For you NFL(AFL) buffs

[Wolf]

I ran across this site looking for Texan-Bear pictures and for some of you that like the NFL and its history. I think it is cool to look back at actual newspaper clippings and such. I don't know what all this site has on it,for I just now found (so it may not be much)


http://www.remembertheafl.com/AFLclippings.htm

[Brando]

Originally Posted by Wolf

I ran across this site looking for Texan-Bear pictures and for some of you that like the NFL and its history. I think it is cool to look back at actual newspaper clippings and such. I don't know what all this site has on it,for I just now found (so it may not be much)


http://www.remembertheafl.com/AFLclippings.htm

Another great find Wolf!



Rep! when I can.......

[Wolf]

I didn't know this

In January 1965, 21 blacks made history by forcing AFL All-Star Game out of New Orleans
By DAVID BARRON
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

After a year in which Houston hosted two of the biggest events in sports — the Super Bowl and the baseball All-Star Game — and landed the 2006 NBA All-Star Game, today the city marks the 40th anniversary of a lesser-known event that remains unique in the history of sports in America.

Only 15,446 fans filtered into Jeppesen Stadium for the American Football League's East-West All-Star Game on Jan. 16, 1965. The West All-Stars won in a rout 38-14, and it's not uncommon for participants to say they don't remember a thing about the events of the day.

And yet the game — more accurately, the events that led it to Houston in the first place — was a revolution akin to Muhammad Ali's refusal to enter the draft or Harry Edwards' efforts to organize a boycott of the 1968 Olympics by black American athletes.

When 21 black football players refused to play the All-Star Game as scheduled in New Orleans because of race-related slights, threats and insults they suffered in that city, they staged a signal event in the volatile mixture of sports and society that continues today.

"Someone had to take a stand and stop players from being treated as second-class citizens," said Ernie Ladd — then a 6-9, 300-pound defensive tackle, now a businessman in Rayville, La. "It's a great story. Spike Lee should do a movie about it.

http://www.remembertheafl.com/AFLclippings.htm

Unwelcome guests

It was against that backdrop that the AFL All-Stars began to filter into the city a week before the scheduled Jan. 17, 1965, game.
Sid Blanks, a rookie running back for the Oilers who had been the captain of an otherwise all-white team at Texas A&I in the early 1960s, said the problems started at the airport.

"I couldn't get any transportation to the hotel," Blanks said. "I finally got a skycap to tell me, 'You need to get the right cab because you're colored.' I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'They won't pick you up.' I asked why not, and he said, 'It's a little different here. If you're colored, you can't ride in just any cab.' "

In an interview with NFL Films for a documentary on the history of blacks in pro football, San Diego Chargers defensive end Earl Faison said the insults and racial slurs increased even when players were able to track down a "colored" taxi to get them to their hotel.
"I was checking in to the hotel and heard voices in the background asking, 'Is that Ernie Ladd?' " Faison said. "And another guy said, 'No, Ernie Ladd is a bigger n----- than that. That Ladd is a big n-----.' "

[Wolf]

In April 1966, Al Davis, the new commissioner of the AFL, didn’t need any literary license. Wellington Mara, owner of the New York Giants, had given him a great gift to create a compelling story; it came under the heading of nonfiction. Mara signed Pete Gogolak, Buffalo’s kicker, who was technically a free agent. NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle had approved Gogolak’s contract with the Giants. The AFL’s new warlord was happily stunned that his enemies had given him a license to go to war. As soon as the signing became public, Davis told his staff at AFL headquarters, “The NFL will never know what hit it.”

almost to the bottom of the page on the link

about 80 percent down the page

The AFL then had a little-known technical rule mandating that if an injured player were officially placed on his team’s injured list 24 hours or closer to a weekend game, then that player would be exposed to a waiver claim until 24 hours after the game. Sid Gillman badly needed the extra roster slot for San Diego’s upcoming game, so he took the risk of placing Kemp on waivers over the weekend. Gillman reasoned that the rule was so arcane and furthermore had never been used before, and that no one would be alert enough to claim Kemp. He was wrong.

[Texan_Bill]

Good stuff guys!!!

[Brando]

Here is a page I found searching for the NFL Houston Texans...


link

# 10 Don Trull Quarterback
Houston Texans Game Used Jersey

[Texan_Bill]

Originally Posted by Brando

Here is a page I found searching for the NFL Houston Texans...


link

The Logo was:



The helmet:




Unfortunately the WFL saw fit to move the team to Shreveport during the first season and renaming them the Steamers.

