500. By 1961, it was 38,669. (By the time of the 1967 title game, the Ice Bowl, it was 50,861. It reached 56,263 in 1970, 60,890 in 1990, 72,515 in 2003, and 81,441 by 2013.) Now, all they had to do was qualify for the title game, by winning the Western Division.

The 1961 season was also the one in which the teams involved adopted their familiar helmet logos: The Packers, football-shaped "G" monogram, for Green Bay (they've never used a "GB," although Lombardi had practice caps made with such a logo); the Giants, the lower-case "ny," for "New York."

The Giants won the NFL Championship in 1956, with head coach Jim Lee Howell. What we would now call his offensive coordinator was Vince Lombardi, and his defensive coordinator was Tom Landry. Lombardi left to become the head coach of the Packers in 1959. Landry left to become the head coach of the expansion Dallas Cowboys in 1960. It would take them a few years to get their act together.

Meanwhile, the Giants again reached the Championship Game in 1958 and 1959, losing to the Baltimore Colts both times. In 1961, Allie Sherman replaced Howell as Giants head coach, and Y.A. Tittle replaced Charley Conerly as quarterback. But running back Frank Gifford came out of retirement, and Sam Huff still led the best defense in the NFL.

The Giants lost their opener, home to the St. Louis Cardinals, then won 5 straight -- the 1st 4 on the road, as the New York Yankees kept using Yankee Stadium all the way to the World Series -- then lost at home to the Dallas Cowboys, won 4 straight, lost to the Packers in Green Bay, beat the defending Champion Philadelphia Eagles away, and finished with a home tie with the Cleveland Browns. At 10-3-1, they won the Eastern Division.

Back to Lombardi: When he arrived, the Packers were coming off a 1-10-1 season. He told his players, "We may not win, but we won't be losing with the same people." With that in mind, he cut the man then regarded as the team's best player, end Billy Howton, because he didn't think Howton was serious enough.

But he kept the actual best player, Paul Hornung: While Hornung was the life of the party off the field, he was completely dedicated on it. And that summed up what Lombardi meant when he gave the Packers their slogan: "Those who stay will be champions."

Sure enough, in just 1 season, having gotten rid of the unserious, and having promoted the dedicated, he took the Packers to to 7-5. In 1960, they went 8-4, and won the Western Division, but lost the NFL Championship Game to the Philadelphia Eagles. It would be the only postseason game Lombardi ever lost.

In 1961, they lost their opener to the Detroit Lions in Milwaukee, then won 6 straight, lost to away to the Baltimore Colts, won their next 4, lost away to the San Francisco 49ers, and closed with a win away to the Los Angeles Rams, finishing 11-3.

With Bart Starr quarterbacking an offense with Hornung and Jim Taylor running, Boyd Dowler receiving, and one of the great offensive lines of all time, including Hall-of-Famers Jim Ringo at center, Jerry Kramer at guard and Forrest Gregg at tackle -- Lombardi called Gregg "the finest player I ever coached," and he later coached the Cincinnati Bengals into their 1st Super Bowl -- the Pack dropped 49 points on the Browns, 45 on the Colts, and 35 on the Rams.

The defense was fearsome, with end Willie Davis, tackle Henry Jordan, linebacker Ray Nitschke, cornerback Herb Adderley, and safeties Willie Wood, and former Giant Emlen Tunnell all going to the Hall of Fame. They shut out the Chicago Bears, held the Colts and the Minnesota Vikings to just 7 points each, held the Lions to 9 in their rematch, and held the 49ers in their earlier win and the Vikings in their other game to 10.

This was the 1st title game played in Green Bay, which would become famous for its cold weather, especially after the 1967 NFL Championship Game, which became known as the Ice Bowl. Green Bay wasn't the furthest-north city in the NFL anymore -- the expansion Vikings now were -- but they were further north than 2 of the Canadian Football League's 9 teams, the Toronto Argonauts and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

For the 3rd time, the Giants faced a frozen field for an NFL Championship Game. For the 3rd time, they decided to try sneakers rather than cleats, to get better traction. (This would eventually be outlawed.) In 1934 and 1956, both times against the Bears, it worked. This time, it didn't.

The game kicked off at 1:00 PM Central Time (2:00 Eastern). The 1st quarter ended with the game scoreless, and that would be the highlight of the day for the Giants. It was all Packers: Hornung scored on a 6-yard run, Starr threw a 13-yard pass to Dowler, Starr threw a 14-yard pass to Ron Kramer, and Hornung kicked a 17-yard field goal -- all in the 2nd quarter. Green Bay led, 24-0.

In the 3rd quarter, Hornung kicked a 22-yard field goal, and Starr threw a 13-yard touchdown pass to Kramer. Hornung added a 19-yard field goal. Meanwhile, the Packer defense completely shut Big Blue down. Packers 37, Giants 0. It was only the 5th shutout in an NFL Championship Game -- and, after 4 more NFL Championship Games and 56 Super Bowls, it remains the last. (The 1939 game was also a Packer shutout of the Giants, 27-0.

The Packers beat the Giants again in the 1962 NFL Championship Game, 16-7 at Yankee Stadium. The Giants made one more Championship Game in 1963, losing to the Chicago Bears, then collapsed, not reaching the Playoffs again until 1981.

The Packers fell short in 1963 and 1964, then became the only team ever to win 3 straight NFL Championship Games: 1965, 1966 and 1967. This included the 1st 2 Super Bowls, before Lombardi retired. After coaching the Washington Redskins to a big improvement in 1969, Lombardi developed colon cancer, and died the next year.

Nevertheless, he was right about his Packers: In 7 seasons, 5 times, those who stayed were champions.

UPDATE: The Packers have the largest team Hall of Fame in North American sports. Through the 2025 NFL season, the inductees from the Lombardi Era, 1959 to 1968, are:

* Offense: Quarterbacks Bart Starr and Zeke Bratkowski; running backs Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor, Elijah Pitts, Donny Anderson and Travis Williams; wide receivers Gary Knafelc, Ron Kramer, Max McGee and Boyd Dowler; tight ends Marv Fleming and Carroll Dale; centeres Jim Ringo and Ken Bowman; guards Jerry Kramer, Fred "Fuzzy" Thurston and Gale Gillingham; tackles Forrest Gregg, and Bob Skoronski; and kicker-punter Don Chandler.

