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“In the civilized world, it was a day of mourning. In the National Football League, it was the 11th Sunday of the business year, a quarter-million dollar day at Yankee Stadium.”
Those were the words of legendary sports scribe Red Smith, then of the New York Herald Tribune. He was speaking of a football game at Yankee Stadium that featured the New York Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals. The game was played Nov. 24, 1963, two days after the assassination of president John F. Kennedy.
Football was part of John F. Kennedy’s life.
Commissioner Pete Rozelle, who made the decision for the NFL games to go on as scheduled, witnessed the Giants-Cardinals game. The decision was not Rozelle’s finest moment, something he admitted years later.
The American Football League canceled its games that Sunday.
Rozelle is said to have talked with Pierre Salinger, whom he knew from their days at the University of San Francisco; and Kennedy’s press secretary told Rozelle that Kennedy was a football fan and would have wanted the games played.
“It has been traditional in sports for athletes to perform in times of great personal tragedy,” Rozelle said in announcing the decision to play. “Football was Mr. Kennedy’s game. He thrived on competition. We would not — absolutely not — play the game if we really felt it would be showing disrespect.”
It wasn’t as if playing the games provided some form of relief for millions of Americans. The games were not televised because CBS, which owned the rights to the NFL games, opted to provide continuous coverage of history unfolding before our eyes. Anyone watching television 50 years ago this weekend was following the assassination of Kennedy in Dallas and its aftermath, which included the shooting that Sunday on live television of Lee Harvey Oswald, the man jailed for killing Kennedy, by Jack Ruby.
“Everyone has a different way of paying respects,” Rozelle said to reporters at the Giants-Cardinals contest. “I went to church today and I imagine many of the people here at the game did too. I cannot feel that playing the game was disrespectful nor can I feel that I have made a mistake.”
For those of us who were alive 50 years ago, football was the furthest things on our minds that weekend. Hour after hour of Kennedy coverage was compelling viewing — even if there were times when the story did not advance. Being let out of school early that Friday, Nov. 22 — after being informed of the news of Kennedy’s assassination — was no cause for celebration. It was more akin to a death of a nation, certainly a death of innocence for most of us belonging to the Baby Boomer generation.
So sports, even for a diehard sports fan, was sent to the sidelines that Sunday — with the exception of the NFL.
Times were different then. No fantasy football, no social media, no NFL Network. No reason to be overly upset if the NFL postponed its games that Sunday.
For a sports fan growing up in St. Louis (which I was), a 24-17 Cardinals victory over the Giants was of minor significance.
For the overwhelming majority of Americans, the outcomes of those NFL games failed to provide any elation for a grieving nation.
* Another edition of “Sports & Torts” with co-hosts David Spada and Elliott Harris is in the vaults of Talkzone.com. The show, which airs on Thursdays at noon Central time, had Pro Football Hall of Famers Jim Kelly and John Hannah as its interview guests on the Nov. 21 program. For those who might have missed the original airing or for those who are looking to enjoy an encore performance, you can click here.
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