A Minnesota Vikings Origin Story
As a young Minnesota Vikings fan looking forward to Super Bowl XI, I devoured all written content on the big game. Since I lived about 90 miles from Oakland that written content was mostly Raiders-centric. The San Francisco Chronicle ran an article that shook the football world that I was just beginning to understand. The article detailed the remarkable connection between the Minnesota Vikings and Oakland Raiders. Before they were a member of the National Football League, the Vikings were aligned with the American Football League.
This is a Minnesota Vikings origin story.
The National Football League finally found stability and some prosperity in the 1950s. Each of the previous three decades had been a struggle. The league’s 12 teams wanted it to continue. Several very wealthy businessmen wanted to be a part of the professional football fun. The league’s 12 teams didn’t want to share. For most of them, this was their livelihood. They didn’t need or want any rich guys grabbing a piece of what they had worked so hard to build. That didn’t stop very wealthy businessmen used to getting their way. In the late 1950s, NFL Commissioner Bert Bell was getting a lot of visits from these businessmen. Lamar Hunt was the most persistent. He was the son of Dallas oilman Haroldson Lafayette Hunt. Fortune Magazine in 1948 called the self-made billionaire the world’s wealthiest man. With a trust fund from his father, Lamar Hunt set out to make his own mark. He was drawn to sports and football was his first love. He wanted to own a professional football team. He had the money, he had the dream, and he most certainly had the conviction. Hunt visited Bell for the first time in the spring of 1958. The Commissioner repeatedly told him there would be no expansion of the NFL. The owners wouldn’t allow it. A unanimous vote of the owners was required to approve any new team. Washington Redskins owner George Preston Marshall, an unrelenting racist and all-around dirtbag, was a staunch opponent of expansion on general principle. The Chicago Cardinals were opposed out of self-interest. The team’s owners were considering a move and wanted to keep all of their options open. Despite not being at all interested in actually expanding, the NFL did form a committee to explore expansion possibilities in 1958. The committee never met and was eventually pared down to Chicago Bears owner George Halas, of course, and Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney. For all practical purposes, Halas was the expansion committee. Anyone interested in entering the exclusive club of the National Football League first visited Bell and then visited Halas.
Hunt wasn’t the only wealthy businessman calling on Bell. And Halas. Houston oilman Bud Adams came calling. So did representatives from Seattle, Buffalo, New Orleans, Denver, Miami, and Minneapolis. Bell and Halas saw a lot of interested people. The Minneapolis group centered around three prominent Twin Cities businessmen - Max Winter, E. William Boyer, and H.P. Skoglund. Ole Haugsrud was the owner of the Duluth Eskimos in the 1920s. He held an “open contract” to have the first chance at a franchise if the NFL ever decided to return to Minnesota. If the Minneapolis businessmen were successful in prying open the NFL’s doors, Haugsrud had a standing invite to be a part of the ownership group. Whenever Hunt, Adams, Winter, and the rest called on Bell and/or Halas they were `usually told two things. “No” and “Go see the Wolfners.”
A significant portion of this drama revolved around the Chicago Cardinals. They were one of the few teams in the league that was struggling. They were struggling on the field, off the field, and in sharing Chicago with the Bears. The Cardinals, once owned by the late Charles Bidwill, was now owned by his widow, Violet, and her new husband, St. Louis businessman Walter Wolfner. The future of the Cardinals was so uncertain that they occasionally played home games in other cities to gauge fan interest in those cities. Would the team move? Would the owners sell? Who knew? The NFL often called it “the Chicago situation.” If the league ever wanted to expand they had to first settle the situation with the Cardinals. At least that’s what they said to anyone outside the league. I believe that Bell only wanted a stable Cardinals franchise and Halas only wanted Chicago to himself. Both would be accomplished with the team in the hands of a new owner. Both Bell and Halas wanted the Wolfners to sell the Cardinals. Wolfner didn’t want to sell but he sure liked the attention brought to him by Hunt, Adams, Winter, etc. Directing these rich guys to the Cardinals owners turned out to be a mistake for the NFL. None of these businessmen knew about each other. At least, they didn’t know about each other’s interest in professional football. Through his boasting about all his recent visitors, Wolfner introduced them. He let Hunt know that there were others. This gave the little kid with a trust fund a brilliant idea. If the NFL wouldn’t let him into their league, he’d start a new league.
