When It Was Just a Game

August 24, 2015
As the Super Bowl nears its 50th birthday, Frommer (Five O’Clock Lightning), a veteran sports writer, expertly takes readers behind the scenes of the historic first game between the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs on January 15, 1967. Using a slew of oral interviews from players, coaches, and league officials, Frommer demonstrates how the veteran NFL and the fledgling American Football League imposed their will on American sports and fought to dethrone baseball as the national pastime. Frommer’s well-researched account tells how the controversial merger of the two leagues, under Commissioner Pete Rozelle’s stewardship, developed American football from 14 NFL teams in 1965 to a combined 24 teams in 1966. Frommer also highlights the eccentric character of the opposing coaches, the tough Packers head Vince Lombardi and the strutting Hank Stram, as they piloted their teams, the bigger Chiefs against the more experienced Packers, to a 35-10 victory for the latter. This complete overview of the mythic first Super Bowl is a win for all football fans.

August 1, 2015

One of the main points of this occasionally repetitious oral history is that the Super Bowl has become such a spectacle and de facto American holiday that it's easy to forget it began as a simple football game just 50 years ago and didn't even sell out the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. That inaugral event was organized to determine the 1966 professional football champion between two warring leagues that ultimately agreed to merge. The Green Bay Packers, coached by the legendary Vince Lombardi, represented the older league. The American Football League representative was fortuitous as well, in that the larger and younger Kansas City Chiefs, coached by Hank Stram, were emblematic of the upstart league's strategic originality. After a competitive first half, the savvy Packers blazed ahead. Frommer (Five O'Clock Lightning) notes that both teams were in the forefront of employing African American players. This is a well-executed retelling of the game and its surroundings from all points of view: officials, coaches, players, the media, and even fans. Among the narrative's best parts are the late Stram's detailed recollections from an unpublished manuscript made available to the author from Stram's son. VERDICT Consistently fascinating, this book will appeal to all football fans.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.