Lamar Hunt

Lamar Hunt (August 2, 1932) is one of the most influential sports promoters in the United States. He was one of the founders of the American Football League and Major League Soccer. He is also the founder and owner of the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs and the Kansas City Wizards of the MLS.

Early life

Hunt, (born August 2, 1932 in El Dorado, Arkansas) is the son of oil tycoon H. L. Hunt. Lamar was raised in Dallas, Texas. Hunt graduated The Hill School in Pennsylvania in 1950 and Southern Methodist University in Dallas in 1956, with a B.S. degree in geology. Hunt was a college football player who rode the bench but was still an avid sports enthusiast during his time in college and throughout his entire childhood.

Founding of the American Football League

Hunt applied for an National Football League expansion franchise but was turned down. In 1959, professional football was a distant second to Major League baseball in popularity and the thinking among NFL executives was that the league must be careful not to "oversaturate" the market by expanding too quickly.

In response, in 1960 Hunt led several other investors in forming the AFL. Hunt encouraged, wheedled, and cajoled seven other like-minded men to form this new league. One of them, fellow Texan Bud Adams of Houston, had likewise tried but failed to be granted an NFL franchise. Lamar Hunt's goal was to bring professional football to Texas and to acquire an NFL team for the Hunt family. Hunt became owner of the Dallas Texans, and hired future hall-of-famer Hank Stram as the team’s first head coach.

Ownership & AFL/NFL Merger

The Dallas Texans won the AFL Championship in 1962 and were one of the most successful AFL teams in the league’s early days. But the Texans' success failed to draw fans in large numbers, as the Texas had to compete for fan loyalty with their cross-town NFL rivals, the Dallas Cowboys. In 1963 Hunt began to consider moving the team. Kansas City quickly became one of the contending cities for the franchise. During cloak-and-dagger negotiating sessions, in order to convince Hunt to move the team to Kansas City, mayor H. Roe Bartle promised Hunt home attendance of 25,000 people per game. Hunt finally agreed to move the team to Kansas City and in 1963 the Dallas Texans became the Kansas City Chiefs.

In the Chiefs' early days, attendance did not match the expansive claims Mayor Bartle had made. But in 1966 average home attendance at Chiefs games picked up and reached 37,000. By 1969 -- aided by some very successful and entertaining teams -- Chiefs' home attendance had reached 51,000. In 1966 the Chiefs won their first AFL Championship and reached the first ever Super Bowl -- then called the “AFL-NFL Championship Game” -- where they lost to the Green Bay Packers. The Chiefs remained successful through the 1960s and in 1970 the Chiefs reached the pinnacle of success winning the AFL Championship and later went on to win Super Bowl IV over the Minnesota Vikings. The Chiefs became an icon in Kansas City, and Hunt has never considered moving the team again.

Hunt’s most famous (though certainly not the most important) contribution to professional football is coining the name "Super Bowl" in 1969. Hunt was inspired in this by a red, white and blue super ball owned by his daughter. In her thick Texan accent, she talked about her "super ball" but was accidentally mistaken as "Super Bowl."

The rosters of the AFL were always stocked with a certain number of players who would have excelled in any league -- and that number grew as the 1960's progressed. The best AFL coaches and owners, many of them new to the pro game, brought color, excitement and important new strategic and marketing ideas to pro football, which had often been dominated by play-calling which overrated the value of eliminating mistakes and underrated the element of surprise. While the NFL was always almost certainly the better league as a whole, the best teams of the AFL were increasingly the equals of any team in the NFL.

The AFL also substantially raised football players' salaries by frequently bidding against the NFL for the top college stars. It was the NFL's concern for containing salaries, more than anything else, that led a reluctant NFL to accept a merger between the two leagues in 1970. The older league could no longer claim to be far superior because by then the AFL champion New York Jets had defeated the vaunted Baltimore Colts of the NFL to win the Super Bowl. The Chiefs' triumph over the Vikings the following season further showcased the AFL’s ability.

Lamar Hunt's place in pro football history is secure. In 1972, Hunt became the first American Football League personage inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The trophy presented to each year's AFC Champions is named the Lamar Hunt Trophy. In 1984, Hunt was also inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.

Hunt has also been influential in soccer and tennis, and has contributed to the growth of those sports in the USA. He has been elected to the Hall of Fame in all three sports.

Major League Soccer

Lamar Hunt was also one of the original founding investors of Major League Soccer in 1996. This time he owned two teams: the Columbus Crew and the Kansas City Wizards. In 1999, Hunt financed the construction of the Columbus Crew Stadium, the first of several large soccer-specific stadiums in the USA. In 2003, Hunt purchased a third team, the Dallas Burn (now FC Dallas), after announcing that he would partially finance the construction of their own soccer-specific stadium. In 2004, Hunt announced that he plans on selling the Kansas City Wizards, but only to an owner or owners that would keep the team in the Kansas City area. As of 2006 he has yet to sell the team.

Other Sports/Activities

Basketball: Hunt was one of the founding investors of the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association.

Tennis: In 1967, Lamar Hunt co-founded the World Championship Tennis circuit, which gave birth to the open era in tennis. He was made a member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1993.

NASL: Hunt was one of the original owners of the NASL, operating the Dallas Tornado starting in 1967. The Dallas Tornado were one of the lead franchises of the NASL. They were crowned champions in 1971 and were runners-up in 1973.

Hunt was also the founder of the theme parks: Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun which opened in 1973 and 1982 respectivly.

Honors

For service to Dallas, Texas, Lamar Hunt was honored during halftime of the Dallas Cowboys/Kansas City Chiefs game in 2005.
For his efforts in building the sport of soccer in the United States in the modern era, Hunt was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 1992. ^*
The United States Soccer Federation changed the name of its oldest and most prestigious competition, the U.S. Open Cup, to the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup in 1999.
The NFL's trophy for the champion of the American Football Conference is named in honor of Lamar Hunt.

External links

Pro Football Hall of Fame: Member profile
International Tennis Hall of Fame profile

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