Before Hunt moved on his new league plan, he visited Bert Bell one final time in March 1959. He’d been making these visits for an entire year. Again, Hunt was told that the league couldn’t expand until resolving the Cardinals situation. Again, he was directed to Halas. He already knew that he was never going to get anywhere with the Bears owner. His plan for a new league had moved from just an idea.
By turning away a parade of rich guys, the NFL (Wolfner) had inadvertently given Lamar Hunt a list of potential owners. He started recruiting those owners. He soon had six interested individuals/groups and cities.
Dallas - Lamar Hunt
Houston - Bud Adams
Denver - Bob Howsam
Los Angeles - Barron Hilton
New York - Harry Wismer
Minneapolis - Max Winter, E. William Boyer, H.P. Skoglund
With the National Hockey League in mind, Hunt thought six teams was a sufficient number. On August 3 1959, from the Houston office of Bud Adams, Hunt announced the formation of the American Football League. On August 14, 1959, the new professional football league met for the first time in the Imperial South Suite of the Chicago Hilton.
Hunt’s bold move to form the AFL brought a surprising ally. Bert Bell. The NFL’s commissioner welcomed the challenge of a rival league. He thought that the NFL’s competition with the All-America Football Conference from 1946-49 was a good thing. He didn’t think that at the time. 10 years later, he did. Bell told Hunt that he was available if he ever needed any advice. The commissioner of the NFL would be a confidant to the man starting a rival league. Bell’s first piece of advice for Hunt. Get eight teams. And pool any TV money.
Two weeks after that first AFL meeting, the NFL responded. On August 29, 1959, at a press conference before the Chicago Bears - Pittsburgh Steelers preseason game, Halas and Rooney announced that the NFL was expanding. The league planned to award franchises the following January to begin competition in 1961. The two most likely cities were Dallas and Houston.
Hunt, Adams, Winter, all of these rich guys had been talking, pleading, negotiating with NFL people for at least a year. The answer was always “No.” Now, after they’d taken matters into their own hands, the NFL did what they said couldn’t be done. Apparently, it could be done but it had to be done on their terms. Tossing out Dallas and Houston as the likely cities was a lure for the apparent leaders of the new league. Surely, Hunt and Adams would jump at the chance at NFL franchises in their home cities. Take out the leaders and the new league would crumble. Halas, and the NFL’s owners, didn’t understand what they’d help to create. Hunt stayed committed to the owners that he recruited and the new league that he’d put together. The AFL moved forward and the Minneapolis group was a loyal member of the new league.
Much of what the NFL had become by the late 1950s was due to the unique guidance of Bert Bell. His love of professional football was such that he could help and befriend a man that posed a threat to his league. Football is fun and more football is even better. There was room for more teams. There was room for another league. Perhaps that’s how Bell saw it. The NFL and professional football changed on October 11, 1959. While sitting in the Franklin Field stands watching the Steelers play the Eagles, the two teams that he once owned, Bert Bell collapsed from a massive heart attack.
Hunt took his late friend’s advice and recruited Ralph Wilson (Buffalo) and Billy Sullivan (Boston) to the AFL. The new league had eight teams.
