Posted on 08/24/2022 5:59:06 PM PDT by OneVike
Before I get into the reason for my commentary, I want to state for the record that Len Dawson was a decent God fearing man, a good QB, and a great American. Nothing I write is meant to discredit him nor his teammates. They played as professionals in a game that was manipulated by others behind the scenes to get the result they wanted regardless of how the men who played the game did their job.
Whether it be Justice, politics, or sports, it seem there are always those behind the scenes who try their best to get the result they want regardless of what is right or wrong. I often find myself praying that one day before I day I will see true justice, which should bring true results in elections, and fair outcomes in sports competitions. So many times after the last whistle is blown, the last point is scored, or the last second on the clock is struck, we then learn of something that was done to ensure an ending that just wasn't fair, and yet justice is never truly rendered.
Well, one day before I die I would like to see another Super Bowl were one team gets only water, while the other gets Gatorade. A game played outdoors where the humidity is a staggering 80% or higher. Imagine such a contest where one team is using plain water, while the other is downing electrolyte loaded energy drinks brought in by water boys between plays. Drinking down that important proven energy drink that replenishes a dehydrated system that is used to working at peak capacity?
Too bad such a drink didn't exist for the Minnesota Vikings on that fatal day back on January 11, 1970. Key phrase being, "for the Minnesota Vikings", because it did exist. It just that the magic elixir did not exist for the Vikings that day. It did exist for their opponent however, and they drank it like it was water.
in 1965 a team of scientists at the University of Florida College of Medicine, created a drink to specifically help athletes replace their body fluids lost during physical exertion. Their tests on College Athletes were positive, and soon their football team, the Florida Gators were wining games like never before. The football team even credited their new energy drink they dubbed, "Gatorade" as having contributed to their first ever Orange Bowl win over the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in 1967. After the game, even the apposing Georgia Tech coach, Bobby Dodd, when asked why his team lost to what many considered an inferior Florida team, he responded, "We didn't have Gatorade. That made the difference."
Two years later around the time of the AFL playoffs, Lamar Hunt was approached by a close friend who was involved with the promotiomn of the Universicty of Florida's promotion of their energy drink. He convinced Lamar Hunt to use the Gatorade they created to help them promote it, and when his Chiefs faced the Vikings in the Super Bowl, a new drink was on the sideline for the Chiefs, but not on the sideline for the Vikings.
Just a week earlier the Vikings had defeated the Cleveland Browns for the last pure NFL Championship, in typical Minnesota freezing weather fashion. It was a game the Vikings had won by halftime. By doing so, they culminated a nine year struggle where they climbed out of the shadows of Lombardi's Packers to become the undisputed champions of the NFL. A struggle that was even more sweet for defensive tackle Alan Page, who as a young boy was hired as a laborer in his hometown of Canton to help build the future home of the NFL's Hall of Fame. A place where, today, his bust is on display as a member of the best of the best to ever play the game.
They finally won the title, but they could not bask in the glory too long, because in a week they had to take on the champion of the upstart AFL league, the Kansas City Chiefs. The next day they packed their equipment onto the bus and headed to New Orleans where they would play the last game of the long season. A game to decide which league is the best, before they merge as one. Mind you, the Super Dome was not yet built, so the game was played outdoors where there humidity was 87% on that day. Luckily for the √kings it never got above 65 degree's but if you ever lived down South when the humidity is high, it doesn't matter what the temperature is, it can be miserable.
Just so you understand, I personally understand what the Vikings faced when they got to New Orleans. I grew up in Duluth Minnesota, where Winters can come with wind chills that get down to minus 60 degrees. I remember going home for leave after I received a transfer order to Ft Benning GA. I spent Christmas with my family, and the average tempt during my visit was hovering around o degrees. My reporting date was January 13, 1975, which is just about the exact same time of the year the Vikings would have been in New Orleans to play Kansas a few years earlier. When I boarded the plane at 11:00 am to fly to Columbus GA, it was 14 degrees below in Duluth.
After an hour layover in Minneapolis, I was able to fly straight to Atlanta, where I had a two hour wait to fly to Columbus, where Ft Benning GA is located. I arrived in Columbus some time late afternoon, and the temperature wasn't bad, it was like about 70 degrees. However, the one thing I noticed the moment I walked down that ramp was the himidity. It felt like the humidity was 100%, but I would learn it was about 80%. I thought I could handle some humidity, but this stuff was like pea soup. It was so muggy my clothes seemed to be soaked.
