Front
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Here is the first book to tell the story of the
founding and the first five years of the American
Football League.
This story takes the reader behind the newspaper
headlines into the clubrooms, penthouse apartments,
and dressing rooms. |
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On
the flyleaf:
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For Angie
Coniglio
a $400,000 fan
and the sort of gent who
helped bring the league
in from the cold.
May you be in heaven
three days before the devil knows
you're dead.
Warmest Regards,
Bob Curran |
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Ten years after the birth of the AFL, "the other
league" is a term spoken with irony, or mirth, or
love, or perhaps a touch of bitterness. These
pages record the glorious ten-year history of the
league that is no more.
As a book, THE OTHER LEAGUE covers the total
range of American League football: the Foolish Club,
made up of those first owners who brought the league
into existence, who imperturbably held a draft and
chose the players who would lead them to fame,
players like Richie Lucas and Gerhard Schwedes . . .
the years of AFL-NFL warfare, when a team jumped
leagues, when suits were filed and counterfiled,
when a championship winner's share came to the grand
total of $1,016.42, when Sonny Werblin finally
signed Joe Namath for $400,000 and the war stopped .
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The book lists the name of every player who ever
made an AFL roster, with his college, position, and
years played with AFL team(s). |
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On
the flyleaf:
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To
Angelo Coniglio
With appreciation
for your interest in the
AFL and the sport of pro football.
Regards,
Lamar
Hunt |
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Americans
have always loved football, but professional football did not truly come into its own
until the games came to television. The resulting huge upswing in the sport’s
popularity caught the attention of millionaire Lamar Hunt, who decided to become a part of
the game’s growth by purchasing a professional team. But the NFL had no interest in
this upstart's notions of expansion.
Undaunted, in 1959 Hunt established his own league, joined
by a fistful of other young entrepreneurs ready to tackle the status quo. Within just a
few years, their American Football League had not only won the hearts of fans, but
dramatically changed the way the sport was organized, played, and broadcast.
Bold new on-field strategies thrilled fans and influenced a
generation of coaches and players, Exciting young stars like George Blanda and Daryle
Lamonica became role models for children who would someday become football stars
themselves (today, Joe Montana cites Joe Namath and Len Dawson as his childhood heroes).
And when Lamar Hunt pitted his AFL against the NFL in a climactic championship game, he
introduced an innovation that would become an American tradition: the Super Bowl.
Ed Gruver brings the brash young league and its glory days
back to life in this detailed year-by-year history, informed by interviews with more than
40 owners, coaches, players, scouts, broadcasters, and writers from the era. Read it - and
relive ten years that changed professional football forever.
Ed Gruver, a professional sportswriter, is a member of
the Pro Football Researchers Association. He lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with his
wife Michelle and daughters Patty and Katie. |
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"I'm certain this
book will do well. Jimmy Acho is one of the brightest young sports
minds I've ever met. Talking to him is like talking to one of my peers - you'd never guess
he's as young as he is. He has the rare ability to spin a yarn with the comedy of a
Bill Cosby and the fire of a drill sergeant. A rare young talent." |
-Tommy
Prothro
Former head coach
Los Angeles Rams
San Diego Chargers |
About The Author
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A
Farmington Hills, Michigan native, Jim
Acho graduated from St. Francis College,
(Ft. Wayne, Indiana) in 1993. A walk-on basketball player in 1989, Acho
co-captained the Cougars in his senior year. He
claims to hold the school record in one category: ref heckling from the
bench. From 1994 to 1996, Acho coached and scouted at the small
college level, and has lectured at some of the nation's top
camps and clinics. Proof that guys who spend
most of their time in school as class cut-ups
can indeed absorb enough to become literate
(you may question that after reading this), this is Acho's first
book ... and if nobody buys it, his last. |
GridIron Press
New York, New York |
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G. Booth Lusteg played 11 years of Pro
Football. He authored 39 sports and social-issue articles
for leading newspapers and magazines around the country,
including the Chicago Sun News, New York Times,
Washington Post, and Sports Illustrated.
Booth, (or 'Boots' to his team-mates)
led the American Football League in place-kicking in his rookie
year, 1966, when he replaced Pete Gogolak after the side-winding
kicker defected from the American Football League to the NFL.
