(Jan. 27) This short article today about the first Super Bowl ever played in New Orleans brings back surprisingly vivid memories. Although I was not quite six years old, I was at the game and paying rapt attention.
Already a hopelessly addicted fan of the Billy Kilmer-led New Orleans Saints and with fond feelings too for the Green Bay Packers, I nonetheless that season had fallen in love, or at least deep “like,” with the Minnesota Vikings. Purple was my favorite color, so I loved the “Purple People Eater” defense. My mother had read Tom Sawyer to me, so (in those days before political correctness) I loved the idea that quarterback Joe Kapp was nicknamed “Injun Joe.” And my gosh, to a New Orleans boy who had never felt a single snowflake, the romance on TV of football games played in Minnesota’s blinding snow was mesmerizing.
While I wanted the Vikings to win big, I did want Chiefs defensive back Johnny Robinson (eventually a Hall of Famer) to play well, as my dad insisted that because Robinson was a Louisianan, he deserved our support.
So as we took our seats rather low on the Tulane Stadium sideline stands, at perhaps the 40-yard-line, I was ready for the Vikes to squash the pretenders from the AFL, the Kansas City Chiefs with their annoying, crowing rooster of a head coach, Hank Stram. And, with a Thermos mug full of hot chocolate, I expected to be well fortified for what to me seemed like terribly cold conditions which, I thought, would benefit the cold-weather Vikings. (Subsequent research shows the temperature at kickoff was a mild 61 degrees, but it was a tremendously damp day with a wind that whipped around the stadium, and the temperature dropped as the game went on, so I remember it as nearly frigid.)
Alas, my dreams were crushed. The Chiefs dominated. Stram implemented a game plan that befuddled the purple team. Kapp had a lousy game….. [The full column is at this link. I hope you enjoy the final line!]