In the first Month I was stationed there, I kept ending up in sick bay from passing out. I had no energy, I could not lift my M-16, let alone carry a 50 lb back pack on a 20 mile force March. I kept passing out, and was almost told I may end up with a medical discharge. I was in the best physical shape of my life, and I tried to tell them I wasn't used to such a mixture of heat and high humidity. Yet they were convinced there was something else wrong with me. Well, eventually my body acclimated, but it took a good Month to do so.
I share this so you can understand what the Viking players would have had to deal with. I can only imagine how the Vikings on that January day felt in that game. Now I don't know how many reading this ever played Football, but with all the equipment on, and in the middle of a football field, it seems a lot hotter, and now add in 87% humidity, and that will make you feel muggy, and sluggish.
OH I know the Chiefs also had to deal with it, but remember, then they had an new fairly untested energy drink, which would have been banned in today's NFL, as an enhancing drug. Even at that, they would have demanded both teams have the chance to use it. Hell, the players Union would have complained even. Gatorade which replaces the electrolytes the body desperately needs in physical competition is now understood so well that every sporting event in the World uses it. Something you cannot get from plain water. So here were the Vikings dragging it, trying to keep up, while the Chiefs were flying around like they were on steroids and speed. Yet all the Vikings had was plain old water, which equales no contest.
Like Joe Namath did against the Colts two years earlier, the Chiefs made history by handing the Vikings and their vaunted Purple People Eaters a devastating defeat. To the shock of the World, the Chiefs would make the Vikings look like a semi-pro team. This drink was still unknown in the professional World of sports, while at the college level it was making news. It would not be until after the Super Bowl, that professional athletes would become interested.
Well, the rest is history. Is it any wonder the Chiefs ran circles around the vaunted Purple People Eaters. Not with Gatorade. Everyone knew the Chiefs were using The fix was in. The Chiefs had to win, because the next year the two leagues merged.
OK, OK, I am still a bit upset 52 some years later. Yet I dare any sport league to try getting away with that today. Today they will fine a team millions and take away future draft picks for cheating. All the Vikings got was ridicule, followed by years and years of incorrect reporting about how much more superior the Chiefs were than them.
Rules in sports has always been, whatever one teams has as an advantage the other gets unless it is a drug, then it is outright banned. Well Gatorade may not have been designated a drug, but when you consider the effects it has on professional athletes, it should have been at the time. Or at least until the league fully understood its benefit to the body. After all, there are power drinks that are banned today in sports, but they are not drugs, they are strong energy drinks. No one ever considers the cheating involved in that game that day, yet to this day there is not a sporting event in the World where Gatorade is not on the sidelines. Go ahead and watch the game if you can find it, listen to the comments off the men in the booth of how energetic the Chiefs are and how tired the Vikings look.
History proves I'm right, and my personal beliefs is Lamar and his Chiefs were needed to win because of the big money involved in the merger. Some claim the papers were signed and the merger would have taken place anyway, well Lamar Hunt, the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs was also head of the merge committee, and knowing how deals are always made, someone must be sacrificed for the good of the bottom line. On that day, at that time, it was the Vikings who had to be sacrificed. For Lamar and his Chiefs, the trophy was the icing on the cake for helping all the owners to get richer with the merger, even if all the owners were not privy to the drug used to help his team win.
Like it or not, the fact remains, the game was rigged rom the outset, because there was enough evidence at the time from College games to know what Gatorade offered a team wanting a huge edge in a big game. Today, the Chiefs should have, at minimum, an asterisk next to their title in the record books. Fifty two years later I wish there was at least one honest sports reporter who would step up and write about the facts behind the day of the Big Steal for the last Big Game played out before the merger took place?
As an added note, I used to be a huge fan of the HBO show, “Inside the NFL”, with Len Dawson and Nick Buoniconti. I'll readily admit that I disliked both men, when they played football. Once they retired I liked them, but as players they were the enmy of my team. However, it was more difficult for me to like Len, but not Nick. See, Nick's team the Dolphins beat my Vikings in the "72" Super Bowl, but his team did it fair and square. By the time the Vikings played the Dolphins most teams, including the Vikings and the Dolphins had Gatorade on the sidelines. Today every NFL, NBA, NHL, NBA, MSL, WNBA, NASCAR, and even professional golf players have Gatorade available to them.
