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The 1961 Season
American
Football League
ALL-STAR GAME |
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AFL
West 47
East 27
January 7, 1962
Balboa Stadium, San Diego |
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The
first American Football
League All-Star Game was
played on January 7, 1962 at
Balboa Stadium in San Diego,
CA. The game was hosted by
the San Diego Junior Chamber
of Commerce as a charity
event to raise funds for the Breitbard Athletic
Foundation. The game was a
rousing success for the new
league turning a profit and
gaining much needed
television exposure for the
stars of the league as the
game was aired nationally by
ABC TV. The coaches were Lou
Rymkus of the Oilers and Sid
Gillman of the Los Angeles
Chargers.
The East did all of the
scoring in the first quarter
when George Blanda of the
Houston Oilers connected on
a 32 yard field goal. Abner
Haynes of the Dallas Texans
fumbled in his own end zone
and was tackled by Jim Hunt
of the Patriots for a
safety. It was 5-0, East
after one quarter. In the
second quarter, Cotton
Davidson of the Texans
replaced Jack Kemp of the
Chargers and promptly hit
Donnie Stone of Denver with
a 45 yard touchdown pass.
Stone was playing in his
twenty-fifth pro game of the
1961 season, having played a
the full season in Canada.
The East responded as Blanda
hit teammate, Billy Cannon,
with a 43 yard touchdown to
make the score 12-7. Haynes
answered with an 11 yard
touchdown run and Davidson
threw a 24 yard touchdown
strike to San Diego’s Dave
Kocourek. The halftime score
was 21-12 in favor of the
West. |
In the third quarter, Haynes
returned a punt 66 yards for
a touchdown and Davidson
hooked up with the Charger’s
Don Norton on a 10 yard
touchdown pass. The East
came back when Boston’s Gino Cappelletti caught a 5 yard
touchdown pass from Blanda.
The score at the
end of the third
period was 35-19. In
the final period, the West
put it away when Oakland’s
Fred Williamson picked off a Blanda pass a returned it 53
yards for the West’s sixth
touchdown. Blanda was
intercepted five times on
the afternoon. New York
Titans quarterback Al Dorow
replaced Blanda and hit
Charley Hennigan for three
yards and a touchdown. Dorow
carried the ball over for
the two-point conversion.
The final score of the day
came when the West’ Stone
carried the ball over from
12 yards out. The final
score was West 47, East 27.
For the day, Cotton Davidson
completed 16 of 28 passes
for 239 yards and was voted
the game’s MVP. |
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Houston's George Blanda
passes for the East. |
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Boston's Larry Garron
eludes Dallas' Dave Webster. |
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Ken Adamson of Denver
leads Texans' Abner Haynes
on sweep. |
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Click to see AFL
All-Star
Squads |
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1961 |
West Squad |
East Squad (to be added) |
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SUMMARIES OF
EACH AFL ALL-STAR GAME |
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The American Football League did not play an
All-Star game after its first season in 1960,
but did stage All-Star games for the 1961
through 1969 seasons. All-Star teams from
the Eastern and Western divisions played each
other after every season except 1965. That
season, the league champion Buffalo Bills played
against a team made up of all-stars from the
other teams.
Because the games were played at the
end of the season, they occurred in the next
calendar year. Thus, the 1961 AFL All-Star
game (with players selected as all-stars for the
1961 season) was played on January 7, 1962; the
1962 game was played in January 1963, etc.
The links below will take you
to summaries of each game, originally created by
Mark Bolding.
Most
of the content of this and the other AFL
All-Star Game summaries was retrieved from the 'Internet
Archive Wayback Machine' at archive.org/web/web.php,
which claims copyright for the work.
*Other than the final score and
the image of the game program, his summary of
the 1964 season all-star game incorrectly gave
the report of the previous year's game.
Bolding's original site
classified the games by the calendar year they
were played in. Since they were played at
the end of AFL seasons and the All-Stars
involved were so chosen for their play in those
seasons, I classify them by the AFL season which
they represented. Thus the AFL
All-Star Game that featured stars of the 1961
season was played in January 1962, etc. |
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Perhaps the greatest highlight of AFL All-Star Game history
came not on the field of play, but in the actions of black
players, supported by their white teammates and owners, when
the best players in the AFL boycotted the City of New
Orleans because of the disrespect black players were given
when they arrived there for the scheduled 1964 season AFL All-Star
Game, scheduled for January 1965.
The game was moved to
Houston in a seminal action in the early civil rights
movement in America. It is still recognized as such,
as recently as a March, 2007 article by Evan Weiner on
MSNBC. Another description of the incident is at
my
AFL Clippings page. |
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