The Game of Love the Game of Love
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SOUTHWEST AIRLINES SOUTHWEST A SYMBOL OF FREEDOM ® The Game of Love For a sport so full of hard knocks, football has its surprisingly tender side. From Joe Namath in pantyhose to the passion of the fans, it’s all about heart—and not just about football. FEBRUARY 2011 FEBRUARY FEBRUARY 2011 “HUDDLE UP!” It sounds so close to “cuddle up”—but suggest that similarity to a 350-pound tackle and you might end up on the hurtin’ end of a sack. Still, the seemingly remote worlds of love and football overlap in many ways—and not just in February, a month that brings us the Super Bowl and Valentine’s Day. There’s fan love, of course. And the love of the game. There’s the love the players feel for each other. The love a couch potato has for his Bud Lite. And the love his wife shows every time she pretends to be interested in the “wildcat” formation. There are women in love with the game, too—so much so that they passionately play it and report on it. Yes, love and football have been huddling for decades. Who knew that when John Madden was hollering about the red zone, he meant the heart? BY JOHN MC ALLEY & CHRIS RAYMOND PHOTOGRAPH BY ADAM VOORHES 66 SPIRIT FEBRUARY 2011 FEBRUARY 2011 SPIRIT 67 SEPT 24 1920s-50s 1960 16 NOVEMBER 1 9 5 2 Aug. 20, 1920 Oct. 3, 1955 The Kickoff Reversing the The American Pro- S.I. Cover Curse fessional Football Hall of Fame run- ning back Doak Association (to Nov. 22, 1956 be renamed the Walker appears on the cover of The Wishbone National Football Play The Detroit League two years Sports Illustrated. One month later, Lions beat the later) is launched. Green Bay Packers So too, in effect, is GRRRR! For the first time, Charlie Brown falls for Lucy’s blond Olympic ski- er Skeeter Werner in the first Thanks- the era of the foam trick play of pulling the football away as he goes to kick it. giving Day game finger, tailgating, dons the S.I. cover. But good old Chuck had landed on his duff before. Violet Fourteen years broadcast live the “terrible towel,” on television. Cheeseheads, the sent him spinning in a Peanuts strip dated Nov. 14, 1951. later, Walker and Werner wed. Dinner table “Ickey shuffle,” and, disputes abound lamentably, the UNIVERSITY/GETTY FORDHAM BY LOMBARDI ILLUSTRATED, COOKE/SPORTS JERRY BY WERNER LLC, PEANUTS WORLDWIDE 2010 © thereafter. football widow. PEANUTS COWBOYS BY FOCUS ON SPORT/GETTY Sept. 9, 1960 AUG 31 2nd and Long 1940 To compete for a piece of the WINNERS NEVER QUIT NFL action, the American Foot- Oct. 22, 1939 Vincent Thomas Lombardi ball League is A Sunday Kind launched with a of Love NBC airs marries the cousin of 13-10 Broncos the first televised victory over the NFL game, from a Fordham teammate. Boston Patriots, Brooklyn’s Ebbets doubling men’s Field. The couch Days later, he cuts his pleasure—and potato is thus born, their wives’ and Sunday strolls honey-moon short to irritation. with your beau take a punishing hit— return to coaching high unless they’re to the beer barn. school football at St. Cecilia in Englewood, STARS ARE BORN The Dallas Cowboys play their very first game: a New Jersey. He’ll go on 35-28 loss at the Cotton Bowl to the Pittsburgh Steelers. The nation’s love to become the greatest affair with the ’Boys wouldn’t be officially consummated until 1978, when, coach in NFL history. in a highlights reel, a rhapsodic narrator dubbed them “America’s Team.” 68 SPIRIT FEBRUARY 2011 1960s FEBRUARY 2011 SPIRIT 69 Profiles In Courage James Caan, left, as Piccolo, and Billy Dee Williams, 1970s as Sayers, gave Brian’s Song their all. NOV 30 June 8, 1966 1971 Airborne At the aptly named “I LOVE...BRIAN PICCOLO” Dallas Love Field Airport, a cozy It has been said that there is no crying comingling of the NFL and AFL is in football. It is also widely believed that struck between Dallas Cowboys real men don’t cry. When it comes to general manager Tex Schramm and the heartbreaking TV movie Brian’s Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt. Song, those supposed truisms spiral The merger— under the banner right out the window. Based on the true of the National Football League— story of the brotherly love and undying would be sealed with the playing bond between Chicago Bears running of the first Super Bowl, on Jan. 15, back Gale Sayers (Billy Dee Williams) 1967. and his terminally ill teammate Brian Piccolo (James Caan), the film—dubbed one of the greatest sports movies of all time by ESPN and “the Mona Lisa of male weepers” by Entertainment Weekly—lays bare common wisdom Nov. 17, 1968 about machismo and male