[Brando]

Originally Posted by Texan_Bill

The Logo was:



The helmet:




Unfortunately the WFL saw fit to move the team to Shreveport during the first season and renaming them the Steamers.

What if they moved to Cleveland from Shreveport?

[Texan_Bill]

Originally Posted by Brando

What if they moved to Cleveland from Shreveport?

[ATX]

Big mistake on my part to google Cleveland Steamer.

[Brando]

Originally Posted by ATX

Big mistake on my part to google Cleveland Steamer.

lol

[texanhead08]

Charlie Frazier is a great guy. I've known him since I was about 10 and you will never meet a nicer guy.

[Brando]

From the Vault at SI.com

Maybe HOUSTON can devise a way to get the divisions realigned so it can meet the Steelers once in the Super Bowl instead of in the AFC playoffs. Wouldn't it be nice to have Bum Phillips spinning yarns during a week of Super Bowl press conferences rather than on the practice field at Three Rivers Stadium, squinting into the snowflakes and saying, "If anyone knows how to play Pittsburgh, it's us."

It's no secret that Phillips is sending it all in this season. Every move Houston made was aimed at that mighty giant to the north. Phillips traded Quarterback Dan Pastorini to Oakland for Ken Stabler, who has beaten the Steelers the last three times he has faced them. Phillips also acquired Oakland Safety Jack Tatum for two, possibly three, games: he'll use Tatum as a nickel back stationed 10 yards deep, and let's see Pittsburgh run Swann and Stallworth on those crossing patterns then! Bum even went the Steeler bloodline route in the draft, picking Bradshaw's younger brother, Craig, despite the fact that he'd been a backup quarterback in college.

Everyone's cashing in on the Oilers. Some 150 different LUV YA BLUE items have been marketed, including a piano. They all luv Kenny the Snake. Fans lined up to buy little rubber snakes. No boos have been heard in the Astrodome. Stabler responded by upping his work load during the exhibition season. In the first game he was supposed to go a quarter, and he played a half. In the second game he was supposed to play a half, and he went three quarters.

Stabler has been spreading his passes around, too, getting all the receivers, including Earl Campbell, into the act, which will earn him no enemies on the offense. His soft passes have been just right for Box Office Billy Johnson, who's now a genuine receiving threat. The Oilers need a healthy Johnson because Ken Burrough is hobbling on a bad knee.

more at the link.




They have a prediction for football in the year 2000! I'm getting old when I remember 2000 was far away, it is now, in the past!

[Brando]

This Cookie's In The Chips
A 52,000-mile shopping trip made Warren Moon the newest NFL millionaire

Thursday, Dec. 29, New York City: The Checker cab rumbled through Lower Manhattan. It was a cold, blustery night, and every few blocks homeless men were huddled around garbage cans filled with burning trash. "What are those people doing?" asked Warren Moon, a veteran of six years and five straight Grey Cup wins as a quarterback with the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League but a rookie visitor to New York City.

"Oh, those are street people," one of the New Yorkers in the cab replied casually. "They eat out of garbage cans and live out of shopping bags. They're just trying to keep warm."

Moon, who grew up in Los Angeles, had never seen anything like it. "They live on the streets!" he said in disbelief. "They actually survive!"

Moon was stunned. There he was, at 27, with everything a person could want: a beautiful wife, two healthy children, a thriving off-the-field business (W. Moon's Chocolate Chippery cookie shops) and homes in Edmonton, Seattle and Los Angeles. And, as a pro football rarity—a true free agent—with a rocket for an arm, out-of-this-world stats (in each of the last two seasons with Edmonton he had thrown for 5,000 yards and more than 30 touchdowns) and three leagues bidding for his services, Moon knew he was likely to sign a contract for $1 million a year or more.

He shook his head. "It doesn't seem right," he said to Leigh Steinberg, his Berkeley-based lawyer and agent. "I'm asking for a million dollars a year, and they have nothing."

New York was the third stop on Moon's four-city "fact-finding" tour of interested NFL teams. At least six other NFL clubs—and, at one time, a total of 14 in the NFL, CFL and USFL—had made overtures.

"Look, Warren," Steinberg said, "if you weren't getting that million, it's not like it would be going to them. If you sign with the Giants, we can arrange to donate some money to the homeless."

"That would make me feel better," Moon said, "although I'm not so sure I'll ever feel comfortable making this much money."

