Slow enough day newswise, and that time of year that not a whole lot of exciting things happen anyway, so I thought I'd do a post to pay homage to The Man. The guy responsible for bringing the Kansas City Chiefs to Kansas City to begin with. Youngsters out there will think it's honor due to Lamar Hunt, and while Lamar did indeed start the franchise as an original member of the "Foolish Club" my tribute here is to someone perhaps even more important in the scheme of things.
More important than Lamar Hunt, the founder of the franchise? Well, yeah, in a way. In fact, in some ways much more important, when we look at things from a local perspective ...
When Lamar Hunt and 7 other "Foolish Club" millionaires first started the fledgeling American Football League the franchise was located in his hometown of Dallas, TX. The Dallas Texans they were know as at the time, uniforms similar to today but with a large, white outline of the state on the side of the helmets.
via www.halloffamememorabilia.com
At the time, Kansas City had no professional football team. The city did have The Kansas City A's, a team that moved from Philidalphia and would later relocate to Oakland, thus opening a spot for the current Kansas City Royals. As it happened, the Mayor of the city when the A's moved to town was a gentleman named H Roe Bartle. (In the picture below, Bartle, on the right, is shown with "some guy" named Truman, on the left)
Now, Bartle happened to be a Boy Scout when he was a youth, and held fast to that life after he got his degree in law as young adult. He was very active in his then home community of Labanon, KY, and later accepted the position as executive head of the Cheyenne, WY division of the Boy Scouts of America. A few years later Bartle came to Missouri for a similar position.
From 1925 until 1928 he held a similar position in St. Joseph, Missouri, and from 1928 until 1955, he was the executive at the Kansas City Area Council. Bartle created the Tribe of Mic-O-Say honor society in Saint Joseph, Missouri in 1925, although the inspiration for the program dated to his Wyoming years. A Boy Scout camp at Osceola, Missouri is named the H.Roe Bartle Scout Reservation in his honor.In fact, it was during those years that Bartle was given the nickname The Chief. Moving forward, Bartle was Mayor of Kansas City in the early 1960's when, as it happened, there was a bit of a "showdown" in Dallas. You see, at the time neither the Dallas Texans nor the then-new Dallas Cowboys were doing as well as they wanted, financially. And so when Lamar began his search for a new home, he was (supposedly) promised a "guaranteed crowd" at every game by one locality, namely Kansas City. That "promise" was purportedly made by none other than the Mayor himself, H Roe Bartle.
Hunt became interested in moving the Texans to either Atlanta, Georgia or Miami, Florida for the 1963 season. Mayor of Kansas City Harold Roe Bartle extended an invitation to Hunt to move the Texans to Missouri. Bartle promised to triple the franchise's season ticket sales and expand seats at Municipal Stadium to accommodate the team.The Chief. The Mayor. The head honcho. The big guy. The main man. The one who made it happen for the citizens of Kansas City, as well as for Lamar Hunt. THE Chief.
via bsatroop10.org
And so, the franchise moved, beginning play at old Municipal Stadium in Kansas City. Of course, it would be silly to have a team called the Kansas City Texans, and thus the team was renamed, rebranded and given a new identity as the Chiefs, honoring The Chief. H Roe Bartle
via s3.amazonaws.com
Remembered, honored ... and thank you, Chief!
