AP News, December 14th, 2006
The low-level employee herding people into a crowded elevator atop Arrowhead Stadium seemed in a foul mood.
"It's full," he growled. "Everybody else will either have to wait or take the stairs."
But amid the noise and confusion, somebody kept pressing against his back.
Finally, with an annoyed look, the young man glanced over his shoulder, saw who he was barking at, and turned pale. "Oh, I'm sorry," he stammered. "I didn't realize it was you, Mr. Hunt. Please _ we can make room."
But there came a reassuring reply in a soft Texas twang.
And then the visionary billionaire who founded the AFL, helped pioneer modern professional football and gave the Super Bowl its name disappeared into the masses without complaint and walked down four flights.
That's the kind of owner Lamar Hunt was.
More than anything else, Hunt was a sportsman who always put the good of the game _ any game _ ahead of himself.
"God's blessing of great wealth was not wasted on Lamar Hunt," said Missouri Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, the former mayor of Kansas City. "Money had no negative impact on Lamar whatsoever."
Bequeathed a vast fortune by his oilman father, the unpretentious Texan who helped shape the richest and most successful sports league in the world never flew first class, always coach. He never meddled. Unless he was cheering his beloved Kansas City Chiefs, he was never heard to raise his voice.
Unlike so many of his ego-driven counterparts, Hunt never sought the spotlight. But he loved to mingle with fans and hated it when his younger peers would put the interests of their individual clubs above those of the NFL.
"Many times Lamar has sent me to the NFL meetings with instructions to support this or oppose that," said Carl Peterson, Chiefs president and general manager since 1989. "I would point out to him that it might benefit the Chiefs more if we took a different position. He would say, `Yes, but this is the best course in the long term for the league.'
"Lamar has touched so many lives. And he improved every one of them."
Whether it was in business or in the NFL or in tennis or in soccer, where he was a founding father of both the NASL and MLS.
It was this attitude, shared by many other early-day owners, that helped the NFL avoid the big market-small market disparity that often divides major league baseball.
"In my opinion, he is one of the founding fathers of the National Football League as we know it today," said San Diego coach Marty Schottenheimer, who led the Chiefs from 1989 through 1998. "He's the most remarkable, unique human I've ever known."
Added Don Garber, commissioner of the MLS: "He was probably more influential in this sport. His contribution is far-reaching as a founder, he helped created the plan and moved the plan in a direction to ensure our future forever by building the first soccer-specific stadium. There would be no MLS without Lamar."
Friends and employees would sometimes chuckle _ behind his back, of course_ at Hunt's unassertive business suits that looked as though they'd come straight off the rack.
"And they probably had," said Len Dawson, the Hall of Fame quarterback who led the Chiefs to their only Super Bowl victory in 1970.
On game day at Arrowhead, flamboyant owners and visiting celebrities would come tooling up in chauffeur-driven stretch limos, their entourage in tow. Right behind them in a rented Ford or Chevy would come Lamar and Norma Hunt.
A man of immense wealth, Hunt was notorious for never carrying cash and constantly having to borrow small amounts to buy sodas, hot dogs and the like. It was a modest habit that once caused great embarrassment.
"He was driving his rental car somewhere and came to a roadway toll bridge," said Dawson. "The charge was a quarter or fifty cents, or something like that. But Lamar didn't have any money. He had to talk his way through it."
If there had never been a Lamar Hunt, the history of professional sports in America would have taken a different course. That's particularly true in football, especially in places like Dallas, Minneapolis, Oakland and Kansas City.
Rebuffed in the late 1950s in his efforts to buy an NFL franchise, Hunt began persuading other wealthy sportsmen to create the AFL and compete with the established league.
"The NFL kept telling Lamar they had no intention of going into Dallas," said Jack Steadman, the former president of the Chiefs and Hunt's right-hand man for almost 50 years.
"But the first thing the NFL did when Lamar started the Dallas Texans was put a franchise in Dallas. If Lamar had not started the AFL, which became the AFC with the merger, there would not have been the franchises we've always known as the Dallas Cowboys and Kansas City Chiefs."
The same was true of Minneapolis and Oakland, Dawson recalled.
"When Lamar was flying around the country trying to put together the AFL, the NFL was doing its best to kill it," he said.
"Lamar had a group lined up in Minnesota to start a franchise, and the NFL told them they would give them a franchise if they would back out of Lamar's deal. And that's how Oakland got involved. That left them with only seven teams, and you couldn't play a schedule with seven teams.
"Without Lamar's persistence and vision, who knows what the NFL would look like today?"
Hunt's health had been declining sharply in recent months. But he called an Associated Press reporter on Nov. 21, two days before Thanksgiving, to say how happy he was that the Chiefs were finally getting to play a Thanksgiving Day home game.
"It's a good feeling knowing that something you've worked for 37 years is finally coming to pass," he said in a weak voice.
After 15 minutes or so, he apologized for keeping the reporter on the phone so long.
"I'm sure you have better things to do than talk to me," he said with a chuckle. "I'll see you at the game."
But he was admitted to the hospital the next day with a partially collapsed lung, and never came home. Doctors discovered his cancer had spread alarmingly.
In his last visit with his old friend, Steadman sat at Hunt's hospital bed for almost an hour. They reminisced about the past and spoke of the future, including vast improvements planned for Arrowhead Stadium. The 78,000-seat facility has sold out for 132 consecutive games, making the Chiefs one of the best-supported teams in the league, and Hunt intended to keep it that way.
"Jack, I want you to make sure the stadium is the new Arrowhead and that people will be excited about it," Hunt told Steadman. "We owe that to the taxpayers."
And the sports world owes a tremendous debt to Lamar Hunt.
