Sports Byline USA Insight

Reflections on a Winner in Sports and Life

 My many years in sports have afforded me the opportunity to see and experience some of sports greatest moments and meet the athletes associated with them.  My press credential and position also has allowed me to get to know the athlete, owner, general manager and others on a human level, as well as professional.  It’s the human level that has enriched my life and my appreciation for them personally and professionally.  In reflection, Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt, who passed away recently, is in the pantheon of those I feel fortunate to have known and interviewed.

Lamar Hunt and I weren’t “good buds” or “intimate acquaintances.”  We were two people, who came to appreciate and respect each other, even though we were media and owner.  Normally that relationship can be combative, distrustful and tentative, depending on what each is seeking of the other.  Hunt was disarming in that he was low keyed and warm.  There was never any pretense about him.  He may have been rich beyond my, or anyone else’s standards, owned an NFL team, been a force in professional tennis and soccer, but Hunt always interacted with me as just another guy who wanted to do whatever he could to help.  And, if you were to ask anyone who knew him, or just met him once, they’d tell you the same thing.  Power and money did not make him arrogant, aloof or uncaring.

I’ve always had a deep respect for people who aren’t afraid to fail.  Hunt was the personification of that.  At the age of 28, rebuffed many times by the NFL, and the “old men” of football, he took his passion for football, and as he told me, “entertainment”, into his own hands.  If he couldn’t join them, he’d fight them.  Thus, in 1960, Hunt along with Bud Adams, Ralph Wilson, Al Davis, and others launched the upstart American Football League.  A league of eight teams.  He and his franchise, the Dallas Texas, found out quickly that taking on the established NFL and the NFL Dallas Cowboys was hopeless and suicidal.  So, he moved them to Kansas City and became the Chiefs. 

Those early years for the AFL, the Chiefs and Hunt were difficult and money losing.  This is where the Hunt name and money would become fortuitous in his life and sports legacy.  The story goes that after losing a million dollars one season, the media went to Hunt’s father and asked him what he thought about his son blowing a million dollars on this fanciful folly of his?  Hunt’s father responded, “Well, I guess at that rate he only has another hundred years.”  With appreciation and wonderment Hunt told me about those early days of the league and his team.  The fear he had of the effect it would have on his players, and their families, if the AFL failed.  Even then he put the human value over the dollar value.  In all the years I interviewed or talked with him, I never found out where the seeds of his human kindness came from.  He talked about his mother a number of times, so I sense she was the planter of those seeds.

Two of the many things that impressed me about Hunt are the way he felt about owning the Chiefs and his relationship with the fans.  He once told me that while he may be the owner of the team, and wrote the checks, he really considered himself more the “caretaker” of a franchise that actually belonged to the Chief’s fans.  I’ve never had an owner in any sport say that to me.  The saying is, “If you’re going to talk the talk, then you better be able to walk the walk,” and Hunt did.  On game day you could find him in the parking lot mingling with fans, and not the ones sipping champagne and eating canopies.  He liked the barbecue and beer bunch.  Your bank account and job didn’t mean a thing to him; he was among the people he felt he worked for.

Over the years of his ownership, Hunt saw sports, football and society change.  He lamented to me several times his concern about those changes.  Several years ago, repetitive problems with several Chiefs players, and their actions on the field, left Hunt embarrassed and bothered.  He told me that winning was important, but how they played and won was more important.  It was the only time I ever saw him sad and angry.

In recent interviews in which I would ask him reflection type questions, he would respond in a way that told me he had a deep personal satisfaction in being a pioneer and helping make professional football the societal and multi-billion dollar business force it is today.  He was the person who came up with the term “Super Bowl”, the playoff format and he was the first person from the AFL to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. 

Lamar Hunt touched a lot of people’s lives in many ways, and in many ways probably unknown in keeping with his low-keyed, under the radar style.  A moment I will always remember came during a Chiefs-49ers game in San Francisco.  I spotted Hunt on the field before the game.  Even though we had talked or he had been a guest on Sports Byline many times, we had not seen each other in a long time.  I was sure he wouldn’t recognize me unless I introduced myself.  I said, “Lamar, I want you to be able to put a face with a voice after our many conversations and interviews.  I’m Ron Barr.”  His face lit up; he stuck out his hand and enthusiastically pumped my hand.  He said, “Come with me, I want you to meet someone.”  He took me over to meet his wife Norma, saying, “Norma, this is that young man I was on the phone with so many times late in the evening.”  She looked at me and smiled warmly.  I sensed that she knew how much her husband and I enjoyed our conversations.

In the final analysis, Lamar Hunt was born to wealth, but did something useful with it.  He played football in college, but not well.  He loved sports and fully understood its entertainment value.  He married his money and passion for sports, along with a caring, good common sense approach to life and business into a lifetime of happiness and satisfaction.  The important thing is, he shared that happiness and satisfaction with so many others.  For that, so many others and I are appreciative and grateful.

I’m Ron Barr.

Ron Barr is an Emmy award winning writer and the host of the nationally and internationally syndicated sports talk show, Sports Byline USA.

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