The Year That Changed the Game: The Memorable Months That Shaped Pro Football

by Jonathan Rand

Some would argue that professional football became America’s premier sport through a slow, painstaking evolution starting with the 1920 formation of a fourteen-team circuit that became the National Football League. The Year That Changed the Game contends that instead there was a Big Bang—an explosion on December 28, 1958, setting off subsequent aftershocks that in thirteen months transformed pro football from a fringe sport to a rocket ship flying across a nation’s sports horizon. While the Baltimore Colts celebrated their dramatic 23-17 win over the New York Giants, courtesy of Alan Ameche’s touchdown in overtime, no one could have predicted the upheaval to come. Within the next thirteen months, the Green Bay Packers would hire Vince Lombardi as head coach, starting a dynasty; Lamar Hunt and other businessmen would establish the competing AFL, leading the NFL to respond with expansion, the Super Bowl, and eventually unification; and Commissioner Bert Bell would die, bringing the legendary Pete Rozelle into office. Once pro football rounded the corner, there was no looking back. The 1958 championship game and the following months marked the NFL’s transition from a face in the crowd to leader of the parade. One year of change produced fifty years of success. The Year That Changed the Game gives this aftermath a closer look.

223 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Dick Tatro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Johnathan Rand for many years wrote for the Kansas City Star so this book has a great deal about Lamar Hunt and how his founding of the American Football League lead to the explosion of popularity for Pro Football. The book starts with the 1958 NFL champioship game between the Baltimore Colts and The New York Giants in the "Greatest Game Ever Played". Unitas and the Colts' win over Sam Huff and the Giants in Overtime made the NFL and Pro football take off to become America's most popular sport.

For a baby boom football player and coach this is a very interesting book. I was 12 years old when this game was played and I remember watching it with my dad. He and I watched many games on TV and in person over our lifes together. I know he loved watching me play and then during my nearly 40 years coaching Dad saw many games. This game is the earliest memory I have of us watching a game together. Rand does a great job of retelling that game. One odd thing that I remember by his retelling was that nobody seem to know that their would be an overtime. Iremmbered that Dad and I thoght that they were going to play another game the next week. We almost turned the TV off when they announcers said something to the effect that there was going to be an overtime. We did'nt know what that was because one had never been played before. It had been a rule for the championship game since 1941 but none had ever been played so nobody knew what to expect. One funny story about the game was that when the Colts were driving for the winning touchdown the crowd sured toward the field in Yankee Stadium. In doind so someone pulled the plug on the power shutting down the TV broadcast. Only one play was missed however as a TV sideline stat keeper rushed out on the field acting like he was a drunk. He delayed the game long enoght that the TV people repluged the power cord and only missed one play. TV was in its beginning then too.

This book also has a great chapter on Lamar Hunt and his founding of the AFL. Hunt was a remarkable man who changed sports in America. The super Bowl and Pro football are what they ar today because of him. It should make everyone in Kansas City proud what he did for PRO Football.

This book is a good read.