Sunday's AFC Championship Game Sparked Old Memories

On the eve of Sunday's televised matchup in Indianapolis between the Colts and the New York Jets for the AFC championship and a berth in the February 7th Super Bowl, the NFL Network aired a replay of the Super Bowl III battle between the same two teams on Saturday night in its entirety. I was thrilled to get an opportunity to view the January 12, 1969, original telecast that aired on NBC four days after my 12th birthday. Curt Gowdy spoke the name of West Columbia's own Dennis Gaubatz about as many times as he and his TV boothmates Al DeRogatis and Kyle Rote said Joe Namath's name. For those of you reading this who are too young to be aware of the great significance of this particular Super Bowl, played at the conclusion of the 1968 regular season, it ranks among the best of all the Super Bowls simply because the Jets' upset 16-7 victory over the Colts brought the nascent American Football League notoriety and a semblance of equality with the elder, more established National Football League. Namath, pictured at right, completed 17 of 28 passes for 206 yards and was intercepted once in outdueling the Colts and their MVP quarterback Earl Morrall. Gaubatz, who sacked Namath once and had an outstanding game against the Jets, making tackles all over the Orange Bowl playing field from his middle linebacker position, had really come into his own in 1968. Playing in the same league with several of the greatest middle linebackers in NFL history (Dick Butkus of the Bears, Ray Nitschke of the Packers, Tommy Nobis of the Falcons and Lee Roy Jordan of the Cowboys), the young man born in Needville and raised in West Columbia was nothing if not "visible" throughout Super Bowl III. Over the past 40 years I have seen various film clips and still photos from this particular Super Bowl that featured shots of one of the best, if not THE best, football player to ever come out of West Columbia High School. But Saturday night I was able to see for the first time in my life, Super Bowl III on TV from its hopeful beginning (for a diehard Colts fan such as myself) to its very disappointing conclusion. At the time the game was played I did not realize Super Bowl III featured so many players with connections to the Lone Star state. In addition to my fellow West Columbian Dennis Gaubatz, there were 10 other members of the 1968 Colts and Jets who either grew up in Texas or played college football in my home state. Amazingly there were four Texas Longhorns playing for the Jets. Wide receiver George Sauer Jr., whose father George Sauer had played for the Green Bay Packers (winners of the first two Super Bowls) from 1935 to 1937, was Namath's primary passing target in Super Bowl III. The former Longhorn, who was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, caught eight passes for 133 yards that day, often beating NFL all-pro cornerback Lenny Lyles on his pass routes. The Jets' Sauer, tight end Pete Lammons, safety Jim Hudson and defensive tackle John Elliott were all members of the University of Texas's 1963 national champions. Hudson, born in Steubenville, Ohio, was the Longhorns' quarterback in 1964 but played in the defensive secondary on coach Darrell Royal's '63 national championship team. Lammons, born in Crockett, Texas, played his high school football at Jacksonville High, while Elliott, the Jets' seventh round draft pick in the 1967 draft, was from Beaumont. And other native Texans playing with West Columbian Gaubatz for Baltimore were defensive end Bubba Smith, born in Orange but playing his high school ball in Beaumont, cornerback Bobby Boyd from Dallas, and safety Jerry Logan from Graham. In addition to those players from UT, other New York Jets who hailed from the great state of Texas were offensive tackle Winston Hill of Joaquin, punter Curley Johnson of Anna, and wide receivers Don Maynard of Crosbyton and Bake Turner of Alpine. Johnson, who played his high school ball in Dallas, went on to play for the University of Houston. Turner played collegiately at Texas Tech and Maynard caught passes for Texas Western College. In addition to stunning the sports world with their win over the highly favored Colts, two members of the Jets savored sweet revenge with New York's Super Bowl III victory. Johnny Sample, who swiped one of three interceptions Earl Morrall threw that day 41 years ago, had played for the Colts when they won the 1958 NFL championship his rookie season. He was released by the Colts after the 1960 season. Winston Hill, who guarded Namath's blind side from his left tackle position in Super Bowl III, had been drafted by the Colts but cut in training camp by Baltimore five years earlier. Both Sample and Hill played huge roles in the Jets' upset victory. Hill, who was an All-American at Texas Southern University, played football at Weldon High School in Gladewater, Texas, where his father was the school principal. The 2009 version of the Jets, coached by a cocky Rex Ryan in his first year at the helm, led Peyton Manning's Colts at halftime Sunday, giving the nation's huge pro football following thoughts that the Super Bowl III upset those Jets pulled off against the Colts of Johnny Unitas's era might be repeated in 2010. But the rally Unitas failed to pull off in 1969 when his coach (Don Shula) inserted Johnny U. into the game in the third quarter, Peyton Manning succeeded in bringing about in this year's AFC championship game. Now Manning and the modern day Colts will face the New Orleans Saints that Peyton and Eli's father Archie Manning used to quarterback back in Morrall, Unitas and Namath's days when this year's Super Bowl is played in the same city (Miami) where Broadway Joe Namath pulled off what was, at that time, probably the biggest upset in pro football playoff history.