* Defense: Ends Willie Davis, Dave Hanner and Lionel Aldridge; tackles Henry Jordan and Ron Kostelnik; linebackers Ray Nitschke, Bill Forester, Dan Currie, Dave Robinson and Lee Roy Caffey; cornerbacks Herb Adderley and Jesse Whittenton; and safeties Willie Wood and Bob Jeter.

* Management: Head coach and general manager Vince Lombardi, assistant coaches Red Cochran and Phil Bengtson; scout Jack Vainisi; longtime executives Fred Leicht, Frederick Trowbridge, Jerry Atkinson, Dominic Olejniczak and Tom Miller; trainer Bud Jorgensen and team physician E.S. Brusky; team historian Lee Remmel; team photographer Vernon Biever; band director Wilner Burke; video director Al Treml; broadcaster Ray Scott; journalist Art Daley; the Hall of Fame's founder, William Brault; and longtime Packer fan Al Schneider.

Lombardi, Starr, Hornung, Taylor, Kramer, Thurston, Davis and Nitschke have also been inducted into the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame.

After Lombardi left, it would be a long time before there was another title. Elected to the Packers Hall of Fame from the 1970s: Linebacker Fred Carr, cornerbacks Ken Ellis and Willie Buchanon, running back John Brockington, and placekicker Chester Marcol.

Elected from the 1980s: Quarterbacks Lynn Dickey and Don Majkowski; running back Gerry Ellis; receivers James Lofton and Sterling Sharpe; tight end Paul Coffman; center Larry McCarren; tackle Greg Koch; defensive end Ezra Johnson; linebackers Mike Douglass, John Anderson, Tim Harris and Johnny Holland; cornerback Mark Lee; safeties Johnny Gray and Mark Murphy (not to be confused with the Mark Murphy who was Packer team president from 2007 to 2025); placekicker Jan Stenerud; and executive Robert Parins.

*

December 31, 1961 was a Sunday. The AFL Championship had been played a week earlier, with the Houston Oilers beating the San Diego Chargers, 10-3 at Balboa Stadium in San Diego. There had been 2 college bowl games the day before the NFL Championship Game, and the 4 major bowls were played the next day, New Year's Day. This included the Sugar Bowl, at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, in which Number 1-ranked Alabama clinched the National Championship, beating Arkansas, 10-3.

Baseball was out of season. The NBA scheduled no games for the day. The NHL scheduled 2. The New York Rangers lost to the Boston Bruins, 7-4 at the old Madison Square Garden. And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-2 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. The Montreal Canadiens and the Chicago Black Hawks were not scheduled.

December 30, 1956: "De-FENSE!"

Sam Huff

December 30, 1956: The NFL Championship Game is played at Yankee Stadium. This was the 1st season in which the football version of the New York Giants played their home games there, after 31 seasons across the Harlem River, at the Polo Grounds, home of the baseball Giants.

The Giants selected linebacker Sam Huff of West Virginia in the 3rd round of the 1956 NFL Draft. He did not get along with head coach Jim Lee Howell, and quit. But before he could get on a plane to go home, the team's offensive coordinator caught him at the airport, and talked him into going back. That coach's name was Vince Lombardi.

The defensive coordinator was Tom Landry, who had been perhaps the 1st player in the two-platoon era to became a great defensive back without also playing on offense. He devised the 4-3 defense, with 2 tackles, 2 ends, and 3 linebackers, and dropped Huff to the position of middle linebacker, which did not previously exist. (Up to then, most teams used a 5-2 defense.)

Huff recalled, "Before, I always had my head down, looking right into the center's helmet. Now, I was standing up, and I could see everything, and I mean everything. I always had outstanding peripheral vision. It's one of the reasons I was so perfectly suited for the position."

The Giants had a good offense, with quarterback Charley Conerly; running backs Frank Gifford, Mel Triplett and Alex Webster; end Kyle Rote; and offensive tackle Roosevelt Brown. But, for the 1st time in NFL history, it was a defense that caught everybody's attention. Before the various Fearsome Foursomes (at least 3 teams had lines nicknamed that), before the No-Name Defense in Miami, before the Steel Curtain in Pittsburgh, before the Doomsday Defense in Dallas, before the Jets' New York Sack Exchange, and before the 46 Defense in Chicago, there was the Big Blue Wrecking Crew.

The tackles were Dick Modzelewski and Rosey Grier. The ends were Jim Katcavage and Andy Robustelli. The linebackers were Sam Huff, flanked by Bill Svoboda and Harland Svare. The cornerbacks were Ed Hughes and Dick Nolan. The safeties were Emlen Tunnell and Jimmy Patton. They were so good, a new chant rang around the rafters of the pre-renovation original Yankee Stadium: "De-FENSE! De-FENSE! De-FENSE!"

Huff said, "Landry built the 4-3 defense around me. It revolutionized defense, and opened the door for all the variations of zones and man-to-man coverage, which are used in conjunction with it today."

Gifford, the 1st in a long line of great tailbacks at the University of Southern California, was the glamour boy on offense, but Huff became that on defense. And on December 30, 1956, with the field at Yankee Stadium frozen solid, the Giants played the NFL Championship Game against the Chicago Bears. They were a far cry from the "Monsters of the Midway" who had dominated the NFL in the 1940s.

Three weeks earlier, on December 9, the Bears were playing the Chicago Cardinals at Wrigley Field, in a game that would be depicted in an episode of the ABC sitcom Happy Days. Ed Brown, playing quarterback for the Bears, threw an interception. Richie Cunningham, played by Ron Howard, said he wanted the other quarterback put in. His friend Ralph Malph, played by Donny Most, said of that quarterback, "He's washed up. He's old. He's 30. He's got no future." Richie said, "George Blanda has 2 or 3 good years left."