In this inspirational book, Lusteg uses his
Pro Football experience to develop advice for readers on how to
face and overcome rejection, and turn negative experiences into
victories.
To send an e-mail inquiring about purchasing the book,
click
here. |
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In 1960, the
maverick American Football League challenged the NFL for gridiron supremacy.
"The idea was, 'We're going to whip the NFL. We're going to wind up as
the better of the two leagues.'"
-VAL PINCHBECK, AFL STAFF
Over the next decade, the two opposing leagues battled it out in David-and-Goliath style.
"The NFL was saying the AFL wouldn't last four years. It wouldn't last
five years. Six years. . . . Next thing you know, [we] ended up with the Super Bowl
Trophy.
-BOBBY BELL, KANSAS CITY CHIEFS 1963-69
In the process, they gave us the game we love today, with wide-open offenses, TV network
broadcasts, and Super Bowls we'll never forget.
"They told me to ask Lombardi to kick off again because NBC had missed the
second-half kickoff. I said, 'You've got the wrong guy. I ain't doing
that.'"
-PAT SUMMERALL, SPORTS BROADCASTER
Pro football hasn't been the same since.
"Pete Rozelle leaned over to me and whispered, more just to catch my attention: 'This
is the best thing that could have happened to pro football.'"
-LAMAR HUNT, AFL FOUNDER
This is the inside story of the AFL, told in the words of the men who lived it . . .
"The one lasting thing is the feeling, the physical feeling. Emotional, mental,
and physical. My body was alive, tickly for God knows how long, that we had won this
thing."
-JOE NAMATH, NEW YORK JETS 1965-69
. . . the heroes of the American Football League. |
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Sportscaster
Curt Gowdy once said that "the story of the AFL, how the league grew and became
popular, is one of the best sports stories of all time." This is that story.
It was 1959 and
professional football was gaining popularity faster than a Marilyn Monroe pin-up. The
National Football League had reached new heights when its dramatic 1958 championship game
between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants went into overtime on national television.
Looking to ride that wave of momentum was a young man from Dallas named Lamar Hunt, but
when his inquiry about NFL expansion was rebuffed by NFL commissioner Bert Bell, and his
subsequent attempt to purchase a struggling NFL franchise was denied, what did the son of
one of the richest men in America, millionaire oil
magnate H.L. Hunt, do? He decided to form his own professional football league, and when
he found seven other wealthy men willing to join the risky but exciting venture, the
American Football League was born.
It
was considered "a joke" by longtime Chicago Bears' patriarch George Halas, and
other NFL luminaries predicted a rapid demise for the AFL. Instead, the rebel league
gained a strong foothold in the pro football marketplace with its entertaining style of
play, and ultimately it forced the NFL - albeit grudgingly - to accept the AFL as its
equal. The two leagues merged in time for the 1970 season, and it wasn't long before this
superpower entity created a seismic shift in this nation's sporting passions as pro
football surpassed Major League Baseball as our national pastime.
As
part of the merger deal, it was agreed that starting with the 1966 season the champions of
both leagues would meet in a world championship game which quickly became known as the
Super Bowl. And after NFL powerhouse Green Bay easily won the first
two of these showdowns, the Joe Namath-led New York Jets delivered to the AFL its
long-awaited respect with a shocking defeat of the mighty Colts in Super Bowl Ill. It was one of the
defining moments in pro football history and it forever altered the course of the sport.
If You Can't Join 'Em,
Beat 'Em. Hunt and his cronies
were told they couldn't join the NFL, so in the end, they simply beat them. In these pages
you will be afforded an opportunity to re-live some of the greatest games in AFL history
including all 10 championship games. Further, you will meet a wonderful cast of characters
who shepherded the AFL from the humblest of beginnings to Super Bowl glory; the likes of
which includes Namath, Len Dawson, Cookie Gilchrist, Billy Cannon, Ernie Ladd, Gino
Cappelletti, Billy Shaw, Jack Kemp, Paul Lowe, Ron Mix, Willie Lanier, Don Maynard, George
Blanda, Abner Haynes, Lance Alworth, Daryle Lamonica, Buck Buchanan, Bobby Bell, Al Davis,
Lou Saban, Weeb Ewbank, Hank Stram, Sid Gillman and John Madden.
