Sports Legend Lamar Hunt Jr. Interviews with Matthew Kelly
Matthew Kelly:
Hi. I'm Matthew Kelly. Welcome to Profoundly Human. My guest today Lamar Hunt, Jr. Lamar, how are you?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Great. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Matthew Kelly:
Ah, it's so good to see you. Thank you for coming.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Wonderful to be here.
Matthew Kelly:
Rough questions, very tough questions to start always. Are you a coffee drinker?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Just decaf with a lot of cream and some sweetener.
Matthew Kelly:
Just decaf. Now, were you at some time a caffeinated coffee drinker?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
I really wasn't. Dr. Pepper?
Matthew Kelly:
Dr. Pepper.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Waco, Texas, Dr. Pepper Museum, all that kind of stuff. I love Dr. Pepper.
Matthew Kelly:
Okay. What about favorite food?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Oh my gosh. Anything.
Matthew Kelly:
Anything?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Oh, favorite food. I mean, given my age now a little bit more, I like a lot of fish. But I would say growing up, I mean, it was steaks and hamburgers, for sure. All the time.
Matthew Kelly:
Good. What about favorite band or musician?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Chicago.
Matthew Kelly:
Chicago?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Yes, but I got to say my first live concert was The Beatles.
Matthew Kelly:
Really?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Twice.
Matthew Kelly:
Wow.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Once in Dallas and once in Kansas City. Very cool. Lots of screaming, lots of yelling, but my favorite band of all time is probably the group, Chicago.
Matthew Kelly:
Now, when you went to see the Beatles, I got to ask, what was that like?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Well, I just mentioned a little bit of it. There was a lot of screaming, a lot of yelling. And that was a little disconcerting because I was like seven or eight years old or maybe eight or nine. '64, '65 in their 19s. That was a little disconcerting to me because I just wanted to listen to the music because it was like, "Oh my gosh, they're actually here and real." Because we had the record player and we would play their records. But it was really cool. I mean they were so gifted.
Matthew Kelly:
Did you know at the time or did people know at the time how incredibly huge they were becoming?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Right. They had been on that Ed Sullivan's show. And so that was the special thing. It was at the Dallas Convention Center and I think that building is still standing. Then we also got to see it in what we would call the old Kansas City stadium where the Chiefs and the Royals play, or the athletics played baseball back in the '60s and '70s.
Matthew Kelly:
So the first time you saw them was '64?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
I think it was 1964.
Matthew Kelly:
And then the second time?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Not shortly thereafter in Kansas City. I want to say it was the same year.
Matthew Kelly:
Okay. Could you notice any difference between the two?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
I do remember this. One was in the convention center, so it was a more closed in environment. The other was out on... It was a baseball field, I think at that point. So it may have been late summer, early fall is what I'm thinking. And that was more diffuse. And that's probably retrospective of just picking up stuff.
Matthew Kelly:
Got it. What about favorite city in the world to visit?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
London.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Yeah.
Matthew Kelly:
What do you love about London?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
They speak English. Partly, it's our heritage as a family. Last name of Hunt. We have relatives that we can trace back coming over at specific times that we've got that story to tell, that connection. Just love a whole lot of things about England. The countryside. Got to travel there as a young person, got to go to Wimbledon, tennis, saw Evonne Goolagong win Wimbledon. People ask me very often, and maybe I'm digressing, but what was the most exciting sporting event I've ever been to? Her winning Wimbledon.
Matthew Kelly:
Wow.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Seeing her beat Billie Jean King and Margaret Court back to back. She was 19 years old. And then Stan Smith, the American won the men. So it was pretty exciting to see that. But I just remember the amazement in the crowd. It was just unbelievable. But going into England to just going to Stratford-upon-Avon, seeing Shakespeare, things like that, the Globe Theater, the London Philharmonic Symphony, those sorts of things. Just the culture, Stone Hinge, all the things. There's a lot on that little aisle.
Matthew Kelly:
Yes there is. Where did you grow up? What was it like growing up? Tell us a little bit about childhood.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
It was hot growing up. We grew up in Dallas, Texas. Okay. I was just speaking earlier to some of the staff here that's helping you put this on, went to an all boys school, third through 12th grade Episcopal affiliation. So we had Episcopal priests on site and it was an all boys school. So it was very formal, uniforms. We had an English headmaster when I first arrived there, Christopher Beresford. We had a French Dean of students. We had, I remember biology, Sir Arthur Douglas, we called him. But he said, "Well prepared. Not sad nor vexed pencil line, paper, notebook, and text.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
So I got a beautiful formal education. But as far as we did sports, things like that, played in the street a lot or in the fields around the house, things like that. And then for me, obviously, I got involved in music at some point. Being in an all boys school, we were given instruments to play and things like that, learned to read music and things like that. So growing up for me was a lot of play, a lot of sports, but I got exposed to some of the more beautiful things in life.