The Bears won the game, 10-3. And, while Brown got the Bears into the Championship Game, Blanda kept on playing and playing and playing, until the 1975 AFC Championship Game, played 16 days before that episode of Happy Days aired.

Record-wise, the Bears were better, 9-2-1, compared to the Giants' 8-3-1. But the game was no contest. Especially since, echoing their 1934 Championship Game win over the Bears, the Giants wore sneakers instead of shoes with cleats, getting better traction on the frozen field. This would finally be outlawed -- too late for the Bears.

Tunnell returned Blanda's opening kickoff 53 yards. Just 3 plays later, Triplett ran 17 yards for a touchdown. On the Bears' 1t play from scrimmage, Brown fumbled a handoff, and the Giants recovered. On their next drive, Brown was intercepted by Jim Patton. Both times, Ben Agajanian kicked a field goal, and the Giants ended the 1st quarter up 13-0.

In the 2nd quarter, Alex Webster scored on a 3-yard touchdown run. Rick Casares ran the ball in from 9 yards to put the Bears on the scoreboard. They would not get on it again. Before the half was out, Webster would score another touchdown, and Henry Moore would block a punt in the end zone, making it 34-7 New York.

As Huff and the dee-fense continued to shut the Bears down (if not quite shutting them out), the Giants carried out the kind of ball-control offense that Bill Parcells would use for them 30 years later. In the 3rd quarter, Conerly threw a 9-yard touchdown pass to Rote, although Agajanian missed the extra point. In the 4th quarter, Conerly threw a 14-yard pass to Gifford. Final score: Giants 47, Bears 7. It wasn't a "miracle on ice," it was a massacre on ice.

This began a run of 8 seasons in which the Giants would win their Division 6 times, but they wouldn't win the NFL Championship Game again. In 1958, the Giants hosted the Baltimore Colts, and lost in overtime, in what has become known as "The Greatest Game Ever Played." In 1959, they had a rematch at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, and the Colts won again.

By that point, Lombardi was gone, having been named the head coach of the Green Bay Packers. In 1960, Landry was named the 1st head coach of the expansion Dallas Cowboys. That season, the Giants lost the Division title to the Philadelphia Eagles, after a fumble-forcing tackle by Chuck Bednarik knocked Gifford out for the rest of the season.

Gifford sat out the 1961 season, while Allie Sherman was named the Giants' new head coach, and Y.A. Tittle replaced Conerly as quarterback. They won the Division again, but lost the Championship Game to Lombardi's Packers on a snow-strewn Lambeau Field on New Year's Eve. In 1962, with Gifford returning, it was Giants vs. Packers again, this time at Yankee Stadium, again with the field frozen, and the Packers won. In 1963, on yet another frozen field, the Giants went out against the Bears at Wrigley Field, and lost a tough battle.

All the while, Huff became more and more famous. He was named to 5 Pro Bowls. Time magazine had placed college football players on its cover before, but Huff became the 1st NFL player on it, for its issue dated November 30, 1959.

In the 1960 preseason, the CBS news program The Twentieth Century approached Huff, offering to put a microphone on his uniform for practices and an exhibition game, to show TV viewers what a football game really sounded like. Hosted by Walter Cronkite, it was titled "The Violent World of Sam Huff," and it aired, perhaps appropriately, on October 30, Mischief Night.

How successful was the program? The next day, a CBS executive wrote a letter, put it in an envelope, and wrote nothing on the envelope except "Number 70." No actual name, no return address, nothing except "Number 70." Three days later, the letter was delivered to Huff's locker at Yankee Stadium.

The U.S. Postal Service employees knew exactly what, and who, it meant. Even before Lawrence Taylor was born, Huff might have been a better linebacker.

The team seemed to get old all at once in 1964. Huff was traded to the Washington Redskins, Tunnell was already gone, and 1964 would be the last season for Tittle, Gifford and Robustelli. Roosevelt Brown lasted 1 more season. The Yankees, too, seemed to get old overnight between the Autumn of 1964 and the Spring of 1965. Yankee Stadium became a very different place through its closing for renovations in 1973.

In October 1976, the Yankees would be back in the World Series, in a renovated Yankee Stadium; while the new Giants Stadium opened in the New Jersey Meadowlands. It took until 1981 for the Giants to make the Playoffs again, and the 1986 season before they won another title.

*

December 30, 1956 was a Sunday. Actresses Sheryl Lee Ralph and Patricia Kalember were born.

At the time, the NCAA did not permit college football games, even bowl games, to be played on Sundays. Baseball was out of season. There were 4 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Rochester Royals, 96-88 at the old Madison Square Garden. Kenny Sears scored 33 points for the Knicks. This would be the last season in Rochester, as the Royals moved to Cincinnati for 1957-58.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Syracuse Nationals, 105-92 at the Boston Garden.

* The Fort Wayne Pistons beat the Philadelphia Warriors, 104-99 at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In spite of the defeat, the Warriors' Paul Arizin scored 35 points. This would be the last season in Fort Wayne, as the Pistons moved to Detroit for 1957-58.

* And the St. Louis Hawks beat the Minneapolis Lakers, 100-93 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis. Bob Pettit scored 41 points and had 18 rebounds for the Hawks.

And there were 2 games in the NHL. The Boston Bruins beat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-2 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. And the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-0 at the Chicago Stadium. The New York Rangers and the Montreal Canadiens were not scheduled.

December 26, 1960: A Philly Title Among the Ivy

Norm Van Brocklin (11) hands off to Billy Ray Barnes (33)

December 26, 1960: The NFL Championship Game is played at Franklin Field, on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school nestled into the hardscrabble city of Philadelphia. Since this was an odd-numbered year, it was the Eastern Division winner's turn to host the game, and that was the Philadelphia Eagles. They would play the Green Bay Packers.

The Packers, winners of 6 NFL Championships between 1929 and 1944, fell into a down period, going just 1-10-1 in 1958. Vince Lombardi was hired as head coach, and in just 2 seasons, he got them to 8-4 and the Western Division title.

