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Super Bowl ‘inventor' enjoyed Cody vacations - By Eric Reavis
This document was published online on Wednesday, January 31, 2007
The man who coined the term “Super Bowl” spent time around Cody each summer for many years.
Lamar Hunt, who died Dec. 13 from prostate cancer, enjoyed spending a week or two on the Hoodoo Ranch each summer. The sprawling cattle ranch south of Cody has been owned by the Hunt family since 1948.
“Lamar was the nicest of the bunch. He was sort of my favorite,” says George Brown, manager of the Hoodoo. “He still sent us a fruitcake every year, until the time of his death.”
The Hunt family maintains vacation facilities on an isolated parcel of the Hoodoo up the Greybull River. It's a good place to get away from it all, Brown says.
“He came here to relax.”
Hunt decided the Hoodoo needed a new lodge in the late '60s, and made frequent trips to Cody to oversee the construction, Brown said.
He rarely talked about his involvement in the football business when he was in Cody, Brown says.
But, Hunt often offered Brown tickets to football games and other sporting events, and told him to call if he was in town for a game. Brown took him up on the offer a couple of times.
Hunt was known for being modest, kind, soft-spoken and visionary. He loved sports and was an avid promoter of many forms of competition, including football, soccer, tennis, basketball, baseball and bowling, among others.
He is credited with turning football from a regional sport into a national passion.
At the time of his death, Carl Peterson, the Kansas City Chiefs' president and general manager, told the Associated Press, “Mr. Hunt was arguably the greatest sportsman of this last half-century, although he never sought fame or recognition for the improvements and changes he brought to the world's sports institutions.”
In addition to naming the Super Bowl, Hunt founded the American Football League at age 26. The AFL later merged with the NFL and became the AFC.
The AFC championship trophy, awarded this year to the Indianapolis Colts, bears his name.
He was also founder and head coach of the Dallas Texans, now the Kansas City Chiefs.
Later, he was one of the founding members of Major League Soccer. The oldest and most prestigious soccer competition in the country, the U.S. Open Cup, is now named after him, and Hunt was awarded the National Soccer Hall of Fame Medal of Honor, given only three times in history.
He also co-founded World Championship Tennis and was a founding investor of the Chicago Bulls basketball team. He owned or invested in many other teams as well.
Hunt's final trip to the Hoodoo was last summer. Brown said he's sorry that he didn't get to see him at that time.
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