Mind you, a similar theft of the Super Bowl took place again in 2009. During the playoffs the fix was in for the Saints to go all the way to make the fans of New Orleans feel batter about the devastation Hurricane Katrina visited on New Orleans. Instead of locking up the mayor who was to blame for most the misery, the NFL, and the sports media conspired to help the Saints go all the way. In their run to their Super Bowl the Saints pretty much ended the careers of Kurt Warner and Bret Favre, while Payton Manning had to go overseas to get a new procedure done on his neck before he could play again.
We know what the Saints did was allowed, because in the 2009 playoffs the referees were ignoring the illegal hits on the QBs. The next year an investigation proved what every fan at home, other than Saint fans, complained about. The defensive coordinator had contracts on the QBs. He was paying defensive players extra money for QB sacks and or knock downs. If they were able to take out one of the three future Hall of Fame QB's the player was promised an even bigger check. The mock trial ended with the Saints head coach and the defensive coordinator both being suspend for a year and fined for the contract scandal. Yet the NFL let them keep the trophy and their still is no asterisk next to the Saints, nor the Chiefs for the Super Bowls they won by cheating.
On that thought, could someone tell me why Armstrong had to surrender his seven trophies for winning the Tour de France Bicycle races? After all, if professional leagues learn a team cheated, but then do not take the tile away, why did Armstrong have to relinquish his when he was finally busted for cheating?
Inquiring minds want to know.
More proof that backs up my claim.
Gatorade is now a multibillion dollar World Wide product, because it does enhance ones ability to compete by helping your stamina last.
Anyone who denies it is just not being honest with themselves.
Len Dawson hated that picture. He smoked for several weeks and quit.
But Minnesota was down 16-0 at halftime. I could understand if KC scored their points in the second half, you might have something there, but I can’t see Gatorade making all that much difference in the first half.
Spend 17yrs there one day
In the Summer it is, but not in the Winter. In the Winter months the humidity is actually much lower. This is why they do not get as much snow as many think they would. .
As I said, I lived down there, and it hits me like a brick the moment I got off the plain. They were already worn down before the game started.
I was messed up the moment I arrived.
I know what happened to me.
Fresca...nasty stuff...no wonder he was such a tough guy
My argument is all about th early years. I won’t argue the ones after dark retired. Minnesota won a lot of playoff games on the road in the day. However the KS game was with Joe Kapp
As for playoffs, not counting SB, the Vikings were kept almost all the playoff games.
As for the Super Bowls, other than the KC one, the defense was long in the tooth, they deservedly lost to Miami, Pitt, and Oakland.
Yet against KS, they had the best defense at their hight.
Wow, thanks
What a pussy this writer is/was!
Good thing he wasn’t on that midnight train that pulled into Yamasee, SC in July 1951 with about a thousand of us headed for hell (otherwise known as Parris Island)...
i think i is a bottle of fresca not a beer. Bottles were more in use than casns back then.
But maybe that year the NFL wasn’t all that.
funny but as a kid on the swim team we ate powdered jello packets with the water we drank at swim meets. That would be about 62 years ago.
Yup, all that sugar will definitely make you swim through the water re like a torpedo. LOL
I bet you guys were all over the place while not in the pool.
For this to have been a planned “cheat” of some sort means that the New Orleans NFL team running the game provided Gatorade to one team and intentionally withheld it from the other. Your account does not say that is what happened. Instead, your account says the Chiefs provided their players with a water substitute that no one in the NFL objected to as illegal or improper.
You feel that the Chief’s readiness to try a new thirst quencher was improper and I say it was intelligent anticipation of the demands that they forecast for a game day.
Each team at that time was responsible for their own drinks and fluids they had what they wanted and was no uniform agreement yet they were separate league didn’t have those rules set up yet
There’s no argument about the fact that the Kansas City Chiefs had Gatorade in the Vikings only had water everybody admits that they just denied that’s the reason the Vikings lost
By the way you say you haven’t heard this argument in all the years they’ve been taught here and talk about sports well you know what I’ve been telling people this for 40 years I got proof that I’ve been telling people I can show you the people I didn’t see it I’m crazy for thinking it might be on the same kit for 40 years and I’ve yet to get somebody to listen to me but that’s fine I’m gonna stay on it because I know I’m right I got to see a team agree to play another team without Gatorade while the other one is Gatorade every time I brought that up they change the subject but they don’t wanna play with a Gatorade
OK find somebody that will take me up on my challenge find a team that will play another team and one team does not get anything but water when does Gatorade easy to prove them wrong try to find somebody willing to take the bet but you know what in 40 years I have yet to find anyone that wants to take me up on about to prove them wrong they just want to say I’m wrong what prove I’m crazy find someone to take me up on my bed
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