Lamar Hunt

Lamar Hunt (August 2, 1932 – December 13, 2006) was an American sportsman and promoter of American football, soccer, basketball, and ice hockey in the United States and an inductee into three sports' halls of fame. He was one of the founders of the American Football League (AFL) and Major League Soccer (MLS), as well as MLS predecessor the North American Soccer League (NASL). He was also the founder and owner of the National Football League's Kansas City Chiefs, the Kansas City Wizards and at his death owned two MLS teams, Columbus Crew and FC Dallas. The oldest annual team tournament in the U.S. in any sport, soccer's U.S. Open Cup (founded 1914) now bears his name in honor of his pioneering role in that sport stateside. In Kansas City, Hunt also helped establish the Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun theme parks. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1972; into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 1982; and into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1993. The National Soccer Hall of Fame bestowed upon Hunt their Medal of Honor in 1999, an award given to only 3 recipients in history thus far. He was married for 42 years to his second wife Norma, and had four children, Sharron, Lamar Jr., Daniel, and Clark Hunt.

Biography

Early life

Hunt was born in El Dorado, Arkansas, the son of oil tycoon H. L. Hunt and younger brother of tycoons Nelson Bunker Hunt and William Herbert Hunt. Lamar was raised in Dallas, Texas. He attended Culver Military Academy and graduated from The Hill School in Pennsylvania in 1950 and Southern Methodist University in Dallas in 1956, with a B.S. degree in geology. Hunt was a college football player who rode the bench but was still an avid sports enthusiast during his time in college and throughout his entire childhood. While attending SMU Hunt joined the Kappa Sigma Fraternity and in 1972 was named "man of the year."

Founding of the American Football League

On the strength of his great inherited oil wealth, Hunt applied for a National Football League expansion franchise but was turned down. In 1959, professional football was a distant second to Major League Baseball in popularity, and the thinking among NFL executives was that the league must be careful not to "oversaturate" the market by expanding too quickly.^[1]

In response, in 1960 Hunt took the lead with fellow Texan and oil man K.S. Bud Adams of Houston, who likewise had tried and failed to be granted an NFL franchise, in forming the American Football League. Hunt and Adams encouraged, wheedled, and cajoled six other like-minded wealthy men, three of them fellow Texans to form this new league. The group of the eight founders of the AFL teams was referred to as the "Foolish Club." Hunt's goal was to bring professional football to Texas and to acquire an NFL team for the Hunt family. Hunt became owner of the Dallas Texans and hired future hall-of-famer Hank Stram as the team's first head coach.

Ownership and NFL merger

The Dallas Texans were one of the most successful AFL teams in the league's early days but the their success failed to draw fans in large numbers, as the Texans had to compete for fan loyalty with their cross-town NFL rivals, the Dallas Cowboys. In 1963 Hunt began to consider moving the team. Kansas City became one of the contending cities for the franchise. In order to convince Hunt to move the team to Kansas City, mayor H. Roe Bartle promised Hunt home attendance of 25,000 people per game. Hunt finally agreed to move the team to Kansas City and in 1963 the Dallas Texans became the Kansas City Chiefs.

In the Chiefs' first two seaons attendance did not match the levels Mayor Bartle had promised, but in 1966 average home attendance at Chiefs games increased and reached 37,000. By 1969—aided by some very successful and entertaining teams—Chiefs' average home attendance had reached 51,000. In 1966 the Chiefs won their first AFL Championship and reached the first ever Super Bowl (a name coined by Hunt, who took it in part from the then popular toy, the Super Ball^[2]), then called the “AFL-NFL Championship Game” which the Chiefs lost to the Green Bay Packers. The Chiefs remained successful through the 1960s, and in 1970 the Chiefs won the AFL Championship and Super Bowl IV (the last Super Bowl played when the AFL was a separate league prior to it being absorbed into the NFL as the American Football Conference) over the heavily-favored Minnesota Vikings.

In 1972, Hunt became the first American Football League personage inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The trophy presented to each year's AFC Champions is named the Lamar Hunt Trophy. In 1984, Hunt was also inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.

The NASL: ownership and battles with the NFL

In 1967 Hunt helped promote professional soccer in the United States. Hunt's intereset in soccer began in 1962 when he met his future wife, Norma, at a Shamrock Rovers match in Dublin, Ireland. In 1966, he viewed the FIFA World Cup in England, and then attended nine of the next11 World Cups tournaments. Hunt was one of the few people in the world who attended a game in every World Cup stadium during World Cup USA 1994, World Cup France 1998 and World Cup Korea/Japan in 2002.

In 1967, Hunt founded the Dallas Tornado as members of the United Soccer Association. In 1968 the league merged with the National Professional Soccer League to form the North American Soccer League. Hunt was an active advocate for the sport and the league and the Dallas Tornado won the NASL championship in 1971 and were runners-up 1973.

The NFL owners were not happy with Hunt's ownership in and promotion of pro soccer. The NFL attempted to force legal requirements that would disallow team ownership in more than one sport for owners of NFL franchises. This strategy backfired on the NFL, and the NASL won an anti-trust case against the NFL. A primary benefactor of this outcome was Lamar Hunt.^[3]

Major League Soccer

Lamar Hunt was also one of the original founding investors of Major League Soccer, which debuted in 1996. He originally owned two teams: the Columbus Crew and the Kansas City Wizards. In 1999, Hunt financed the construction of the Columbus Crew Stadium, the first of several large soccer-specific stadiums in the USA. In 2003, Hunt purchased a third team, the Dallas Burn (now FC Dallas), after announcing that he would partially finance the construction of their own soccer-specific stadium. On 31 August 2006, Hunt sold the Wizards to a six-man ownership group led by Cerner Corporation co-founders Neal Patterson and Cliff Illig.