The cab ride was but another episode in Moon's odyssey, an exhausting, eye-opening, seven-week, 52,000-mile journey that came to an end last Friday night when Moon agreed to a blockbuster $6 million, five-year deal with the Houston Oilers, with much of the money guaranteed. It was a trip marked by bright lights, sleepless nights, limos, discos, four-star restaurants, three-piece pinstripe suits, oil wells, Ralph Sampson, astronauts, barrages of phone calls (an average of 40 and as many as 250 a day) and strippers.

Actually, the journey began in March of 1978 when Moon, after being named Pac-8 Player of the Year and leading the University of Washington to a 27-20 upset win over Michigan in the Rose Bowl, signed with the Eskimos rather than wait for the May NFL draft. Moon felt that, as a black quarterback, he wouldn't get a fair shake in the NFL. No NFL team drafted him that year, which meant if he ever made a bid to play in the league, he would be a free agent.

Read more here.

[Wolf]

Originally Posted by Brando

From the Vault at SI.com




more at the link.




They have a prediction for football in the year 2000! I'm getting old when I remember 2000 was far away, it is now, in the past!

awesome

[Wolf]

Bump being things are being discussed about AFL throwback jerseys

AFL 1960

The early AFL's ideal schedule was a consequence of the eight-team makeup of the league. Whether that structure was fortuitous or a brilliant idea of Lamar Hunt's, the end result was perfect: in a fourteen-game schedule, each team played every other team in the league twice, once at home and once away. In their own home stadium, every year, fans of an AFL team got to see every other team in the league, with all its stars. Thus, they could enjoy and judge the merits of those teams and players first-hand, unlike the NFL, in which some teams were not only not played at home, but not at all. This left the NFL fans to depend on other teams' home-town reporters to tell them how great the players were.
A further benefit of the AFL's structure and scheduling was that each team played essentially the same schedule, eliminating arguments about which team had the easier road to the championship game. The team with the best record in each division obviously also had the best record against common opponents, against division opponents, etc.

http://www.remembertheafl.com/AFLhistory1960.htm

[Wolf]

bump this due to football season is about to start and the NFL is commemorating the AFL

[Wolf]

I don't remember this from the last time I was on the website
Oilers Page
http://www.conigliofamily.com/Oilers.htm

The Oilers' George Webster prepares to hit the Bills' O.J. Simpson

Freddy Glick of Colorado State University was an anchor on the Houston Oilers defense from 1961 through 1966. In his first year with the team, he made four interceptions in the regular season and one in the Oilers' victorious AFL Championship game over the San Diego Chargers. In a game in 1962, he made or assisted on a total of 27 tackles against the Buffalo Bills (five against Cookie Gilchrist) in a 17-14 win. Glick led the league in 1963 with an all-time American Football League record 12 interceptions, and was an AFL All-Star in 1962, 1963, and 1964.

[Hervoyel]

Originally Posted by Texan_Bill

The Logo was:


The helmet:




Unfortunately the WFL saw fit to move the team to Shreveport during the first season and renaming them the Steamers.

I'm going to get a cap or maybe some t-shirts made of their old logo with the new Texans colors. I think that old logo goes really well with the new colors.

[Wolf]

Remember The American Football League? I Most Certainly Do


It was the kind of Professional Football League one would love. I Most-Certainly Did Love It & a Number of Stories from it:

The League's 8 Original Franchises are still around. The Owners were called "The Foolish Club" in their plan to compete with The NFL;

Harry Wisemer, The Owner of The NY Titans(Later called The NY Jets), was the Guy who came up with Revenue Sharing & Equal Shares in the Television Money for all the Clubs(Perhaps before Wellington Mara's Idea for the National Football League). Gate was 60/40 for Home Team. The NFL considered it an insane idea;

The Boston Patriots played their Home Games on Friday Nights at Boston University Nickerson Field(The Old Braves Field), to keep attendance from falling victim to NY Giants Telecasts on CBS Affiliate, WHDH Channel 5(& one wonders WHY there are still NY Giants Fans in The Boston Area);

The AFL Official Time was kept on the Scoreboard Clock & there was a 2 Point Conversion Option after a Touchdown(Which is NFL Standard in this present time), while The Official Kept the time on the field & there was only the Point After Kick, in the NFL. Players Names on the back of jerseys are part of AFL Tradition and now in the NFL;

http://randomfandomredsoxnyc.blogspo...-league-i.html