Team That History Forgot
The 1960s Kansas City Chiefs

By (author) Rick Gosselin

ISBN13: 9781496243102

Imprint: University of Nebraska Press

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press

Format: Hardback

Published: 01/11/2025

Availability: Not yet available

Description
While the Kansas City Chiefs are the NFL’s newest dynasty, winning three Super Bowls since 2020, most fans don’t recall the team’s earliest successful years before decades of futility. What about the underdog losers of that very first Super Bowl? When the Kansas City Chiefs played the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl I in 1967, they had only been in existence for seven seasons and were tasked with the monumental burden of representing the still-fledgling American Football League against the NFL’s team of the decade. The Chiefs won their first AFL Championship in 1962, as the Dallas Texans, when owner Lamar Hunt decided the Dallas market couldn’t support two pro football teams-it could barely support one. After just three seasons, the Texans relocated to Kansas City, where they became the Chiefs. Under future Hall-of-Famers Len Dawson, Buck Buchanan, and Johnny Robinson, they were the winningest AFL team and helped integrate pro football more than any other team in the 1960s. In The Team That History Forgot, Rick Gosselin explores the team’s struggles and triumphs in its early years, the competition created by the AFL in player signing wars, the recruitment of athletes from historically Black colleges and universities, the loss of the franchise identity with the move from Texas to Kansas City, the first Super Bowl and the humiliating loss against the Packers, and the moves the Chiefs made to recover from that loss and win Super Bowl IV, the last game before the two rival leagues finally merged in 1970. The early Chiefs set a bar for excellence that the team continues to pursue today.
List of Illustrations Foreword Introduction Chapter 1: The AFL Chapter 2: The Dallas Texans Chapter 3: Dallas Chapter 4: Len Dawson Chapter 5: Johnny Robinson Chapter 6: Kansas City Chapter 7: HBCU Chapter 8: Bobby Bell Chapter 9: The AFL West Chapter 10: The Merger Chapter 11: Mike Garrett Chapter 12: The Buffalo Bills Chapter 13: Hank Stram Chapter 14: Western Dominance Chapter 15: The Rockpile Chapter 16: A Dallas Showdown? Chapter 17: The Lombardi Packers Chapter 18: A Fear of the Unknown Chapter 19: The College All-Star Game Chapter 20: Otis Taylor Chapter 21: The Hammer Chapter 22: The Interview Chapter 23: Hope Chapter 24: Adjustments Chapter 25: The Interception Chapter 26: The Sting of Defeat Chapter 27: Jan Stenerud Chapter 28: Willie Lanier Chapter 29: The Chicago Bears Chapter 30: The Long Road Back Chapter 31: The Minnesota Vikings Chapter 32: The Dallas Cowboys Epilogue Acknowledgements
  • Local history
  • History of the Americas
  • American football
  • General (US: Trade)
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List Price: £28.99