'AL Davis vs The NFL': Why Pete Rozelle didn't cancel Sunday games after President John F Kennedy's assassination
Pete Rozelle, the NFL Commissioner in the '60s will be brought alive on screen again. ESPN's 30 for 30 series rolls out its latest documentary, 'AL Davis vs. The NFL' that sees Davis, the principal owner and general manager of the Oakland Raiders, and his long-standing feud with Rozelle. For the latter, it wasn't just the feud that catapulted him to immense attention. It was one of those decisions he made that saw the Californian garner immense flak.
Rozelle did not cancel Sunday's NFL games after President John F Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963. He would later go on to say it was the biggest mistake of his life. While the country mourned the loss of their slain leader, the NFL honcho was struggling to come to a decision. Eventually, after a discussion with then-White House press secretary Pierre Salinger, he announced the games would continue as usual.
This was unprecedented. The president was being buried and the world watched it with tears on national television. As far as the other sports were concerned, Wisconsin saw high school basketball games played on the night of the assassination. NBA and NHL continued with games as usual, but the AFL halted the games. Rozelle who had made the NFL a compulsory Sunday tradition was now in two minds.
Salinger was talking to Rozelle from the Honolulu airport and the two men made their decision. "It has been traditional in sports for athletes to perform in times of great personal tragedy. Football was Mr. Kennedy's game. He thrived on competition," according to The Washington Post. It was probably what the president would have wanted. There was a proper turnout at the stadium for the Redskins vs the Philadelphia Eagles that showed the love and spirit, and even gave Rozelle some cheers, while media outlets and players slammed the commissioner.
In the aftermath, Rozelle felt canceling would probably have been the best decision. There are still a few who feel Rozelle was not wrong in his decision to allow the games to be played that weekend. Kent Sterling wrote: "Any excuse for people sharing misery is a good one, and the games that Sunday in 1963 allowed people to embrace, commiserate, and assure one another that they would all survive that loss together. How could that be viewed as a bad thing?"
Whether this topic would be shown in the documentary is unknown. But, this went down in history as one of those unforgettable events. The official synopsis for 'AL Davis vs. The NFL' reads: "The film traces the relationship from their early clashes in the AFL/NFL wars of the 1960s through their tacit reconciliation upon Rozelle’s retirement in 1989, with a special emphasis on the antitrust lawsuit Al Davis filed against the NFL in 1980."
"Davis wanted to relocate his legendary team from Oakland to Los Angeles, in pursuit of a state-of-the-art stadium, but the league would not approve. Today, with the Raiders recently completing their inaugural season in Las Vegas in a brand-new stadium, something Davis always dreamed of building himself, the film presents the adversarial relationship between the two visionaries."
'AL Davis vs. The NFL' premieres on February 4 at 9 pm ET on ESPN. It will be available on ESPN+ soon after the premiere.