The Eagles were coached by Buck Shaw, and their quarterback was Norm Van Brocklin, who had led the Los Angeles Rams to the 1951 NFL Championship. After losing their season opener at home to the Cleveland Browns, they won 9 straight, before losing away to the Pittsburgh Steelers, and finished 10-2. It was their 1st Eastern Division title since their 1949 NFL Championship. 

Since the Sunday after the last week of the regular season was Christmas Day, the game was moved back to the following day. And, since Franklin Field didn't have lights -- a permanent system wasn't added until 1972, and it still isn't considered NFL-quality -- and the NFL Championship Game had gone to overtime just 2 years earlier, it was decided to move the starting time up to 12:00 Noon.

Temporary seats were added, bring the Ivy League facility to a sellout crowd of 67,325. It had snowed a few days before, and the field was dry in some places, muddy in others, and surrounded by a snowbank. It was 48 degrees at kickoff.

On the 1st play from scrimmage, a lateral from Van Brocklin deflected off the hands of receiver Billy Ray Barnes, and was intercepted by Bill Quinlan. The Packers had possession at the Eagles' 14-yard line, but the Eagle defense held, and forced the Packers to turn it over on downs at the 6. But Barnes shot his team in the foot again with a fumble, and Bill Forester recovered at the 22. Still, the Eagle defense held, and all the Packers could get was a 20-yard field goal from Paul Hornung, and a 3-0 lead.

Early in the 2nd quarter, the Eagles again held the Packers, and Hornung kicked a 23-yard field goal. Later in the quarter, Van Brocklin threw a 35-yard touchdown pass to Tommy McDonald, whose momentum led him to tumble through the end zone and into the snowbank. Bobby Walston kicked the extra point, and the Eagles led, 7-6. The perfectionist Lombardi was surely very displeased. Before the half ended, another Eagle drive led to a 15-yard field goal for Walston.

As time ran out, Hornung tried a field goal from just 13 yards out -- the goalposts were on the goal line until 1974, when they were moved back to the end line -- but it went wide left. The Packers should have been up by no less than 17-10, but were losing, 10-6. The perfectionist Lombardi was surely displeased.

In the 3rd quarter, the Packers got to the Eagles' 34, but turned the ball over on downs. To make matters worse, Hornung, also a great running back, had to leave the game due to a shoulder injury. Van Brocklin led the Eagles downfield, but was intercepted in the end zone by John Symank.

The Packers got the lead back with 13:07 left in regulation, with Bart Starr passing to Max McGee for a 7-yard touchdown. But Ted Dean, a local man from nearby Radnor, Pennsylvania, ran the ensuing kickoff back 58 yards. Van Brocklin got the Eagles close, and handed off to Dean for a 5-yard touchdown run. With 5:21 left, the Eagles led, 17-13.

The Packers got a last chance, starting at their 35 with 1:05 left. Starr got them to the Eagle 22 with 25 seconds to go. He threw a pass to Jim Taylor, who caught it at the 17-yard-line. There, he was faced by Chuck Bednarik, the Eagles' center and linebacker, the last man to play regularly on both offense and defense, and the last link to their 1949 title. Though from the steel town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and a waist gunner on a B-24 bomber in World War II, Bednarik had played on that field for the University of Pennsylvania, before starting a 14-year Hall of Fame career with the Eagles.

Known as "Concrete Charlie," not for his hitting but for his off-season job as a concrete salesman, Bednarik hit Taylor at the 17, and shoved him down to the grass. He held Taylor down, and watched the clock tick down to zero. Today, he probably would have been penalized for delay of game, but that didn't happen.

Taylor knew there would be time for at least one more play, if Bednarik would just let him up, and yelled, "Get off me, you son of a bitch!" Bednarik stayed on him, and saw the clock reach 0:00. Only then did he jump up, pump his fists, and yell, "You can get up now, you son of a bitch, this fucking game is over!"

When you've just won the NFL Championship,

you can smoke a cigarette and a victory cigar,

and nobody is going to say anything.

The Packers had outgained the Eagles, 401-296; and had gotten more 1st downs, 22-13. But they made a lot of mistakes. Lombardi knew he had made more than anyone, going for it on 4th down 3 times rather than attempt field goals. He told the media, "When you get down there, come out with something. I lost the game, not my players."

It was his 1st Playoff game as a head coach. He would never lose another: He guided the Eagles into the NFL Championship Game again in 1961, 1962, 1965, 1966 and 1967, winning them all. Winning the last 2 of those got the Packers into the 1st 2 Super Bowls, and they won those, too.

In contrast, the 1960 title would be a watershed moment for the Eagles. Shaw retired as head coach, and Van Brocklin retired as a player, feeling that backup Sonny Jurgensen was ready to lead the team. Van Brocklin hoped that he would be named the new head coach.

Instead, team owner James P. Clark -- the leader of a group known as "The Happy Hundred" -- promoted assistant coach Nick Skorich. He led them to a 10-4 record in 1961. Before the next season, Clark died of a stroke, and the team's ownership situation was a mess, leading to seasons of 3-10-1 and 2-10-2.

Van Brocklin was hired as the head coach of the expansion Minnesota Vikings, and later coached the Atlanta Falcons, but never did well as head coach. Maybe he would have done better with the Eagles, the team he knew. Or maybe he would have been frustrated by the front-office mess.

For a while, the Kennedy family, looking for something for President John F. Kennedy to do once he was no longer President, was considering buying the team. His younger brother, Senator Ted Kennedy, a former football star at Harvard, was set to meet with representatives of the Happy Hundred in October 1962, but had to cancel the meeting, due to the Cuban Missile Crisis. By the time the Kennedys were ready to resume negotiations, the Happy Hundred had started them with trucking magnate Jerry Wolman. He completed his purchase of the team on December 4, 1963. By that point, JFK had been assassinated.

Wolman did the right thing in firing Skorich, but made a mistake in hiring failed Notre Dame coach Joe Kuharich, a moralist who traded the hard-partying Jurgensen for the strait-laced Norm Snead. Kuharich got the Eagles to a 2nd-place finish at 9-5 in 1966, but in just 2 more years, had crashed to 2-12.