Matthew Kelly:
What was your favorite sport growing up?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Baseball.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Yeah. Because I think we just played it outside. It was so easy to play in somebody's front yard or in the street or whatever. But I wasn't particularly actually that good at it, but I've always enjoyed it.
Matthew Kelly:
What is your favorite sport today?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
I'm supposed to say football. I love football, but I still... There's something about baseball. And then I would say tennis. My wife can profess that I was very hooked on the US Open recently.
Matthew Kelly:
What did you think of the US Open this year?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
I was just so excited to see the young players. One of them an Italian, whose last name is Sinner, which I thought was such an interesting last name, I'd followed him a little bit. He's so gifted. I didn't know much about the Spaniard that ultimately won Alcaraz or something like that. But just got taken by him and his energy and things like that. And just how he didn't wilt. Really loved that.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Always appreciated the Venus Williams, Sabrina... Serena, Serena. I'm sorry, Serena. And just so we watched some of their final matches just to just respect for what they've been for the game of tennis. But I like the US Open. I'd like to go to it at some point. So I really enjoyed it.
Matthew Kelly:
Fantastic. What are you most excited about in your life today?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Oh my gosh. So we have a beautiful family. Lots of friendships through our church. And men's groups, things like that. I think now given the age I'm at, which is getting into the mid 60s, grandchildren. And actually seeing our children be married, have children still some under... They're considering marriage or whatever their relationship. Just seeing their lives unfold, it's kind of a wonderful blessing. It really is. I'd say for us that my wife Rita says, "We've retired. We just want to enjoy the grandchildren."
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
I don't mean that as a cliche. I mean it sincerely. I had a grandfather that really cherished us and I remember so many memories with him and I think it's a special thing.
Matthew Kelly:
How is being a grandfather different to what you thought it would be?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Actually some of the grandkids will come running to you saying, "Help me from my parents, help me." No, I'm teasing a little bit there. You know What it is? What I notice is that when I'm around them and there are the kid things that come out just wrestling with their emotions or the struggles in life as a grandparent, you're not nearly as reactive. You're able to be a steady influence. You don't feel that need to step in and try to correct them or guide them or get that edge with them, you sort of take it in and listen and then you say, "Hey, have you thought of this? Or what about that?" I think we're calmer, for sure.
Matthew Kelly:
Would you advise parents to adopt that calmness a little bit more?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
I definitely would, definitely. Don't get into the reactivity. Go ahead and let it ride. Fancy phrase I've heard once is roll with the resistance, right? I think choices are good for kids. Just say, "Gosh, there's another way you could do this." And kind of help them. But I think if you react to vitriol with vitriol, it doesn't work. It just doesn't work. We all know that. But there's a calmness. There really is a calmness and a sweetness and a pleasantness of just being present. So it's kind of cool.
Matthew Kelly:
It is. I know your faith is important to you. Was there a moment in your life where you feel like the faith became your own?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
I would say for myself and that's just, I think everybody's journey is personal. If I think most recently the death of my mother which was just heart-wrenching. But if I go back, I think my mother's presence throughout my life was somebody that was planning seas. It might have been a Bible verse on a cabinet or the insistence that you're going to go to Sunday school. Even though I will confess that we cut sometimes Sunday school. We just go to the playground and play. But there was that sort of hand, if you will, walking through with us and say, "Hey, this is important."
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Now we may not have thought so, or we may have argued or we may have just been indifferent, but there would be different times in life. One was the death of a stepfather going into a Catholic church and being upset with him way too young, didn't take care of his health. Why did I go in a Catholic church? I don't know to this day.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Reading. I love to read. And so just finding some things like my father, John Harden was very helpful for me. I think there was just a lot of seeds planted, meeting good clergy, solid clergy, if you would say that. I would say that would be true in the Methodist church. I can remember vividly the two Episcopal priests at the school that I was at.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
I mean, those are the two that I remember and then just encountering Catholic priests along the way. Different people like that was like, "Wow, these are wonderful witnesses." I just think a lot of seeds were planted. I just think sometimes the school of hard knocks going through some difficult things in your own life. Some of it, your own manufacturing, some of your own doing. And I think ultimately trying to just take responsibility for that, but not beating yourself up. I think that's the key. Take responsibility, but it's not you totally.