With the teams in place, it was time to draft some players. A professional football league isn’t a league until it holds a draft. You can’t have a team without players. You can’t have players without a draft. The members of the new league came together the weekend of November 21-22, 1959. Considering all that was about to happen, it was convenient that the AFL’s first draft was held at the Nicollet Hotel in Minneapolis. The drama started the day before the draft. In the aftermath of Bell’s death, Halas took a more aggressive role in trying to lure Hunt and Adams over to the NFL. It didn’t work and Halas turned his attention to the Minneapolis group. It probably involved Sid Hartman. The Minneapolis Star Tribune sportswriter was good friends with Winter, Skoglund, and Boyer and had been their contact guy with Halas. Hartman apparently drove Halas crazy. So crazy that Halas once told Hartman that he’d give Minnesota a franchise just to get him off his back. Halas contacted Winter about jumping to the NFL. They talked. Halas probably leaked the talk to the press as rumors swirled immediately.
From Michael MacCambridge’s terrific book America’s Game:
Harry Wismer burst through the door, visibly agitated, carrying a newspaper under his arm. Someone asked if he was ready for dinner. “Yes!” he shouted, slamming the paper on the conference table. “And this is the last supper!” Pointing at Max Winter of the Minneapolis group, he added, “And he’s Judas!”
The headline of the next day’s edition of the “Minneapolis Star Tribune” read “MINNESOTA TO GET AN NFL FRANCHISE” and detailed the back-channel negotiations by Halas on behalf of the NFL. While the Minneapolis group had not been the very first to join the new league, they were considered a crucial franchise in the upper Midwest, and had played a vital role in the league’s early formation. Their abdication to the NFL, expertly engineered behind the scenes by Halas was a major blow to the AFL, and a victory for the older league, which seemed likely to approve expansion to Dallas and Minneapolis-St. Paul at its annual meetings in January.
Charley Johnson may have written the Star-Tribune article but it might as well have been dictated by George Halas. The Minnesota defection was still just a rumor but things weren’t going as Lamar Hunt had dreamed. The new league’s members were reeling. An emergency meeting lasted until the early morning hours. Winter departed around 2:00 AM and made the following statement to the press: “I have withdrawn from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Football picture as far as the American League is concerned.” That left Skoglund as the only member of the Minneapolis group for the remainder of the new league’s big weekend. After the late night/early morning meeting, Hunt told reporters that Minneapolis was still in the AFL.
Despite the uncertainty surrounding the Minneapolis group, there was still a draft to hold. The AFL’s first draft was strange. Partly because there was a question whether one of the team’s participating was even still part of the league. Mostly because only three teams (Dallas, Denver, and Los Angeles) had anyone there even remotely qualified to judge and select players. As a result, those three “general managers” kind of selected for everyone. First, they had a “territorial” draft. Each team received a player that played their college ball in that team’s region. Then, the three “general managers” would separate the eight best players at each position, put those names in a hat, and have each team blindly select a player. Each position was addressed in this manner. To fill out the entire roster, the draft lasted 33 rounds. The AFL Draft was held about a month before the NFL Draft to hopefully get a jump on signing the college prospects. Each team had to put together an entire roster. They weren’t just adding to one.
Among the players assigned to the Minnesota AFL franchise:
Dale Hackbart, QB, Wisconsin - territorial selection
Maxie Baughan, C, Georgia Tech
Carroll Dale, End, Virginia Tech
Abner Haynes, RB, North Texas State
Jim Otto, C, Miami
Dale Hackbart would eventually play defensive back for the Vikings from 1966-70.
Following the draft, it felt like Minnesota’s time in the AFL was over. During the first week of January 1960, the Minneapolis ownership group made it official. They withdrew from the AFL. One would think that if George Halas had done the recruiting that entry into the NFL was a given. According to Cleveland Browns head coach Paul Brown, it wasn’t a done deal. The owners voted on the league’s expansion at their annual meeting in late January. Brown said that a straw poll revealed there wasn’t enough votes for approval. It’s a good thing that Brown was there to save the day for Winter, Skoglund, Boyer, and Haugsrud.
From PB: The Paul Brown Story:
I was upset and told the owners, “We had promised these people they could have a franchise in our league. If we make a promise like that, we must deliver.”
When the meeting recessed, I saw how angry Max Winter and Charley Johnson, the sports editor of the “Minneapolis Tribune,” were getting, and when the meeting reopened, I was more determined than ever to press hard for fulfillment.