Another trucking company boss, Leonard Tose, a former member of the Happy Hundred, bought the Eagles from the bankrupt Wolman in 1969, and rebuilt the team. It took time, but in 1978, they made the Playoffs again. In 1980, they won the NFC Championship, but lost the Super Bowl.

Tose, an alcoholic and a compulsive gambler, also went bankrupt, and had to sell the team to Norman Braman in 1985. Under Braman, the team was good enough to make the Playoffs, but not to reach the Super Bowl. Despised by Eagle fans for his cheapness and his absentee ownership, he sold the team to Jeffrey Lurie in 1995. They made 4 straight NFC Championship Games, but only got to the Super Bowl the last time, the 2004 season, losing.

After a rebuild, they finally won Super Bowl LII in 2018, ending a 57-season title drought. Along with the Cleveland Browns (last title in 1964), the Detroit Lions (1957) and the Arizona Cardinals (1947, then the Chicago Cardinals), the Eagles were 1 of the last 4 teams to have won an NFL Championship, but not a Super Bowl. Some people ascribed the drought to "The Curse of the Dutchman," but Van Brocklin never made a public statement against the Eagles for not hiring him as head coach.

The Eagles left Franklin Field for Veterans Stadium in 1971. The shift from Ivy League stadium built just for football to a concrete oval built for both baseball and football in the middle of a parking lot could not have been more stark. In 2003, they moved a new football-only stadium built in the same sports complex, Lincoln Financial Field. The Vet lasted 33 years before it was demolished. Amazingly, Franklin Field still stands, having opened in 1922, with the University of Pennsylvania having played football on the site since 1895.

UPDATE: Through the 2025 season, the Eagles have elected the following players from the 1960 NFL Champions to their team Hall of Fame: Chuck Bednarik, Norm Van Brocklin, Sonny Jurgensen, Tommy McDonald, Tom Brookshier, Pete Retzlaff, Timmy Brown, Maxie Baughan and Bobby Walston; plus team executive Jim Gallagher. They have not, however, elected head coach Buck Shaw.

Bednarik McDonald, Brooshier, Retzlaff, Brown, Baughan, Walston and broadcaster Bill Campbell have also been elected to the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame -- but not Shaw, or, even more oddly, Van Brocklin.

*

December 26, 1960 was, a Monday. Baseball was out of season. No NHL games were scheduled.  There were 4 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 119-112 at the old Madison Square Garden. Elgin Baylor scored 44 points in defeat.

* The Boston Celtics beat their arch-rivals, the Philadelphia Warriors, 119-115 at the Boston Garden. Wilt Chamberlain scored 30 points and had 36 rebounds, but, as was so often the case against Wilt, the Celtics had the better team.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Cincinnati Royals, 137-132 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. Oscar Robertson scored 43 points for the Royals.

* And the St. Louis Hawks beat the Syracuse Nationals, 133-112 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis.

And in English soccer, Arsenal and Yorkshire team Sheffield Wednesday play to a 1-1 draw at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London.

October 16, 1937: The Seven Blocks of Granite

The 1937 Fordham offense.

Back row, left to right: Joe Granski, Dom Principe, Steve Kazlo.

Middle: Angelo Fortunato.

Front, left to right: Johnny Druze, Al Babartsky, Vince Lombardi,

Alex Wojciechowicz, Mike Kochel, Ed Franco, Harry Jacunski.

October 16, 1937: Fordham University and the University of Pittsburgh play to a scoreless tie in front of 52,000 fans at the Polo Grounds, where Fordham played home games that were too big for their on-campus stadium in The Bronx.

Pitt were coached by Dr. John "Jock" Sutherland. He was a Scottish immigrant, hence "Jock"; and a licensed dentist, hence he was usually called "Doctor Jock." On the field, the Panthers were led by two-way back Marshall "Biggie" Goldberg, later a star for the Chicago Cardinals.

Fordham were coached by Jim Crowley, who had been one of the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame in 1924, and were led by the most famous offensive line in college football history, "The Seven Blocks of Granite." (The Four Horsemen's line had been called the Seven Mules.)

This line featured 2 future Pro Football Hall-of-Famers. Center Alex Wojciechowicz would star in the NFL for the Detroit Lions and the Philadelphia Eagles, but it was one of the guards who would make a bigger impact, though not as a player: Vince Lombardi. A 3rd future Hall-of-Famer, future Giants owner Wellington Mara, was then a student at Fordham.

The Blocks were: Center, Wojciechowicz; guards, Lombardi and Mike Kochel; tackles, Al Babartsky and Ed Franco; and ends, Leo Paquin, replaced in 1937 by Harry Jacunski, and Johnny Druze. Druze lived until 2005, and was the last survivor.

Monument to the Seven Blocks of Granite,

on the Fordham campus

Both teams finished the season undefeated, Pitt ranked Number 1 in the country, Fordham Number 3. Neither team accepted a bowl bid, though it should be kept in mind that the bowls were still, for the most part, a new idea. The Rose Bowl had been played since 1902, and continuously since 1916; however, the Orange Bowl and the Sugar Bowl only started in 1935, and the Cotton Bowl in 1937.

This was the 3rd season in a row that these teams played each other at the Polo Grounds, and it was the 3rd time in a row that the game ended 0-0. The teams would face each other again in Pittsburgh on October 29, 1938. Fordham weren't so lucky this time: Pitt beat them, 24-13. It was the only game Fordham lost all season. From 1935 to 1938, Fordham went 24-3-7, while Pitt went 32-4-4.

*

October 16, 1937 was a Saturday. Baseball season had ended 6 days earlier, also at the Polo Grounds, with the New York Yankees beating the New York Giants in Game 5 to clinch the World Series. The NHL season wouldn't start for another 19 days. There was a professional basketball league at this time, the National Basketball League, but results of individual games are not readily available.

But there were other college football games that day, including the following:

* Alabama beat Tennessee, 14-7 at Shields-Watkins Field (now Neyland Stadium) in Knoxville, Tennessee.

* The University of California beat the College of the Pacific, 20-0 at California Memorial Stadium in the San Francisco suburb of Berkeley. Cal finished Number 2 in the national rankings, between Pitt and Fordham, and beat Alabama in the Rose Bowl.