Matthew Kelly:
How do you find that balance?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
The balance now is really the understanding in your life that God's forgiveness rules, but it rules in such a tender, wonderful way. And what I mean by that is he is present. He's always present and he loves us more than we love ourselves. He loves us in spite of ourselves. And to understand that as a Catholic now, just the power of going to the sacrament of confession, there's that desire to relate to another person to tell, "Hey, I've been struggling with this or I did this." And it could be any number of things.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
It could be gossip or any number of things you can think of. But I think right now the balance is learning to forgive yourself and trusting in God. I think that's where people like, "He really has forgiven." Are there consequences? Absolutely. Disappointingly sometimes. But I think learning to forgive yourself. And I always remember this line from A Diary of a Mad Black Woman. How do you know if you've forgiven someone and you have a chance to get even, but you don't? So letting go, letting go. I know some of this sounds like cliches to people, but it's reality. It really is. It's the truth.
Matthew Kelly:
Well, cliches, that's how cliches become cliches. Right?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
I hope so.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
I hope so, yeah.
Matthew Kelly:
You grew up in a really, a legendary sporting family.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Yeah.
Matthew Kelly:
What was that like?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Well, my dad was a guy who had an idea a minute. He really did. He was very much a marketing sort of person, a very loyal, very calm, but high energy kind of guy. I think he set a good example. I never heard the man curse or I never saw him lose his temper. I'm sure he had his frustrations. He was a very calm individual, but he was also very creative. So it wasn't that I grew up in it, it was just like it was present. It was present. And the privilege of being able to go to so many different things, mentioning going to Wimbledon and seeing Evonne Goolagong when I'm a teenager and things like that.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
If she was 19, I was probably 14 or 15 when she won that. But that aside, I mean, getting to go see Pelé playing the World Cup or go to a Super Bowl or go to the World Series in Detroit and see Mickey Lolich pitch against... Oh no, Denny McLain pitch against Bob Gibson in the 1968 World Series because the Chiefs had played in Buffalo on a Saturday. So we got to go to a game on a Sunday. Or it could have been vice versa. I don't know.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
So sports was just part of our environment. I mean, through SMU, the college in Dallas, my dad was an alumni there. So we went to the football game. So we saw some of the great... They had some great teams. I don't remember all the players, but it was just a constant stream of going to sporting events and getting to travel and do some really powerful life experiences.
Matthew Kelly:
Did you know your dad was a visionary when you were a child or is that something that you just became mindful of as you got older?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
I would say it was something that came through retrospective, just learning about it. Gosh, I mean, I had to work at training camp a couple of summers. Had to is not the right word. I mean, you were dropped off at the college dorm up in William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri, and go in there and talk to Bobby Yarborough. He'll tell you what to do for the next month. You just did it and you just did the work and didn't complain. It was just part of life. I learned how to work. I'll tell you that and got to interface with what I realize now were some very young men even though I was just a kid, but just those sorts of experience.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
I mean it was just the atmosphere. It was just the world we were in. It's hard to describe it. You didn't think of my dad as a big creator in all of this or somebody that contributed so much, if you will. I didn't think of that.
Matthew Kelly:
So that was Chiefs training camp?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Well, yeah.
Matthew Kelly:
And how old would you be?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
I think I did it in summers when I was 13 and 14. I know one after the Super Bowl. Well, they won it after the 69 season and probably those two summers. Probably I was in eighth and ninth grade is what I think. And then of course your own sports life sort of takes over. And plus I was involved in music as well.
Matthew Kelly:
The winner of the AFCG gets the Lamar Hunt trophy.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
They do.
Matthew Kelly:
What does that feel like each year?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Well, it's nice to have played for it the last four years in a row and won it twice. That's kind of cool. It's just an honor. I mean to be put in the same breath with George Halas on the NFC side of things who is really a legendary family, a legendary man in the whole history of pro football. The family owns the Chicago Bears now and things like that. So it just a beautiful testimony to really what he was as a person.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
I mean, he really was a steward. He was well to do, came from a well-to-do family. He got trained to be a geologist. But I'll tell you what one word I use with him with my dad has earned success. And it's a word that I've been able to speak about that people want to make a high level of contribution and they want to earn success.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Now, that doesn't mean they want recognition, but they want to contribute to the success of others. I would say that was one of my dad's great qualities. If you just think about in pro football and just the opportunity for the African-American players, the AFL kind of led the way in that.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Not the NFL did too, of course, but it was this opportunities that he saw. So he wanted others to thrive and to succeed and have success in their lives. There's so many great stories about him just helping guys, no matter what with their lives and things like that. So that was kind of cool.