Super Bowl III was chock full of so many ironies and sidebar stories to go along with the big game itself. A huge underdog comes out on top. Bragging young quarterback gets the best of a pair of veteran QB's with so much more NFL experience. The NFL representative had never lost the Super Bowl to an AFL team before. The list goes on and on. The Super Bowl started out as a highly touted matchup between the champions of the two professional football leagues, the newer American Football League, which had only been in existence since 1960, and the more established pro league, the National Football League. This would be the next-to-last Super Bowl that pitted the champions of the two independent leagues. After the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV the following January--and the Super Bowl series based on the old format would go into the record books with the NFL winning the first two and the AFL taking the last two--the American Football League was incorporated into the National Football League and the two leagues became one entity. Baltimore, Cleveland and Pittsburgh moved from the old NFL into the new American Football Conference to give the NFL's new arrangment two equal 13-team conferences. Prior to that the NFL had 16 teams and the AFL had 10 teams. One of the more prominent sidebars to Super Bowl III involved the coaches. Baltimore head coach Don Shula had played for Jets head coach Weeb Ewbank (pictured below on the sideline with his quarterback Joe Namath during Super Bowl III) when Ewbank was an assistant to Paul Brown with the Cleveland Browns and when Ewbank was the head coach of the Colts. Shula was a cornerback for Cleveland in 1951 and 1952, then patrolled the defensive secondary for Baltimore from 1953 through 1956, before closing out his pro playing career with the Washington Redskins in 1957. Ewbank was the Colts head coach from 1954 through 1962, coaching the Ponies to back-to-back NFL titles in 1958 and 1959. And who would replace Weeb Ewbank as Baltimore's head coach in 1963? None other than Don Shula, who had been the defensive coordinator for the Detroit Lions. Dennis Gaubatz was an 8th round draft choice by the Lions out of LSU in 1963 and was acquired by Shula prior to the start of the 1965 season in a trade for running back Joe Don Looney. So Super Bowl III featured the added drama of the former Colts head coach defeating the current leader of Baltimore's pro football team. And two of the assistant coaches roaming the sidelines in Super Bowl III would leave their respective teams in the weeks after the game to take the reins of two failing pro football franchises. Clive Rush, the offensive coordinator of the '68 Jets, became the new head coach of the Boston Patriots (they hadn't yet started going by New England), while the Colts' defensive coordinator Chuck Noll soon became head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. While Rush was unable to turn things around with the Patriots during his brief tenure in Bean Town, Noll rebounded from a disastrous 1-13 first season to win more Super Bowls as a head coach (4) than any other coach in NFL history as the leader of the "Steel Curtain."

