Today marks the 60th anniversary of the JFK assassination. This article goes into the controversial decision of the NFL and Pete Rozelle to hold games two days later.

  • Rozelle later would regret holding the games. He faced public pressure from Governor George Romney (father of Mitt) who urged him to cancel the games. He declined.

  • Kennedy had signed the sports broadcasting act which essentially forced the NFL into Sunday broadcasts so as not to conflict with college football. Incidentally, Amazon as a streaming service is not beholden to this law and thus can broadcast NFL games at their leisure,

  • NFL owners were fairly divided to play the games or not. Dan Rooney urged Rozelle to cancel, but Rozelle declined.

  • The AFL canceled games, causing some public backlash against the NFL.

  • Rozelle was a personal friend of Kennedy’s and was very depressed following Kennedy’s murder.

  • Even though some fans were upset with the decision to play, many sellout crowds still happened that weekend, including a 63,000 seat sellout between the Cardinals and Giants,

  • When the Cowboys arrived in Cleveland for a game, some of the baggage handlers at the airport refused to handle their bags because JFK had been killed in Dallas. “We were [viewed as] killers, [as though] we had killed the president,” Dallas tight end Pettis Norman later said, according to a 2021 History.com story.” Art Modell requested the announcers simply refer to the team as the “Cowboys” instead of the “Dallas Cowboys.”

Really fascinating read.

  • FormerCollegeDJBEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    Rozelle consulted Pierre Salinger, a personal friend of his who was President Kennedy’s press secretary, within hours of Kennedy’s assassination asking him for his recommendation whether that Sunday’s games two days later should be played. Salinger thought the Kennedys would have wanted the games to be played.

    It should be noted the AFL decided to postpone their games almost immediately. Patriots owner Billy Sullivan, who was friendly with the Kennedy family (and of course had his team based in JFK’s native Boston), particularly pushed hard for the postponement.