Behind The Banner - February 2021 Newsletter

Statement for Change

Abner Haynes sr. Continues to Stand Up for Himself and Fellow African Americans

By Jean-Jacques Taylor

Former San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the national anthem to protest police brutality and social injustice, and it cost him his career.

Abner Haynes Sr. was among 20 players who boycotted the 1965 American Football League All-Star game in New Orleans to protest the mistreatment of African-American players in the city.

That decision essentially cost Haynes Sr. his career.

Two weeks after he boycotted the game, Kansas City traded Haynes to Denver. Three years later, he was out of the league.

Understand, Haynes Sr. was the AFL’s Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year in its inaugural season after

I understood when the boycott was happening there was a price to pay, but I had to decide whether I was going to stand up and be a man Chiefs star Abner Haynes led the boycott of the 1964 All-Star Game in New Orleans.

spurning the Pittsburgh Steelers to sign with the Dallas Texans, who later became the Kansas City Chiefs.

Two years later, he scored 19 touchdowns and added two more in the 1962 AFL championship game to lead the Dallas Texans over the Houston Oilers.

Owner Lamar Hunt loved him. So did coach Hank Stram.

But once Haynes Sr. began using his platform to combat the treatment of African American players culminating with the boycott of the championship game, the organization decided to get rid of him.

The 83-year-old Dallas native didn’t regret his decision then - and nothing has changed in the 56 years since he made it.

After all, he integrated college football in Texas by playing for North Texas’ freshman team in 1956. The decisions Haynes Sr. made and the public stances he BEHIND THE BANNER FEBRUARY 2021 EDITION

took were always about making America a better place.

So Haynes Sr. doesn’t consider himself a trailblazer.

Haynes Sr. said he was simply doing something that needed to be done just like Kaepernick.

“Sometimes, you have to stand like Kaepernick and thousands of others,” Haynes Sr. said. “If we can say something that encourages Kaepernick, I wish we would do that because he’s not alone. He’s not the first and he won’t be the last.”

The father’s traits were not lost on his sons, who were young adults before they understood their father’s impact on college and pro football.

“My dad was not the kind of man to bow down. He was humble about the things he did,” Abner Haynes Jr. said.

“I was in my 20s before I realized the big steps he had taken.”

Haynes Sr. arrived in New Orleans, expecting to play in the all-star game after gaining 1,279 total yards - 697 rushing, 562 receiving and scoring seven touchdowns - in 1964.

But when he and Oakland’s Clem Daniels arrived for the game they discovered white cab drivers wouldn’t transport them to their hotel.

That was only the beginning.

Their treatment worsened throughout the week, and four days before the game the African American players from both teams met in Room 990 of the Roosevelt Hotel.

They decided to boycott the game, which was eventually moved to Houston.

“I understood when the boycott was happening there was a price to pay, but I had to decide whether I was going to stand up and be a man,” Haynes Sr. said. “I knew I wasn’t going to be the only one with a problem. Can you live with it? I knew, at the time, what we were doing was getting attention.”

A couple of days after returning to Kansas City, Haynes Sr. received a two-page letter from general manager Jack Steadman informing him that the club believed his job was to play football, not be an activist.

Two weeks later, the Chiefs traded him to Denver. What they didn’t know is that he spent quite a bit of time in Denver as a child with his cousin Sylvester, who would later lead the funk band Sly and the Family Stone.

So it wasn’t like being traded to Siberia.

“It was disappointing and it hurt,” Haynes Sr. said of the trade. “I was just doing what the Haynes family do. I was just following the lead of my brothers and sisters, my mama and daddy and my aunts and uncles.

“I had so much support that I didn’t have time for the negative. We had situations and circumstances but God would just take me right past them.”

Haynes Sr. played two seasons in Denver before spending the 1967 season with the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins.

He left pro football 54 years ago, but his legacy remains at North Texas and Kansas City.

Haynes Sr., an All-American as a senior, ended his career with a 5.4 rushing average and 28 touchdowns. He was named to the school’s Hall of Fame in 1986.

He’s also a member of the Chiefs Hall of Honor.

Haynes Sr. still holds 10 team records, including touchdowns (five) and points (30) in a game, and retired as the AFL’s all-time leader in all-purpose yards (12,065) .