friendship. Yodel Lay...Who? Arguably the original “bromance” flick, Brian’s Unwittingly, NBC pits a pixie from the Song was watched by one in three American Swiss Alps against households when it premiered on Nov. 30, 1971. a nation of raging It remains universally beloved to this day. Wil- football fans. With 65 seconds left in a liams, who went on to pop culture permanence nail-biter between as Lando Calrissian in The Empire Strikes Back, the Raiders and the jokes, “Even Richard Nixon dropped what he Jets, the network cuts away to a pre- was doing the night Brian’s Song was on TV.” To scheduled movie celebrate the film’s 40th anniversary, Spirit con- of the kid’s classic tributor J. Rentilly rounded up several of its key Heidi. Remarkably, in the game’s final players—Williams, producer Paul Junger Witt, minute, the Raiders writer William Blinn, as well as Joy Piccolo, Bri- score twice to beat an’s widow, and Gale Sayers himself—to reflect the Jets. The outcry is so intense the on the film’s extraordinary emotional force. Love contest is dubbed and football are celebrated on page after page of “The Heidi Game.” this special issue of Spirit. But nothing more pow- Broadcast policies are forever altered. erfully brings those two themes together than the enduring and unforgettable Brian’s Song. Read PHOTOGRAPHY © ABC © PHOTOGRAPHY the story of the making of the film on page 102. 70 SPIRIT FEBRUARY 2011 FEBRUARY 2011 SPIRIT 71 SEPT 17 1972 05 OCTOBER Jan. 21, 1979 1 9 8 5 1980sSugar Rush An ad for Coca- Cola, aired during Super Bowl XIII and featuring Steelers tackle “Mean” Joe Greene and an Sept. 21, 1975 admiring young C’mon, Man! fan, touches the March 5, 1982 Former Miss Amer- heart of the nation. The Screen Play ica Phyllis George In the classic film joins the broadcast Diner, Steve Gut- team for CBS’s The tenberg subjects NFL Today, a first Feb. 1974 his on-screen stab at leveling the sweetheart to a Sideline Pass playing field for Joe Namath, the 140-question women in sports “Colts quiz” to Jets’ studly, bach- broadcasting— KNOWING THE SCORE Grambling State coach Eddie elor quarterback, determine if she’s and an overt bid “the one.” She fails Robinson replaces Alabama’s Bear Bryant atop slips into a pair of by CBS to bring pantyhose for a by two points, but college football’s wins list. The secret to his success? greater numbers walks the aisle TV ad promoting of female viewers Treating his players as if they were going to marry his Hanes’ Beautymist Jan. 3, 1981 a few days later, into the Sunday The Backup QB down the carpet daughter, Robinson says. “Coaching is a profession of brand. The most huddle. shocking aspect of Olivia Manning runner he selected. love. You can’t coach people unless you love them.” the famously gen- delivers her sec- “Colts colors,” he der-bending spot? ond Super Bowl says. “Very classy.” Joe Willie’s legs MVP, baby boy (and weren’t half bad! future New York Giants quarter- back) Eli Manning. CAPPELETTI AND BRADSHAW © AP, ROBINSON BY RONALD C. MODRA/SPORTS IMAGERY/GETTY) MODRA/SPORTS IMAGERY/GETTY) C. RONALD BY ROBINSON AP, © CAPPELETTI BRADSHAW AND Jan. 30, 1985 JUNE 6 The Ruling On 1976 the Field Is... HOLDING PENALTY! The words fantasy and football unite At a black-tie dinner MERGER TALKS in Washington, D.C., for the first time when savvy Cowboys G.M. Tex Schramm rugged Redskins Figure skater JoJo Starbuck running back John introduces the nation to the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. and Steelers QB Terry Riggins tests out March 24, 1976 his charms on Born a Kicker Bradshaw marry—just Supreme Court Five years into her Justice Sandra Day marriage to Saints one of many marriages O’Connor. “Loosen QB Archie Manning, up, Sandy baby,” 13 he says. “You’re DECEMBER Olivia Manning between pro players and 1 9 7 3 delivers her first too tight.” HE AIN’T HEAVY... Super Bowl MVP: famous beauties. Four Penn State and bouncing baby boy (and future Colts years later, Starbuck will eventutal NFL running quarterback) back John Cappeletti Peyton Manning. file for divorce, citing irrec- lends new meaning to the phrase brotherly oncilable differences. “She love, dedicating his likes the ballet, I like square Heisman Trophy to his sibling Joey, a victim of dancing,” Bradshaw says. leukemia, in an accep- “She likes the bright lights, tance speech that rivals Gale Sayers’ in its I like the soft moonlight tear-jerking potency. of the ranch.” 72 SPIRIT FEBRUARY 2011 FEBRUARY 2011 SPIRIT 73 FEB 6 1996 THE CHILLY FANATIC Season ticket holder John Thompson tells Congress how his heart will be broken if the Cleveland Browns move to Baltimore.