My grandmother, Pauline Giesler, gave 8-by-10 autographed photos of Dennis Gaubatz to my brother Cody and I sometime in 1967 or 1968. I can still recall showing off my 8-by-10 glossy of the LSU Tiger great who had played professionally for both the Detroit Lions and Baltimore Colts in my three-ring binder with the see-through plastic cover when I started junior high school in West Columbia. I proudly displayed Gaubatz's autographed photo on my notebook when I walked the same halls at West Columbia Junior High School that the Colts middle linebacker had walked when he went to school in my hometown. The new high school that I would later attend in West Columbia was not constructed until the early 1960s, so the junior high I went through seventh and eighth grades in served as the high school for Dennis Gaubatz and other West Columbia and Brazoria area students in the late 1950s. As a teenager Dennis spent a lot of time at my grandmother's home in East Columbia where he would go fishing and alligator hunting with my mother's brother, Howard Giesler. And after his pro football career was over, Dennis became fishing buddies with the man who would later be my father-in-law, my wife Peggy's dad Omer Hall. The photo above was more than likely taken by my father-in-law when he and Dennis caught a lot of fish on one of their many outings in Omer's boat. In recent years Dennis Gaubatz has become a good friend of my cousin, Billy Gupton, and the two of them do a lot of wild hog hunting on the P.L Gupton Estate property that runs along the banks of the San Bernard River near West Columbia. When I was a kid my grandmother asked Dennis's wife if she would have her husband sign a few photographs of himself for her grandsons. I still have that autographed photo all these many years later and display it on a wall in my home where it sits inside a frame given to me for Christmas one year by my son Brian, along with autographed Sports Illustrated covers that Dennis Gaubatz adorned during his pro football days. The gifts of autographed photos and magazines from my grandmother, son and my wife were among the best presents I have ever received, and I would like to express my gratitude to not only the beloved family members who presented them to me, but especially to the former Super Bowl participant who signed them. Thanks a million, Dennis, and happy 70th birthday in a couple weeks. You are the greatest and will always be a "champion" in my eyes!

Fullback Matt Snell, who like the Colts star running back Tom Matte was a former Ohio State University product, is shown below dodging the tackle of Baltimore middle linebacker Dennis Gaubatz. Joe Namath was named the game's most valuable player after leading the New York Jets to a huge upset of the NFL champion Baltimore Colts, but many thought Snell should have been awarded the MVP trophy. Snell scored the Jets only touchdown in Super Bowl III on a 4-yard run in the second quarter. Film footage of Snell's successful sweep to the left where former Columbia Roughnecks linebacker Dennis Gaubatz is shown diving at Snell's legs as he crosses the goal line continues to be shown on television each and every year when the Super Bowl comes around. I keep telling myself as I view my fellow West Columbian on TV with each repeated showing of the famous Jets touchdown run, one of these times Dennis is going to make that tackle . . . but it never happens. Deja vu all over again! Snell carried the ball 30 times for 121 yards and that lone Jets touchdown in Super Bowl III. His fellow former Ohio State Buckeye Matte had an outstanding Super Bowl for the Colts as well, picking up 116 yards on 11 carries and catching two passes for 30 yards in the Baltimore loss. Matte even completed a pass in what has gone down in history as the one play in Super Bowl III that should have sent the two teams into the locker rooms at halftime tied at 7-7. On that particular play Colts quarterback Earl Morrall tossed a short pass to Matte in the flat to the right, Matte then caught the Jets' defense off guard by passing the ball back to Morrall who fired an errant pass downfield over the middle to fullback Jerry Hill. Jets' safety Jim Hudson (the former Texas Longhorns quarterback) intercepted the pass from Morrall as the final seconds of the first half ticked harmlessly off the clock and New York took their 7-0 lead into the second half. On this unforgettable play Colts wide receiver Jimmy Orr was wide open near the end zone without a Jets defender anywhere near him . . . but Morrall claims he never saw Orr when he threw the interception. NFL films of this Super Bowl, which remains the most memorable pro football game of my lifetime, show Orr waving his arms around the 5-yard line in an unsuccessful attempt to get his quarterback's attention. Colts center Bill Curry, who would later play for the Houston Oilers, said he could see Orr waving his arms while Curry was blocking for Morrall and to this day does not know why Earl threw the ball to Hill instead of Orr. Curry said that the Colts used this same play against the Atlanta Falcons during the regular season and Orr was then, like he was supposed to be on the play right before halftime in Super Bowl III, the primary target. Curry said Orr scored a touchdown against the Falcons on that same play when Morrall found Orr all alone in the end zone against Atlanta. But on this particular day in pro football lore, things just seemed to all go the New York Jets' way.

