TheFencingCoach

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the JFK assassination. This article goes into the controversial decision of the NFL and Pete Rozelle to hold games two days later.

• Rozelle later would regret holding the games. He faced public pressure from Governor George Romney (father of Mitt) who urged him to cancel the games. He declined.

• Kennedy had signed the sports broadcasting act which essentially forced the NFL into Sunday broadcasts so as not to conflict with college football. Incidentally, Amazon as a streaming service is not beholden to this law and thus can broadcast NFL games at their leisure,

• NFL owners were fairly divided to play the games or not. Dan Rooney urged Rozelle to cancel, but Rozelle declined.

• The AFL canceled games, causing some public backlash against the NFL.

• Rozelle was a personal friend of Kennedy’s and was very depressed following Kennedy’s murder.

• Even though some fans were upset with the decision to play, many sellout crowds still happened that weekend, including a 63,000 seat sellout between the Cardinals and Giants,

• When the Cowboys arrived in Cleveland for a game, some of the baggage handlers at the airport refused to handle their bags because JFK had been killed in Dallas. “We were [viewed as] killers, [as though] we had killed the president,” Dallas tight end Pettis Norman later said, according to a 2021 History.com story.” Art Modell requested the announcers simply refer to the team as the “Cowboys” instead of the “Dallas Cowboys.”

Really fascinating read.