”If we promised these people, then we must fulfill that promise,” I told them again. “We can’t vote against this just because one or two people might not like the idea of having to take a lesser cut of the revenue pie. Our word has to mean something, and if we don’t give them the franchise, the American Football League will move in and make tremendous capital of the way we mishandled this matter.”
That did it, and the Vikings were voted into the NFL.
I’m sure that Brown played a role in getting Minnesota into the NFL but I question his heroic view of his efforts. I believe that it was more a combination of Halas and Brown as well as completing the blow to the AFL.
After playing the role of Minnesota savior, Brown felt a degree of responsibility for the league’s new team. At the Browns 1960 training camp, he invited Vikings personnel director Joe Thomas to view some of the Browns players that might have difficulty making the team’s roster. This little favor resulted in the trade that brought Jim Marshall, Paul Dickson, Jim Prestel, Jamie Caleb, Dick Grencni, and Bill Gault to Minnesota.
On January 28, 1960, the Minneapolis ownership group of Max Winter, E. William Boyer, H.P. Skoglund, Ole Haugsrud, and Bernard H. Ridder Jr. were granted an NFL franchise. The team would begin play in 1961.
Two months after the Minneapolis group unofficially bolted from the AFL, the new league found their eighth team. The choice of Oakland was actually one of necessity. Los Angeles owner Barron Hilton threatened to drop out if he wasn’t given a geographic rival. As that Chronicle article revealed to me in early 1977, the Oakland Raiders were an AFL team because the Minnesota Vikings weren’t. The Raiders got Minnesota’s spot in the league as well as their strange draft class. A class that included Jim Otto.
I’ve often wondered if I would’ve become a fan of the Minnesota Vikings if they’d lived the AFL life. Being from California, I had no geographic ties to the team. Becoming a fan just happened. I don’t remember a time when I was interested in football and not interested in the Vikings. As soon as I discovered the purple uniforms, horned helmet, amazing defense, scrambling quarterback, incredible coach, and snowy games, I was hooked. It really was love at first sight. Once it hit I was interested in the team’s past as well as their present. I preferred the NFC and by extension the pre-merger NFL. That included the 41 NFL years before the Vikings were born.
This is a Minnesota Vikings origin story.
The National Football League finally found stability and some prosperity in the 1950s. Each of the previous three decades had been a struggle. The league’s 12 teams wanted it to continue. Several very wealthy businessmen wanted to be a part of the professional football fun. The league’s 12 teams didn’t want to share. For most of them, this was their livelihood. They didn’t need or want any rich guys grabbing a piece of what they had worked so hard to build. That didn’t stop very wealthy businessmen used to getting their way. In the late 1950s, NFL Commissioner Bert Bell was getting a lot of visits from these businessmen. Lamar Hunt was the most persistent. He was the son of Dallas oilman Haroldson Lafayette Hunt. Fortune Magazine in 1948 called the self-made billionaire the world’s wealthiest man. With a trust fund from his father, Lamar Hunt set out to make his own mark. He was drawn to sports and football was his first love. He wanted to own a professional football team. He had the money, he had the dream, and he most certainly had the conviction. Hunt visited Bell for the first time in the spring of 1958. The Commissioner repeatedly told him there would be no expansion of the NFL. The owners wouldn’t allow it. A unanimous vote of the owners was required to approve any new team. Washington Redskins owner George Preston Marshall, an unrelenting racist and all-around dirtbag, was a staunch opponent of expansion on general principle. The Chicago Cardinals were opposed out of self-interest. The team’s owners were considering a move and wanted to keep all of their options open. Despite not being at all interested in actually expanding, the NFL did form a committee to explore expansion possibilities in 1958. The committee never met and was eventually pared down to Chicago Bears owner George Halas, of course, and Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney. For all practical purposes, Halas was the expansion committee. Anyone interested in entering the exclusive club of the National Football League first visited Bell and then visited Halas.