Matthew Kelly:
I've heard you tell a story about his desire to have a team and you're talking to different people. Why don't you walk us through, how did that bubble up in him and how did that come to be?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
So to this day, one of his good friends is still alive. My dad would be 90. If he were alive today, sadly, he died at age 74. So this friend, Tom Richie is 88. I haven't seen Tom in a few years because life gets in the way, but he would come to a lot of Chiefs games even after my dad passed.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
They went to the Detroit Lions' training camp as a group of young guys in 1955. And they wanted to see Bobby Lane. One of my dad's favorite college players go in training camp. Apparently according to Tom Richie, dad is standing on the sidelines of the training camp. My dad is 23 years old and he goes, "Wouldn't it be cool to own a pro football team?"
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Now, he just finished his degree in geology and things like that and he was working in the oil and gas business. So flash forward a few years to probably 1958, I think that would be the right year, he's the Chicago Cardinals. Chicago has two football teams, the Bears and the Cardinals. It's the Bidwill family. So he says, "Well, I'm going to make an attempt to try to buy the Chicago Cardinals and move them to Dallas. I'd like to have a franchise in Dallas."
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
What he was seeing so well was there were markets where this sport would really succeed. It would really take off. Dallas didn't have a team. It's Texas. Football rules in Texas, even in the '50s. Right? But he tries to go in and talk to the family and several repeated attempts and finally meets with them down in Miami, Florida during a winter. And it just isn't going to work.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Now, during this entire process, he has been making friends with a lot of different people. Baron Hilton would be an example from the Hilton family, things like that. So he had accumulated some names, but anyway, the meeting ends, he gets on a plane in Miami, coming back to Dallas. He asks for some stationary, American airline stationary and he writes up a business plan for the American football league. He has enough contacts, so he starts to form the league. That's what he does. And of course that's a rival league.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
The NFL knows they're quite serious because these are very wealthy young people. They really are. My dad was a baby. He was 27 years old or something like that when he was really putting the wheels to this, putting his energy to it, so in 1959. So he forms the league and I always like to tell this story, the Minnesota franchise was in the original AFL and people don't always know this, but the NFL does a couple of things.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
They put a team in Dallas, the Cowboys. They poach the Vikings. So they start making some chess moves, if you will to say, "We're going to try to thwart this league." Well, what happens is the NFL does come to my dad and says, "Look, you're down to seven teams. We'll take four teams. The other three need to go away." And my dad in a really great act of loyalty says, "No, we're going to go find an eighth team and we're going to play as the American football league."
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
And they do, and that's how we got the Oakland Raiders who are now the Las Vegas Raiders. I like to tell that story because the Raiders have always been a Chiefs nemesis. But the determination of the grit, if you will, but that loyalty to the other seven guys, other seven teams that he had spoken with and got it ramped up and got the business plan together, they started playing in 1960 and that is really one of the... It's a great success story. And ultimately it forced, if you will, a merger with the NFL.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
The league brought a different kind of style of play and things like that. To football, there was a lot more passing, things like that. But that's kind of the journey. So the journey was just really from standing on a sideline, watching a favorite college football player who's playing professional football and going, "Gee, wouldn't it be cool to have a team to, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this."
Matthew Kelly:
Where is the business plan that was written on American Airlines letterhead?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
It sits in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. So not terribly far from here in Cincinnati.
Matthew Kelly:
Yes. It's amazing.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
My dad's microscopic handwriting. He wrote in microscopic tiny print.
Matthew Kelly:
Wow.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Yeah. Amazing.
Matthew Kelly:
He is described by many people as maybe the first the person to see the potential of football on television.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Right, yes.
Matthew Kelly:
What do you remember about that?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
So my understanding, it's the year 1958. So it would've been two. So probably not totally aware of everything, but I think he sees the championship game between the Baltimore Colts, and I'm not sure the other team. Oh my gosh. I should remember that. It's the NFL championship. And the game goes into overtime. Johnny Unitas is involved, the great quarterback. He's watching the game and he says, "My gosh, the potential for this to really reach a national audience."
