Super Bowl Victory Still Echoes

One benefit of being a sports fan in Kansas City is that it doesn’t take a great deal of thought to select a favorite team in any sport. Championships have been painfully few and far between.

For the Royals, it obviously was the overachieving team that won the 1985 World Series over the arrogant St. Louis Cardinals.

For the Missouri Tigers, it unquestionably was the 2008 team, which defeated archrival Kansas and climbed to No. 1 in the national polls (albeit for only one week). And for fans of the Kansas City Chiefs, it can only be the 1969 season that culminated with an upset of the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV.

The starters on that championship team remain the greatest names in franchise history: Len Dawson. Buck Buchanan. Bobby Bell. Jan Stenerud. But few fans remember that a little-used backup quarterback, Mike Livingston, kept the team on course when Dawson was injured.

Even fewer remember that the Chiefs made the playoffs as a wild-card team and defeated the defending champion New York Jets, then arch-rival Oakland for the AFC championship.

Many fans have only their fading memories to recall their team’s glory days. Fans of the 1969 Chiefs also have the unforgettable production from NFL Films, which had the foresight to record Coach Hank Stram. “Sixty-five toss power trap” will always be as much a part of Kansas City lore as the fountains or Arthur Bryant’s barbecue.

Chiefs fans saw the 1969 team as a harbinger of more great days ahead. Little did they know that the door would slam on Christmas Day of 1971, in the longest game ever played. Nearly 40 years later, fans still are waiting for a return trip to the Super Bowl.

But close your eyes, and the magic returns. The words of coach Stram echo through the years: “Keep matriculating that ball down the field!”