Hunt wasn’t the only wealthy businessman calling on Bell. And Halas. Houston oilman Bud Adams came calling. So did representatives from Seattle, Buffalo, New Orleans, Denver, Miami, and Minneapolis. Bell and Halas saw a lot of interested people. The Minneapolis group centered around three prominent Twin Cities businessmen - Max Winter, E. William Boyer, and H.P. Skoglund. Ole Haugsrud was the owner of the Duluth Eskimos in the 1920s. He held an “open contract” to have the first chance at a franchise if the NFL ever decided to return to Minnesota. If the Minneapolis businessmen were successful in prying open the NFL’s doors, Haugsrud had a standing invite to be a part of the ownership group. Whenever Hunt, Adams, Winter, and the rest called on Bell and/or Halas they were `usually told two things. “No” and “Go see the Wolfners.”
A significant portion of this drama revolved around the Chicago Cardinals. They were one of the few teams in the league that was struggling. They were struggling on the field, off the field, and in sharing Chicago with the Bears. The Cardinals, once owned by the late Charles Bidwill, was now owned by his widow, Violet, and her new husband, St. Louis businessman Walter Wolfner. The future of the Cardinals was so uncertain that they occasionally played home games in other cities to gauge fan interest in those cities. Would the team move? Would the owners sell? Who knew? The NFL often called it “the Chicago situation.” If the league ever wanted to expand they had to first settle the situation with the Cardinals. At least that’s what they said to anyone outside the league. I believe that Bell only wanted a stable Cardinals franchise and Halas only wanted Chicago to himself. Both would be accomplished with the team in the hands of a new owner. Both Bell and Halas wanted the Wolfners to sell the Cardinals. Wolfner didn’t want to sell but he sure liked the attention brought to him by Hunt, Adams, Winter, etc. Directing these rich guys to the Cardinals owners turned out to be a mistake for the NFL. None of these businessmen knew about each other. At least, they didn’t know about each other’s interest in professional football. Through his boasting about all his recent visitors, Wolfner introduced them. He let Hunt know that there were others. This gave the little kid with a trust fund a brilliant idea. If the NFL wouldn’t let him into their league, he’d start a new league.
Before Hunt moved on his new league plan, he visited Bert Bell one final time in March 1959. He’d been making these visits for an entire year. Again, Hunt was told that the league couldn’t expand until resolving the Cardinals situation. Again, he was directed to Halas. He already knew that he was never going to get anywhere with the Bears owner. His plan for a new league had moved from just an idea.
By turning away a parade of rich guys, the NFL (Wolfner) had inadvertently given Lamar Hunt a list of potential owners. He started recruiting those owners. He soon had six interested individuals/groups and cities.
Dallas - Lamar Hunt
Houston - Bud Adams
Denver - Bob Howsam
Los Angeles - Barron Hilton
New York - Harry Wismer
Minneapolis - Max Winter, E. William Boyer, H.P. Skoglund
With the National Hockey League in mind, Hunt thought six teams was a sufficient number. On August 3 1959, from the Houston office of Bud Adams, Hunt announced the formation of the American Football League. On August 14, 1959, the new professional football league met for the first time in the Imperial South Suite of the Chicago Hilton.
Hunt’s bold move to form the AFL brought a surprising ally. Bert Bell. The NFL’s commissioner welcomed the challenge of a rival league. He thought that the NFL’s competition with the All-America Football Conference from 1946-49 was a good thing. He didn’t think that at the time. 10 years later, he did. Bell told Hunt that he was available if he ever needed any advice. The commissioner of the NFL would be a confidant to the man starting a rival league. Bell’s first piece of advice for Hunt. Get eight teams. And pool any TV money.
Two weeks after that first AFL meeting, the NFL responded. On August 29, 1959, at a press conference before the Chicago Bears - Pittsburgh Steelers preseason game, Halas and Rooney announced that the NFL was expanding. The league planned to award franchises the following January to begin competition in 1961. The two most likely cities were Dallas and Houston.