Offensive linemen Dave Herman (67) and John Schmitt (at left) attempt to keep Colts defensive linemen Fred Miller (76) and Bubba Smith (78) off of their superstar quarterback Joe Namath (12) in the photo below, taken during Super Bowl III on January 12, 1969, in Miami's Orange Bowl. The Colts' defense, which featured a West Columbian at middle linebacker, was eager to dish out a surplus of punishment on the Jets' outspoken signal caller in the third Super Bowl. He had not only predicted a Jets victory that day 41 years ago, but had "guaranteed" it in several interviews he gave the press in the days leading up to the big game. The Green Bay Packers of legendary NFL head coach Vince Lombardi (whose name is now emblazoned on the trophy presented to each year's Super Bowl winner) handily won the first two Super Bowls over AFL champs Kansas City in Super Bowl I and Oakland in Super Bowl II. Earl Morrall, who like Dennis Gaubatz had played for the Detroit Lions before joining the Colts, was the NFL's most valuable player in 1968, when he replaced an injured Johnny Unitas and quarterbacked the Colts to an outstanding 13-1 season. But Namath had quipped that there were at least five quarterbacks in the American Football League who were better than the NFL's MVP. Bear Bryant's former quarterback at Alabama, Namath was the highest paid player in pro football at the time, and the darling of New York City sports fans. His outlandish remarks to the media in the week leading up to the Super Bowl, which included bragging that both he and his Jets backup quarterback Babe Parilli (along with the Dolphins Bob Griese, the Raiders Daryle Lamonica and the Chiefs Lynn Dawson) were better than the Colts starting quarterback Earl Morrall, led Jets head coach Weeb Ewbank to remark that he "wanted to kill" Namath for popping off to the press. But Namath engineered one of the biggest upsets in American sports history and the Jets' defense made both Morrall and Unitas look like just about every AFL quarterback appear to be better than them based on the performance of the two Colts QB's who appeared in Super Bowl III. How did a team that went 13-1 on the season and embarrassed the Cleveland Browns 34-0 in front of their home crowd in the NFL championship game the week before let the AFL's representative notch their first victory in the Super Bowl? Was it fate that allowed Namath's Jets to come out victorious against Morrall and Unitas's mighty Colts? More likely it was simply that the Jets were the better team on this one particular day in early 1969. Many of the Colts players, including the former Roughneck standout Gaubatz, have said that if the 1968 Colts played the 1968 Jets 10 times, the Colts would more than likely win eight or nine of those games. But the only game that mattered is the one that was played the day Joe Willie Namath and his teammates backed up the big mouth of the pride of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. And that was the same game that broke the hearts of so many of my West Columbia neighbors and huge supporters of their hometown hero.

Because my fellow West Columbian Dennis Gaubatz was the starting middle linebacker for the Baltimore Colts in the 1960s, I obviously was riding on the Colts' bandwagon when they lined up against the AFL Champion New York Jets on January 12, 1969, in the third installment of the Super Bowl. But after that historical upset engineered by former Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback Joe Willie Namath against my beloved Colts, I became, as did thousands and thousands of other football fans across America, a huge fan of Broadway Joe's. Several large posters of Joe Namath adorned my bedroom walls when I was a teenager. They shared wall space with Cheryl Tiegs, Farrah Fawcett, Roman Gabriel and Bruce Lee. Dennis would only play one more season with the Colts, opting to retire at the end of the 1969 season when Don Shula moved Mike Curtis from his outside linebacker position to Gaubatz's middle linebacker spot and relegated the former Roughnecks great to the Colts' bench. So, a couple years removed from their first Super Bowl appearance, I was pulling whole heartedly for the Dallas Cowboys when they took on the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl V. This time, with my childhood hero Dennis Gaubatz in retirement and Don Shula now coaching in Miami, the Colts defeated my Cowboys on a last second Jim O'Brien field goal in the fifth installment of the Super Bowl. Tom Landry's Cowboys would return to the Super Bowl the very next year though and defeat Shula's Dolphins at the conclusion of the 1972 season. Bubba Smith, the Colts' All-Pro defensive end who would later star in several "Police Academy" movies when his gridiron days were over, is pictured below putting pressure on Joe Namath in Super Bowl III. Bubba, who was born in Orange and played high school football in Beaumont, was just one of many native Texans who appeared in Super Bowl III.