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
And hence the idea of putting franchises in markets like Dallas, like Houston, like San Diego, where there was large populations and large interest in sports. That's where it germinated. I think you saw that college football was tremendously popular on television and pro football was not eclipsing those ratings at that point in time. It was a NFL championship game that it went into overtime as I understand it. Yeah. So
Matthew Kelly:
Would you have imagined that football on television... Well, even your father, if he understood the nature of football on television today, what would be his reaction to that?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
It's funny as you asked me that question. So my dad dies on December 13th, 2006. For many years, he had lobbied to try to get the Thanksgiving games to have a different rotation than just going to Detroit or Dallas. The Thanksgiving before he was to pass, so whatever that would've been late November, the chiefs were on national television with a Thanksgiving day game from Kansas City. So we're in a hospital room in Dallas. They roll in a TV. This was 2006. He's in a lot of pain with late stages of prostate cancer, great survival rate for when the initial diagnosis of eight years earlier.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
He did a really phenomenal job of fighting it. They roll it in and we watched the game. He goes, "I can never have imagined that pro football would've become this captivating for people."
Matthew Kelly:
Wow.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
That's in '06. So since then, it's escalated to even more than anything. I mean his gratitude, I'll always remember his gratitude as he faced his final days for the gifts he'd got in his life. In fact, I remember praying our father with him and asking him, "Dad, are you ready?" And he goes, "I cannot have imagined the life that was given to me and he couldn't imagine all the beautiful things he got to do and to contribute to people's lives."
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
So he was about the other person. I would say he was a man for others, but that I'll remember watching in that hotel... Not hotel the hospital room. He wasn't technically in hospice at that point, but it was that last hospital visit and he chose ultimately to spend hospice his hospice time at the hospital. He did not want to go home and do that and I understand that.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
The support and everything was there, but just watching that game after lobbying so many years. It can't just be in Dallas and Detroit every year. Well, it still is, dad. But that was a beautiful favor that the league extended.
Matthew Kelly:
So in 1970, the Chiefs win the Super Bowl. Were you there?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
I was there. What I remember was Al Hirt. Is he a trumpet player? I think so. And then was Doc Severinsen in there? They were both there and they had a jazz, had a Orleans flavor in New Orleans. So I remember that. That was cool. It was a festive environment. I remember that they were riding. We were riding down on an elevator and later with the ownership of the Vikings who the Chiefs were playing and people commenting that the Viking ownership was very nervous about this football game.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
I'm a kid, so I'm not really noticing those sort of things. I remember the game, it was exciting. It was like, "Wow, is this really happening? "And then I remember the game after, he just hugged me and he said, "We're so fortunate to have been here because we could have just as well lost the AFL championship game to those Jets." Because that game was really close. There was a goal line stand in the red zone, what we call a red zone now, late in the game.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Otherwise it would've possibly gone into a tie and then who knows from overtime. So he was very gracious about that, but we clobbered him. I think they were truly surprised, but it was just hard to believe. It really was. I mean, the AFL had won the Super Bowl the year before the Jets had done that with Joe Namath. But still it was like, this is the kind of stamp that says, "We're here. We're for real. You're going to have to deal with this."
Matthew Kelly:
50 years later, 2020, the Chiefs win again.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
They do.
Matthew Kelly:
What was that like?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
Hard to believe. Because we're sitting... We had a large group of contingent. We had 40 people in two suites. We're all open together, large family, grandkids, some relatives, things like that. And we're about. It's about halfway through the third quarter, or late in the third quarter. And it was like, "This is not looking good. We're not moving the ball. We're not doing anything."
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
The game continues. We do make some plays. We get back in it, but it's still not over and we're told, "You need to go down to the field." We're like, "No, we don't know." There's kind of this misgiving, "No, you're going to be walking down to the field." So we get down on the field getting ready to go out on the field. And the game is not over. And that's when Damien Williams caught a touchdown pass and ran it in. It was like, "This is for real. This is going to happen." But still, the game was not over because Garopolo for the 49ers still had a drive in him.
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
I think we intercepted and the game was definitely over, but it was just Bedlam is what I would describe it as. Just hugging each other, running all over the place. Not really knowing where to go, that sort of thing. Confetti everywhere. It was just surreal. It really was. It was beautiful.
Matthew Kelly:
What about the 50 years in between and thinking they would win or hoping they would win? What was that like?
Lamar Hunt, Jr:
I was just reflecting the other day with my oldest son, Lamar the III that I said, "Do you remember we took you to a couple of Super Bowls?" Because what we did was we wanted all the children to experience the Super Bowl because we thought we're never going to know when the Chiefs get there again. It's never going to happen because it was a long drought.
Lamar Hunt, Jr: