The Ten-Year AFL Patch is a shoulder patch adapted for use on American Football League (AFL) team uniforms.
The Ten-Year AFL Patch is a shoulder patch adapted for use on American Football League (AFL) team uniforms.
During the entire 1969 professional football season, all NFL players wore a shoulder patch on their uniforms, reading "50 NFL", marking the 50 years which had passed since the league's initial organization. American Football League fan Ange Coniglio [1] petitioned the AFL owners to have their players wear a patch commemorating the league's 10 years, especially since it was the AFL's final year. The AFL owners declined, in Lamar Hunt's words, because they felt that a patch would make the uniforms "too busy".
Coniglio enlisted the support of AFL President Milt Woodard and of AFL players. At his urging, the idea was also advanced by Jack Kemp in a request to Pete Rozelle. As reported in the Kansas City Chiefs' 2006 Press Guide, Woodard had a patch made to be used by whichever team won the final AFL Championship. It turned out that AFL founder Lamar Hunt's Chiefs would be in the final AFL-NFL World Championship Game, and Hunt agreed to have the Chiefs wear a ten-year AFL patch in Super Bowl IV. The outline of the patch resembles that of the United States highway shield, itself based on the Great Seal of the United States.
AFL Hall of Fame coach Hank Stram supported the idea and used the patch as a motivating factor for his team. Stram was later quoted as saying "You could not believe it when you saw the faces of the players. These were great men, and great pros, but they were like kids in a candy shop when they saw that patch." Years later, Chiefs linebacker Willie Lanier remarked "It lit us up. We knew what it meant." Wearing the AFL patch, the Chiefs went out and defeated the Vikings 23–7. The AFL-NFL Championship Game's final record was NFL 2, AFL 2, showing that the upstart American Football League could capably compete with the established NFL.
After Hunt's death in 2007, a modified version of the AFL patch, this time rendered as a disc instead of a federal shield, and with his "LH" initials replacing the "AFL" letters on the football, became a permanent part of the Chiefs uniform on its left side as a memorial to the league and the team's founding owner, along with being an icon within the end zones of Arrowhead Stadium to identify the team's conference, replacing the post-merger AFC logo used by the league until 2009. [2] [3]
The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence. It was more successful than earlier rivals to the NFL with the same name, the 1926, 1936 and 1940 leagues, and the later All-America Football Conference.
The first AFL–NFL World Championship Game was an American football game played on January 15, 1967, at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California. The National Football League (NFL) champion Green Bay Packers defeated the American Football League (AFL) champion Kansas City Chiefs by the score of 35–10.
Super Bowl IV was an American football game played on January 11, 1970, at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was the fourth and final AFL–NFL World Championship Game in professional football prior to the AFL–NFL merger taking effect the following season. The American Football League (AFL) champion Kansas City Chiefs defeated the National Football League (NFL) champion Minnesota Vikings by the score of 23–7. This victory by the AFL squared the Super Bowl series with the NFL at two games apiece as the two leagues merged after the game.
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Angelo F. Coniglio is an American civil engineer, educator, genealogist and author. He was in the first graduating class (BSCE,1961) of the School of Civil Engineering established by Robert L. Ketter at the University of Buffalo (UB) in 1956. He attended a post-graduate semester at the University of Illinois where he was a student of renowned hydrology theorist Ven Te Chow. He also earned a master's degree from UB.