I was having a conversation with my mom about football, and not being really up to date on players, she mentioned Joe Namath as her favorite - then she mentioned something about him wearing panty hose way back then.
Did Joe Namath wear panty hose? Hopefull he didn’t play football in that condition. Or did he just endorse it in commercials as a sort of gimmick. Most football players then endorsed male products such as deodorant, shaving cream and razors. Anyway, why does my mom remember Broadway Joe wearing nylons?
Yes, in a commercial for Beautymist appearing some time in the early 1970’s.
Obviously this was for comic effect, but prior to the advent of some of the modern lightweight cold weather fabrics, many athletes and outdoorsman discovered that pantyhose actually granted a bit of warmth with minimal bulk. A search for ‘men in pantyhose’ give some rather disturbing results, so just take my word for it.
Wrong. The merger took place three years before the victory. That was why they were playing the Superbowl in the first place.
The only effect on the merger was to put the Baltimore Colts in the AFC East, assuming there’d be a rivalry with the Jets. Three NFL teams had to join AFC conferences to even things out. They knew this would happen, but the teams weren’t named until after Superbowl III.
Namath’s signing (for $400,000) gave the AFL some respectability, though. And when the NFL realized how much they’d have to pay for talent after that, they became interesting in merging.
And the AFL didn’t gain all that much credibility. The Jets win was still regarded as a fluke by most football observers, especially those who were NFL fans.
In the next Super Bowl, the Chiefs were big underdogs to the Vikings, but still won. And the Vikings that year weren’t nearly as good as the Colts were the year before.
And in the first year after the creation of the AFC/NFC setup, two NFL teams: Baltimore and Dallas, played in the Super Bowl.
There are still some owners from the original AFL teams around (Al Davis, Lamar Hunt, Ralph Wilson, Bud Adams) who still are resentful of the old NFL.
My mother says that when my father was in training, he and the other young Marines often wore pantyhose under their fatigues to help keep warm during outdoor exercises. A delightful image, isn’t it?