As for Pacific: From 1933 to 1946, the Stockton, California-based school was coached by "The Grand Old Man of Football," Amos Alonzo Stagg, now 75 years old. For 41 seasons before coming to Stockton, he had coached at the University of Chicago. He last coached at Stockton College in 1958, at the age of 96, and lived to be 103. The school's name was changed to the University of the Pacific in 1961, but it dropped its football program in 1995.

* Auburn beat Mississippi State, 33-7 at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama.

* Michigan State beat Missouri, 2-0 at Memorial Stadium (now Faurot Field) in Columbia, Missouri. Auburn beat Michigan State in the Orange Bowl.

* Louisiana State beat Mississippi, 13-0 at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

* Rice University and the University of Tulsa played to a tie, 0-0 at Rice Field in Houston.

* Colorado beat Brigham Young University, 14-0 at Colorado Stadium (now Folsom Field) in the Denver suburb of Boulder, Colorado. They were led by running back Byron White, so fast he was nicknamed "Whizzer."

Rice beat Colorado in the Cotton Bowl. In 1939, the NCAA held its 1st basketball tournament, and Colorado were 1 of the last 4 teams in it. Whizzer White played on this team as well. Through the 2022 NCAA Tournament, he is the only person ever to play in both a bowl game and what we now call the Final Four. He played 3 seasons in the NFL. He served in U.S. Naval Intelligence in World War II, and was awarded 2 Bronze Stars. As if that wasn't enough, he went into law, then into politics. From 1962 to 1993, he was a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

* Texas Tech beat Arizona, 20-0 at Tech Field in Lubbock.

* West Virginia beat Xavier, 13-7 at Corcoran Stadium, Xavier's home field, in Cincinnati. West Virginia went on to beat Texas Tech in the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas.

* Oklahoma and Nebraska, eventually to be arch-rivals, played to a 0-0 tie at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska.

* Washington and Washington State, arch-rivals, played to a 7-7 tie at Rogers Field in Pullman, Washington. The rivalry's trophy, the Apple Cup, would not be introduced until 1963.

* Army lost to Yale, 15-7 at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York. Navy played Harvard to a 0-0 tie, at Thompson Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland.

* Carnegie Tech, whose campus was pretty much next-door to Pitt's, beat Notre Dame, 9-7 at Pitt's facility, named Pitt Stadium. In 1967, Carnegie Institute of Technology merged with the nearby Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, to form Carnegie-Mellon University. They now compete in NCAA Division III. Also in Pittsburgh, Duquesne University now competes in NCAA Division I FCS (formerly known as Division I-AA).

* Among New York City teams other than Fordham, Columbia beat Penn, 26-6 at Baker Field in Manhattan. New York University beat St. John's -- not the University in Queens, but the College in Annapolis, Maryland -- 59-0 at Ohio Field in The Bronx. I can't find a reference to when St. John's dropped football, but NYU did so after the 1952 season.

City College of New York beat Susquehanna University, 8-6 in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. CCNY dropped football after the 1950 season, while Susquehanna now competes in NCAA Division III.

Manhattan College lost to Villanova, 20-0 at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. So you have a school named Manhattan, whose campus is in The Bronx, and playing football in Brooklyn. After the 1942 season, the manpower drain of World War II led Manhattan to suspend its program, and it has never been restarted.

* Among New Jersey teams, Princeton beat the University of Chicago, 16-7 at Stagg Field in Chicago. And Rutgers beat Springfield College, 26-0 at Pratt Field in Springfield, Massachusetts. Springfield, formerly the Springfield YMCA, birthplace of basketball, now competes in NCAA Division III.

* The day after these games, Santa Clara University beat the University of Portland, 27-0 at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco. Santa Clara went on to beat LSU in the Sugar Bowl. Portland shut down their football program after the 1949 season, and should not be confused with Portland State University, who compete in NCAA Division I FCS. Santa Clara eventually dropped to NCAA Division II, and shut their program down after the 1992 season.

January 15, 1967: Super Bowl I

January 15, 1967: The 1st AFL-NFL World Championship Game is held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, between the Champions of the American Football League, their founding franchise, the Kansas City Chiefs; and the Champions of the National Football League, their most successful franchise with 10 Championships, the Green Bay Packers. It is the beginning of the competitive phase of the merger between the 2 leagues, which had battled since 1960.

Lamar Hunt, founder of the AFL and founding owner of the Chiefs, claimed he'd seen his children playing with a little rubber ball, marketed as a "Super Ball." So he suggested that the Game be called "the Super Bowl." The name stuck, and in 1969, it was made official. It wasn't until 1971 that the Roman numerals came into effect: Super Bowl V. The 1st 4 were retroactively renamed Super Bowl I, Super Bowl II, Super Bowl III and Super Bowl IV.

NOTE: Unlike the writers who cover college football, NFL writers did not give this game the label "Game of the Century." But, 10 months later, Number 1 USC would play Number 2 UCLA on the same field, and that game would receive the label.

Tom Brown, whose interception had clinched the Packers' 34-27 NFL Championship Game win over the Dallas Cowboys, had played 61 games in Major League Baseball, all with the Washington Senators in 1963. This game made him the 1st man ever to play in Major League Baseball and in a Super Bowl. (Deion Sanders would later become the 1st to play in both a World Series and a Super Bowl. As of the 2021 season in each sport, he remains the only one.)

The Packers took a 7-0 lead in the 1st quarter, as the 1st touchdown in Super Bowl history was a pass from Bart Starr to Max McGee. In the 2nd quarter, the Chiefs tied it. The Packers scored another touchdown, and the Chiefs added a field goal, to make the halftime score 14-10 in Green Bay's favor. The AFL Champions were very much still in the game.