Other sports and activities

Basketball: Hunt was one of the founding investors of the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association. He remained a minority owner until his death.

Tennis: In 1967, Hunt co-founded the World Championship Tennis circuit, which gave birth to the open era in tennis. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1993.

NHL: Hunt and John H. McConnell formed Columbus Hockey Limited, L.L.C. (CHL) in an effort to obtain a National Hockey League franchise for Columbus, Ohio. Following disagreements over the financing for an arena, McConnell accepted an offer to lease a new arena from Nationwide Insurance Enterprise. McConnell froze-out CHL and Hunt and was awarded the NHL Columbus Blue Jackets franchise. See McConnell v. Hunt Sports Enterprises, 132 Ohio App.3d 657, 725 N.E.2d 1193 (1999), a lawsuit that Lamar Hunt lost and thus granted McConnel sole ownership of the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Amusement Parks and Caves: Hunt was also the founder of two theme parks in Kansas City: Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun, which opened in 1973 and 1982 respectively. The two parks were an outgrowth and adjoined a vast industrial park he developed in the bluffs above the Missouri River in Clay County, Missouri. Immediately south of the parks is the Hunt-developed SubTropolis, a 55,000,000 square foot (5,060,000 m³), 1,100-acre (4.5 km²) manmade limestone cave which is claimed to be the World's Largest Underground Business Complex (TM). Hunt's extensive business dealings in Clay County were to contribute to the Chiefs having their NFL Training Camp at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri until 1991.

Honors

• For service to Dallas, Texas, Lamar Hunt was honored during halftime of the Dallas Cowboys/Kansas City Chiefs game in 2005.
• For his efforts in building the sport of soccer in the United States in the modern era, Hunt was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 1992, and given their Medal of Honor in 1999, an award so far given out only 3 times in history.
• The United States Soccer Federation changed the name of its oldest competition, the U.S. Open Cup (est.1914), to the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup in 1999.
• The NFL's trophy for the champion of the American Football Conference is named in honor of Lamar Hunt.
• The winner of the Border Showdown football game receives a trophy named for Lamar Hunt, effective with the 2007 return of the series to Kansas City.
• On December 17, 2006's Sunday Night Football game against the San Diego Chargers, the Kansas City Chiefs wore an emblem on the back of their helmets with the initials "LH" and continued to wear them until the end of the season. For the 2007 season, see "Tribute".
• On March 11, 2007, the inaugural Lamar Hunt Pioneer Cup match was held at Pizza Hut Park between Hunt's MLS teams, the Columbus Crew and FC Dallas.
• For the 2007 season, Major League Soccer players wore a small patch on their arm with the initials LH as a memorial to Lamar Hunt and his contribution to soccer in America. Hunt Sports Group teams the Columbus Crew and FC Dallas continue to wear these patches in his honor to this day.
• On February 20, 2008, Hunt was inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians in the Missouri state Capitol.
• The St. Mark's School of Texas Stadium was named after him.

Death

Lamar Hunt died December 13, 2006 at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas of complications related to a ten-year battle with prostate cancer. Upon his death, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones called Hunt, "a founder of the NFL as we know it today.... He's been an inspiration for me."^[4]

Said Dan Rooney, chairman of the Pittsburgh Steelers: "Lamar Hunt was one of the most influential owners in professional football over the past 40-plus years, He was instrumental in the formation of the American Football League and in the AFL-NFL merger, which helped the National Football League grow into America's passion."

The Mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, Kay Waldo Barnes, requested that all city flags fly at half-staff the following Thursday and Friday of his passing.

Upon his death his son Clark Hunt was named chairman of the Kansas City Chiefs and FC Dallas. He was elected by his other three siblings, Lamar Jr., Sharron Munson, and Daniel.

Tribute

In 2007, the Kansas City Chiefs honored Hunt and the AFL. The Chiefs 2007 Media Guide is full of images, logos and anecdotes about the league and each of its original teams. featured in the Guide and in the Chiefs 2007 Yearbook is a special AFL patch. The Yearbook's description of the patch states: "As part of a year-long tribute to Hunt in 2007, the Chiefs will wear a commemorative patch that prominently features the American Football League logo to serve as a reminder of Hunt's formation of the AFL and the lasting impact the American Football League has made on the game of Professional Football. The patch will be affixed to the left chest of both Kansas City's home and away jerseys, meaning this piece of woven symbolism will be worn over the heart of every Chiefs player." On January 31, 2008, Clark Hunt, Lamar Hunt's son and Chairman of the Chiefs, announced that henceforth, the patch will be a permanent part of the Chiefs uniform.

In 2007, the Columbus Crew honored their founder and owner by displaying a commemorative Lamar Hunt emblem on the left chest of both the home and away jerseys. The emblem consisted of the initials "LH" within a circle. Prior to the 2008 season, the Crew announced that the "LH" emblem will be a permanent patch on the left sleeve of the club's jerseys. In addition, Crew supporters groups have added the LH emblem to their scarves and banners.

After the Crew won the MLS Cup championship in 2008, the "LH" emblem was inscribed on the inside of the team's championship rings.

See also

• Other American Football League players, coaches and contributors
• Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup

References

External links

• Pro Football Hall of Fame
• International Tennis Hall of Fame
• U.S. Soccer Hall of Fame
• ESPN Soccer Net bio and Hunt's soccer legacy
• Dallas Morning News article on Hunt's death
• Sports E-Cyclopedia's Memoriam to Lamar Hunt
• Program from the Celebration of the Life of Lamar Hunt
• Excerpts from Chiefs 2007 Media Guide and Yearbook
• [1] New York Times Obit