“He had stuff happen to him that would’ve killed a mule,” said his son King David Haynes. “I would think there’s some bitterness because he was blackballed for standing up for his own people.

“It would be hard for anybody not to be bitter, but I don’t think it consumed him. He moved on and found another way to participate in the league as an agent.”

Abner Haynes, Dallas Texans

Dallas an ideal fit to ho

by Sean Shapiro

It’s been a decade since the Green Bay Packers defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers and hoisted the Vince Lombardi Trophy at then named Cowboys Stadium.

It was the first time the Super Bowl had been hosted in DFW and organizers in Dallas are hopeful they’ll get a second chance to host the NFL’s biggest stage in the not too distant future.

Each year the NFL reaches out to teams to gauge interest in hosting the Super Bowl or the NFL Draft, every year the Dallas Cowboys check “yes” in the box for both marquee events.

The interest is also there for the Dallas Sports Commission, which has worked to bring a slew of marquee events to North Texas, and would love another chance to host one of the biggest events of the year.

“We’d love that chance, and we are hoping for it to happen at some point again,” Monica Paul from the Dallas Sports Commission said. “We are working with the Cowboys and will continue to work with them on things like this because we really would love another chance for the Super Bowl and be able to show what we can do as hosts.”

BEHIND THE BANNER FEBRUARY 2021 EDITION

Paul jokes that even Mother Nature has been consulted on this. As many remember, the 2011 Super Bowl in North Texas was a frigid one outside of the stadium as snow piled up and logistical hurdles were created and handled on the fly because of the accumulation.

“I think it’s also another reason to want another shot at hosting,” Paul said. “We did a great job, the legacy of that Super Bowl is strong, but we would like another shot to deliver even more now that we’ve got Mother Nature on board.”

Even with any snowy memories, the NFL looks at AT&T Stadium as an ideal fit for marquee events and the market sets up well as one that should be in the running to host as early as 2024, but more likely in 2027.

AT&T Stadium’s past resume is sparkling. In addition to the Super Bowl, it’s hosted multiple major college football games, WWE Wrestlemania and the NBA AllStar Game. Just this past January AT&T Stadium served as a fill-in site for the Rose Bowl Game, hosting two of the more prominent bowl games with the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic in a span of fewer than 72 hours The Super Bowl is also one of the most corporate sports

ost another Super Bowl events in the world, and AT&T Stadium, with its massive suite offering on multiple levels, makes the venue an ideal fit for a league with large corporate sponsorships, according to Paul.

There are some issues that would have to get worked out. For example, the NFL typically asks the team hosting the Super Bowl to give up a home game and play in London. The Cowboys haven’t been thrilled with that idea in the past, so it’s a conversation that will have to play out as other boxes are also checked.

So, if those boxes all get checked, what’s the timeline for potentially getting the big game in North Texas?

The calendar recently shuffled, opening up 2024 since the NFL pushed the Super Bowl back a week and therefore it would have run the same week as Mardi Gras in 2024. That really wouldn’t have worked out well for New Orleans, so the league moved the Super Dome hosting into 2025.

Mobilizing for something relatively short-term in 2024 could be the perfect fit for North Texas, since the infrastructure is completely built when it comes to the venue, and the Dallas Sports Commission is already

excelled on short-term turnarounds.

If 2024 isn’t an option, the next open Super Bowl year is 2026, but AT&T Stadium’s hopes of playing a larger role in the 2026 FIFA World Cup will likely put Super Bowl hosting ideas on the back burner until at least 2027.

It could be done, hosting FIFA World Cup Games and the Super Bowl in the same calendar year, but Paul said it’s probably wise for the venue and organizers to focus on each of those separately as their own marquee event to build the calendar around.

So far things have gone well when it comes to discussions with FIFA about the World Cup and AT&T Stadium. Combined with the rarity of a World Cup -- this will be just the second played in the United States -Super Bowl hosting happily becomes a potential project for 2027.

And whether it’s 2027 or not, there’s a general feeling of when, not if, the Super Bowl returns to North Texas.

THE PROS AT HOME IN MARCH SUN

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