It is
now known as the American Football Conference within the confines of the National Football
League, but its roots in the American Football League forever remain part of sports lore. |
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cHarging
through the AFL
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Reading Todd Tobias'
chronicle is like riding the lightning bolts that zigzagged so spectacularly through this
phase of the Chargers' history. Tobias is a true historian. |
--Jerry Magee
Columnist for the San Diego Union Tribune and
Pro Football Weekly, and memmer of the Pro Football
Hall of Fame's Board of Selectors |
For original Charger fans, the teams of the 60's will always represent
the golden age of football because those same graeat players spent the off-season working
or going to school in San Diego. We met so many of the public that I would estimate
we knew half the people in the stands. Todd has captured that magic and offers more
insight into football players and events than any sports book ever written. |
--Ron Mix
San Diego Chargers' Offensive Tackle from 1960-1969
and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame |
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Foreword by Pro Football Hall of Famer Lance Alworth.
(Click here for a special note.) |
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Relive
the exploits of the Oakland Raiders in a
week-in, week-out chronicle of their first
ten seasons. Meet six unique head
coaches and the legends who helped to
overcome the myriad problems associated with
a new pro football team in a new league, and
the whirlwind transformation of a young
dynamo from coach to commissioner and
ultimately to ownership as he built one of
the most respected and feared organizations
in professional sports. Packed with
statistics, transactions, and forgotten
lore, Pride and Poise: The Oakland
Raiders of the American Football League
is the most complete, accurate, and fair
account ever produced of the early Raiders. |
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Click here for a review. |
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September
9, 1960 (Boston,
MA).
Al Carmichael leads the
Denver Broncos to a win in the
first regular-league-season AFL
game. Al holds the distinction of
scoring the very first touchdown in
American Football League history, on
a 59-yard pass from quarterback Frank
Tripucka in a 13-10 win over the
Boston Patriots. |
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The Buffalo Bills of the 1960s represent a special
time in the collective conscience of Buffalonians,
when their team was twice champion of the American
Football League; Jack Kemp, Billy Shaw, Cookie
Gilchrist, Mike Stratton, Tom Sestak, Elbert
Dubenion, Ron McDole, and O.J. Simpson captured the
imagination of the community. For three
consecutive years, Buffalo's defensive unit was the
best in the league, and was one of the best
throughout the AFL’s history. Western New
Yorkers loved this team and its successful approach
— the Buffalo Bills mirrored the community they
represented.
This near-600-page book is a comprehensive history of the
Bills' AFL years, drawn mainly from interviews with
nearly 70 men associated with the team during the
1960s. Billy Shaw, the Bills' Hall of Fame
guard, wrote the
foreword.
With game-by-game summaries, yearly stats,
records of the AFL years, complete demographics of
every player and coach employed by the team during
the decade, and a "Where are They Now"
chapter at the end.
(click
the cover for a purchase link)
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He lived through
it, he writes about it. |
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American Football League Hall of Fame member
Larry Felser tells the story of "the Merger".
Of how "the Foolish Club", scorned and ridiculed
by the football establishment, forged a merger that made
the
American Football League the only major
professional sports league to merge with another without
losing a franchise, and in so doing, how the AFL was
instrumental in the genesis of modern professional
football. |
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Felser covered the AFL from its inception, through the merger, and
through the AFL's convincing victories by the Jets and the Chiefs in
the last two true world championship games. The
book is filled with first-hand observations and with quotes by the
owners and players involved in the biggest sports merger of all
time. |
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AFL fan and first-time author Dave Steidel
has come up with a great concept: a book that not only tells the
fascinating history of the American Football League, team by team,
year by year; but which also serves as a challenging trivia test of
your grasp of the important and even the not-so-important
events of the league that was the genesis of modern pro football.
It touches on every game played by every American
Football League team, year by year. It is interspersed with
images and trivia questions to prod your memory of the the American
Football League, the league that was the genesis of modern
Professional Football.
The book will be published in 2008 by Clerisy
Press. The cover at left is just a sample of the visual and
factual delights you'll find inside! |
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