The AFL Champions did not score again. So much has been made of the Green Bay offense (with Hall-of-Famers Bart Starr, Jim Taylor and Forrest Gregg, with Hall-of-Famer Paul Hornung injured and unable to play) that their defense (with Hall-of-Famers Willie Davis, Ray Nitschke, Herb Adderley and Willie Wood) often gets overlooked. But the Chiefs (whose Hall-of-Famers included Len Dawson on offense and Buck Buchanan, Bobby Bell and Willie Lanier on defense) would not score again until the 1967 AFL season dawned.

The Packers added touchdowns at each end of the 3rd quarter, and added another touchdown with 6:35 left in the game. Final score: Packers 35, Chiefs 10.

Packer coach and general manager (not a part-owner, but effectively controlling the team as if he were the owner) Vince Lombardi received the silver trophy made by Tiffany that would, just 4 years later, following his early death from cancer, bear his name. Starr was named the game's Most Valuable Player.

Rozelle presents Lombardi with the Trophy

Despite both networks having aired the game live, neither CBS nor NBC has a complete videotape copy of the game. Videotape was expensive, and the game was simply taped over. Some pieces of videotape of the game have been found, and have been combined with surviving radio broadcasts and the footage that NFL Films (which, smartly, also got the AFL's permission to record their games) has of the game, to produce a full play-by-play.

This was also the only Super Bowl that was not a sellout: Although the Coliseum seated over 93,000 people (an exact figure is hard to pin down), only 61,946 people paid to see it. They paid $12 for any seat, about $87 in today's money. Even by today's regular-season NFL standards, that's cheap.

The Chiefs did recover, and after the Packers also won Super Bowl II over the Oakland Raiders, and the New York Jets beat the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III in the most stunning upset in pro football history, the Chiefs beat the Minnesota Vikings to win Super Bowl IV on January 11, 1970. Clearly, Super Bowl III was an upset not because the NFL was so much better than the AFL, but because the Packers were so good.

*

Obviously, this was the only professional football game played on that 1st "Super Sunday." There were 4 games played that day in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Chicago Bulls, 131-116 at the Chicago Stadium. This as the Bulls' 1st season of play. Four months later, the Knicks drafted Walt Frazier. Three years later, they finally won their 1st NBA Championship.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Boston Celtics, 110-95 at the Boston Garden. This runaway victory of Wilt Chamberlain and the Sixers over Bill Russell and the C's was a foreshadowing: While they had won the last 8 NBA titles, Boston would lose this year's Eastern Conference Finals to Philadelphia, which would win the title.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Detroit Pistons, 127-116 at Cobo Hall in Detroit.

* And the St. Louis Hawks beat the San Francisco Warriors, 114-112 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis.

This was the last season for the NHL's "Original Six" teams. And all 6 were in action:

* The New York Rangers beat the Detroit Red Wings, 2-0 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins, 3-1 at the Boston Garden. So both the Celtics and the Bruins lost at home on the same day; and each, arguably, to their biggest rivals.

* And the Chicago Blackhawks beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-0 at the Chicago Stadium. So the Stadium hosted both the Bulls and the Hawks on the same day. The Hawks, for the 1st time in their 41-season history, would finish 1st overall in the NHL in the regular season. But the Leafs would beat them in the Stanley Cup Semifinals, and then the Canadiens in the Finals.

That night, The Rolling Stones appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, and did not exactly get to sing what they would hoped would be their new big hit single. I have a separate entry for that event.

And Lisa Velez, later to become the singer Lisa Lisa, was born on this day.

January 14, 1968: Vince Lombardi Hangs Up His Whistle

Vince Lombardi, carried off the field

by Forrest Gregg & Jerry Kramer

January 14, 1968: The 2nd AFL-NFL World Championship Game is played at the Orange Bowl in Miami. It will be retroactively named Super Bowl II.

For the 5th time in the last 7 years, the Green Bay Packers were the NFL Champions. Vince Lombardi had been their head coach, and their general manager. Two weeks earlier, he won his 3rd straight NFL title by guiding the Packers to victory over the Dallas Cowboys in a game known as the Ice Bowl. Now, he was going to coach in America's most famous warm-weather city. And there was a rumor going around that he was going to retire after the game.

The AFL Champions, for the 1st time, were the Oakland Raiders. John Rauch was their coach, with Al Davis as their owner and GM. Davis had wanted the AFL to beat the NFL, not merge with them. But the merger had happened. Now, Davis wanted to beat the NFL's signature team and signature coach.

It was no contest. In the 1st quarter, Don Chandler kicked a 39-yard field goal to put the Packers on the board. In the 2nd quarter, he added 2 more, while Bart Starr threw a 62-yard touchdown pass to Boyd Dowler. The Raiders' only score of the 1st half was a 23-yard touchdown pass from Daryle Lamonica, known as "The Mad Bomber," to Bill Miller. It was 16-7 Packers.

In the 3rd quarter, Donny Anderson ran the ball in from the 2-yard line, and Chandler kicked a 31-yard field goal. In the 4th quarter, Herb Adderley intercepted a Lamonica pass, and returned it 60-yard touchdown. Lamonica threw another touchdown pass to Miller, but it was too little, too late. The Packers won, 33-14.

Lombardi did retire. But he came out of retirement in 1969, to become the head coach and general manager of the Washington Redskins. He got them to improve from 5-9 to 7-5-2 in his 1st season, but it would be his only season: He fell victim to colon cancer, and died shortly before the start of the 1970 season, only 57 years old.

The Raiders would suffer some agonizing postseason losses, before the 1976 season, winning Super Bowl XI.

*

January 14, 1968 was a Sunday. James Todd Smith, the rapper and actor known as LL Cool J, was born.

Baseball was out of season. There was 1 game played in the NBA: The St. Louis Hawks beat the Chicago Bulls, 99-92 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis. There were 3 games in the American Basketball Association, which was in its 1st season:

* The Minnesota Muskies beat the Oakland Oaks, 128-107 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Houston Mavericks beat the Indiana Pacers, 92-87 at Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston.

* And the Dallas Chaparrals beat the Anaheim Amigos, 130-123 at the Anaheim Convention Center.

And there were 3 games in the NHL:

* The Boston Bruins beat the Minnesota North Stars, 9-2 at the Boston Garden.