I vaguely recall that when the game was actually being played, my brother Cody and I spent a great deal of time in the front yard throwing the football around. Our dad would step out the front door occasionally throughout the game and give us updates, informing us that the Colts were getting embarrassed by that loud mouth longhair Namath and the rest of the Jets. Reflecting on it now, I can't believe Cody and I were not glued to the floor in front of our old black and white Zenith TV set for all four quarters of Super Bowl III. Here it was, the biggest pro football game of our young lives, featuring the only Columbia Roughnecks player (at the time) to ever appear in a Super Bowl, and we are outside playing football in the front yard. But hey, I was only 12 at the time and being outdoors usually won out over being inside the house 99 percent of the time back in those days. Charley Johnson, who was the Roughnecks' MVP as a senior two-way starter on Columbia's state championship runner-up team in 1969 (the season after Gaubatz appeared in the Super Bowl), would be the second Roughnecks player to appear in a Super Bowl eleven years later. Johnson, who played collegiately at Colorado after a stint in the Army, was the starting nose tackle for the Philadelphia Eagles when they lost to Jim Plunkett and the Oakland Raiders in the 1980 Super Bowl. Ron Jaworski, who is now one of the color commentators on ESPN's "Monday Night Football" telecasts, was the Eagles quarterback when Charley Johnson was an All-Pro defensive lineman for Philadelphia. Another Roughnecks standout football player, James Ray Smith, who was an All-American offensive lineman at Baylor University, played for the Cleveland Browns in the 1957 NFL championship game but that was long before the Super Bowl came along. Unfortunately, like his two fellow former Columbia Roughnecks players in their Super Bowl appearances, Smith and the Browns failed to win in his only NFL championship game appearance. The Browns, coached by the legendary Paul Brown, played in five NFL championship games in the 1950s. Cleveland won back-to-back league titles in 1954 and 1955, but James Ray Smith of West Columbia did not join the Browns until his rookie season in 1956. The Detroit Lions whipped the Browns 59-14 in the 1957 NFL championship game. That was the same year Dennis Gaubatz was leading the Roughnecks to a district championship and a successful run deep into the postseason playoffs in his senior year at the West Columbia high school.

1958 West Columbia High School grad Dennis Earl Gaubatz was the vocal leader of the 1968 NFL champion Baltimore Colts' record-setting defensive unit, barking out coverages from his middle linebacker position in Super Bowl III. The New York Jets upset the highly favored Colts, 16-7, in the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida, on January 12, 1969. The Colts defense set a new NFL record for allowing the fewest points scored against them (144) in the 1968 season, but their impressive 13-1 record and 34-0 victory over the Browns in Cleveland in the '68 NFL championship game was marred by their heartbreaking loss to Broadway Joe Namath's Jets in the third Super Bowl. Gaubatz, who will be celebrating his 70th birthday on February 11th, still lives in West Columbia. He is pictured above in the center of the photograph that appeared in Sports Illustrated during the Colts' outstanding 1968 season. The defensive line was comprised of, from left, Ordell Braase (81), Fred Miller (76), Billy Ray Smith (74) and Bubba Smith (78). The linebackers were, from left, Don Shinnick (66), Dennis Gaubatz (53) and Mike Curtis (32). Roaming the defensive secondary for the Colts in '68 were, from left, Lenny Lyles (43), Rick Volk (21), Jerry Logan (20) and Bobby Boyd (40).