The Ten-Year AFL Patch is a shoulder patch adapted for use on

American Football League The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. ...

(AFL) team uniforms.

History

During the entire

1969 This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon. Events January * January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco. * January 5 ** Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...

professional football season, all NFL players wore a shoulder patch on their uniforms, reading "50 NFL", marking the 50 years which had passed since the league's initial organization. American Football League fan Ange Coniglio petitioned the

AFL AFL may refer to: Sports * American Football League (AFL), a name shared by several separate and unrelated professional American football leagues: ** American Football League (1926) (a.k.a. "AFL I"), first rival of the National Football Leagu ...

owners to have their players wear a patch commemorating the league's 10 years, especially since it was the AFL's final year. The AFL owners declined, in

Lamar Hunt Lamar Hunt (August 2, 1932 – December 13, 2006) was an American businessman most notable for his promotion of American football, soccer, and tennis in the United States. He was the principal founder of the American Football League (AFL) and ...

's words, because they felt that a patch would make the uniforms ''"too busy"''. Coniglio enlisted the support of AFL President Milt Woodard and of AFL players. At his urging, the idea was also advanced by

Jack Kemp Jack French Kemp (July 13, 1935 – May 2, 2009) was an American politician and a professional gridiron football, football player. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party from New York, he served as United States Sec ...

in a request to

Pete Rozelle Alvin Ray "Pete" Rozelle (; March 1, 1926 – December 6, 1996) was an American businessman and executive. Rozelle served as the commissioner of the National Football League (NFL) for nearly thirty years, from January 1960 until his retirement ...

. As reported in the ''

Kansas City Chiefs The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The t ...

' 2006 Press Guide'', Woodard had a patch made to be used by whichever team won the final AFL Championship. It turned out that AFL founder

's Chiefs would be in the final

AFL-NFL World Championship Game The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the ga ...

, and Hunt agreed to have the Chiefs wear a ten-year AFL patch in Super Bowl IV. The outline of the patch resembles that of the United States highway shield, itself based on the Great Seal of the United States.

Support

AFL Hall of Fame coach

Hank Stram Henry Louis Stram (; January 3, 1923 – July 4, 2005) was an American football coach. He is best known for his 15-year tenure with the Dallas Texans / Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League (AFL) and National Football League (NF ...

supported the idea and used the patch as a motivating factor for his team. Stram was late
quoted
as saying ''"You could not believe it when you saw the faces of the players. These were great men, and great pros, but they were like kids in a candy shop when they saw that patch."'' Years later, Chiefs linebacker

Willie Lanier Willie Edward Lanier (born August 21, 1945) is an American former professional football player who was a middle linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs from 1967 through 1977. He won postseason honors for eight consecutive years, making the Ame ...

br>remarked
''"It lit us up. We knew what it meant."'' Wearing the AFL patch, the Chiefs went out and defeated the Vikings 23–7. Thus, the final record in the only series of Professional Football championship games to be played between the champions of two leagues was: NFL 2,

2, proving for posterity that the unfairly maligned and visionary American Football League was the full equal of the established, conservative NFL.

Legacy

After Hunt's death in 2007, a modified version of the AFL patch, this time rendered as a disc instead of a federal shield, and with his "LH" initials replacing the "AFL" letters on the football, became a permanent part of the Chiefs uniform on its left side as a memorial to the league and the team's founding owner, along with being an icon within the end zones of

Arrowhead Stadium Arrowhead Stadium is an American football stadium in Kansas City, Missouri. It primarily serves as the home venue of the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League (NFL). The stadium has been officially named GEHA Field at Arrowhead Sta ...

to identify the team's conference, replacing the post-merger

AFC AFC may stand for: Organizations * Action for Children, a UK children's charity * AFC Enterprises, the franchisor of Popeye's Chicken and Biscuits * Africa Finance Corporation, a pan-African multilateral development finance institution * A ...

logo used by the league until 2009.

References

External links

www.superbowl.com articleChiefs website story on uniform history
{{American Football League American Football League 1969 American Football League season