* The Chicago Black Hawks and the St. Louis Blues played to a tie, 2-2 at the Chicago Stadium.

* And the Philadelphia Flyers beat the Oakland Seals, 6-3 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

January 2, 1966: Packers 9, Bears 8 & Jim Brown's Last Game

As the British comedy duo Flanders & Swann, popular at the time,

would have sung, "Mud, mud, glorious mud!"

January 2, 1966: For the 1st time, the National Football League season extends beyond the end of the calendar year. This was due to the fact that a Playoff was needed to decide the Western Division title. The Green Bay Packers won it, in overtime over the Baltimore Colts, earning the right, under the system then in place, as Western Champion, to host the NFL Championship Game. (Yes, Baltimore was placed in the Western Division. I'm not saying it made sense.)

Coached by Vince Lombardi, the Packers had previously lost the title game in 1960, then won it in 1961 and 1962. Lombardi had retooled a bit, and was ready for another title.

Their opponents would be the defending Champions, the Eastern Division winners, the Cleveland Browns, coached by Blanton Collier, with Frank Ryan at quarterback, and with Jim Brown, widely regarded as the best player in the game, running the ball.

Green Bay, and its new City Stadium, recently renamed Lambeau Field in memory of Packer co-founder and coach Earl "Curly" Lambeau, had faced bad Winter weather before. On the night of New Year's Day, there was a snowstorm. The stadium was sold out, anyway, with 50,852 seats. The snow was cleared, but the game-time (1:10 PM Central Time, 2:10 Eastern) temperature was 26 degrees, a 12 mile-per-hour wind blew in, rain fell during the game, and it turned to snow. For most of the game, the field was a muddy mess.

Lombardi, once again, proved to be a master tactician, assigning middle linebacker Ray Nitschke to shadow Jim Brown all day. Brown carried the ball 12 times, for 50 yards. This forced Cleveland's other players to step up and try to win the game. The strategy worked, as the Packers gained twice as many yards from scrimmage as the Browns.

Bart Starr threw a 47-yard touchdown pass to Carroll Dale, giving the Packers a 7-0 lead. Ryan threw a 17-yard touchdown pass to Gary Collins, but Lou Groza, about to turn 42 and then the all-time leading points scorer in NFL history, missed the extra point. He later kicked a 24-yard field goal, and the Browns ended the 1st quarter up, 9-7.

The 2nd quarter saw only field goals: Two by Don Chandler of the Packers, 15 and 23 yards; and one by Groza, 28 yards. It was 13-12 Green Bay at the half. In the 3rd quarter, Paul Hornung scored on a 13-yard touchdown run, putting the Packers up 20-12. In the 4th quarter, Chandler kicked a 29-yard field goal, and the final score was Packers 23, Browns 12.

This was the Packers' 9th NFL Championship. Two years earlier, the Chicago Bears, the Packers' arch-rivals, won the title, their 8th. This 9th title put the Packers ahead. They have been the winningest team in NFL history ever since, increasing their total to 13 NFL Championships. This included winning the NFL title the next 2 seasons, and then winning the 1st 2 Super Bowls. They have now won 4 Super Bowls: I, II, XXXI and XLV.

The Bears won Super Bowl XX, but that's been it: Through Super Bowl LV in 2021, the NFL Championship count stands as follows: Green Bay Packers 13, Chicago Bears 9, New York Giants 8, Pittsburgh Steelers 6, New England Patriots 6, Washington Redskins/Commanders 5, San Francisco 49ers 5, Dallas Cowboys 5, Detroit Lions 4, Cleveland Browns 4, Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts 4, Philadelphia Eagles 4, Cleveland/St. Louis/Los Angeles Rams 4, Oakland/Los Angeles/Las Vegas Raiders 3, Denver Broncos 3, Chicago/St. Louis/Arizona Cardinals 2, Miami Dolphins 2, Baltimore Ravens 2, Kansas City Chiefs 2, Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2, New York Jets 1, New Orleans Saints 1, Seattle Seahawks 1.

And for those of you who say that titles won before the Super Bowl began with the 1966 season don't count, you're morons: They do.

The Browns would lose the NFL Championship Game in 1968 and 1969; and the AFC Championship Game in the seasons of 1986, 1987 and 1989. They have not won the title since 1964.

No one knew it at the time, but this turned out to be Brown's last game. He was now trying his hand as an actor. The following Summer, he was in London, filming the World War II movie The Dirty Dozen. He was enjoying himself, feeling freer than he ever had.

But preseason training camps were underway, and Browns owner Art Modell told him to leave and come back to join his teammates in Berea, Ohio. Brown refused, telling Modell, already a noted cheapskate, that he could make more money and sustain fewer injuries as an actor than as a football player. Brown retired from football, taking away the one power that Modell had over him, which was to have an undue effect on his football career, but giving up that football career. The 1964 NFL Championship would be his only title.

*

January 2, 1966 was a Sunday. The American Football League Championship Game had been played a week earlier, on December 26, 1965. The Buffalo Bills beat the San Diego Chargers, 23-0 at Balboa Stadium in San Diego.

This was the last season in which the AFL Champion didn't get to play the NFL Champion in a World Championship Game. Through Super Bowl LV in 2021, the Bills have never won a Super Bowl, losing 4 of them. The Chargers, AFL Champions in 1963, haven't won one, either, losing 1 in San Diego before returning to Los Angeles. At least those teams have been there: The Browns still haven't. 

Baseball was out of season. There were 4 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Philadelphia 76ers, 133-122 at the Philadelphia Civic Center. It was just another day at the office for the Sixers' Wilt Chamberlain: 50 points and 23 rebounds.

* The Cincinnati Royals beat the Baltimore Bullets, 138-107 at the Cincinnati Gardens.

* The San Francisco Warriors beat the Detroit Pistons, 136-113 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit. Rick Barry scored 43 points.

* And the Boston Celtics beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 124-113 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. This was a rematch of the previous season's NBA Finals, and a setup of the current season's, with the Celtics winning both.

And the NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Montreal Canadiens, 6-3 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-0 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* And the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Boston Bruins, 3-1 at the Chicago Stadium.