Hunt, Adams, Winter, all of these rich guys had been talking, pleading, negotiating with NFL people for at least a year. The answer was always “No.” Now, after they’d taken matters into their own hands, the NFL did what they said couldn’t be done. Apparently, it could be done but it had to be done on their terms. Tossing out Dallas and Houston as the likely cities was a lure for the apparent leaders of the new league. Surely, Hunt and Adams would jump at the chance at NFL franchises in their home cities. Take out the leaders and the new league would crumble. Halas, and the NFL’s owners, didn’t understand what they’d help to create. Hunt stayed committed to the owners that he recruited and the new league that he’d put together. The AFL moved forward and the Minneapolis group was a loyal member of the new league.
Much of what the NFL had become by the late 1950s was due to the unique guidance of Bert Bell. His love of professional football was such that he could help and befriend a man that posed a threat to his league. Football is fun and more football is even better. There was room for more teams. There was room for another league. Perhaps that’s how Bell saw it. The NFL and professional football changed on October 11, 1959. While sitting in the Franklin Field stands watching the Steelers play the Eagles, the two teams that he once owned, Bert Bell collapsed from a massive heart attack.
Hunt took his late friend’s advice and recruited Ralph Wilson (Buffalo) and Billy Sullivan (Boston) to the AFL. The new league had eight teams.
With the teams in place, it was time to draft some players. A professional football league isn’t a league until it holds a draft. You can’t have a team without players. You can’t have players without a draft. The members of the new league came together the weekend of November 21-22, 1959. Considering all that was about to happen, it was convenient that the AFL’s first draft was held at the Nicollet Hotel in Minneapolis. The drama started the day before the draft. In the aftermath of Bell’s death, Halas took a more aggressive role in trying to lure Hunt and Adams over to the NFL. It didn’t work and Halas turned his attention to the Minneapolis group. It probably involved Sid Hartman. The Minneapolis Star Tribune sportswriter was good friends with Winter, Skoglund, and Boyer and had been their contact guy with Halas. Hartman apparently drove Halas crazy. So crazy that Halas once told Hartman that he’d give Minnesota a franchise just to get him off his back. Halas contacted Winter about jumping to the NFL. They talked. Halas probably leaked the talk to the press as rumors swirled immediately.
From Michael MacCambridge’s terrific book America’s Game:
Harry Wismer burst through the door, visibly agitated, carrying a newspaper under his arm. Someone asked if he was ready for dinner. “Yes!” he shouted, slamming the paper on the conference table. “And this is the last supper!” Pointing at Max Winter of the Minneapolis group, he added, “And he’s Judas!”
The headline of the next day’s edition of the “Minneapolis Star Tribune” read “MINNESOTA TO GET AN NFL FRANCHISE” and detailed the back-channel negotiations by Halas on behalf of the NFL. While the Minneapolis group had not been the very first to join the new league, they were considered a crucial franchise in the upper Midwest, and had played a vital role in the league’s early formation. Their abdication to the NFL, expertly engineered behind the scenes by Halas was a major blow to the AFL, and a victory for the older league, which seemed likely to approve expansion to Dallas and Minneapolis-St. Paul at its annual meetings in January.
Charley Johnson may have written the Star-Tribune article but it might as well have been dictated by George Halas. The Minnesota defection was still just a rumor but things weren’t going as Lamar Hunt had dreamed. The new league’s members were reeling. An emergency meeting lasted until the early morning hours. Winter departed around 2:00 AM and made the following statement to the press: “I have withdrawn from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Football picture as far as the American League is concerned.” That left Skoglund as the only member of the Minneapolis group for the remainder of the new league’s big weekend. After the late night/early morning meeting, Hunt told reporters that Minneapolis was still in the AFL.
Despite the uncertainty surrounding the Minneapolis group, there was still a draft to hold. The AFL’s first draft was strange. Partly because there was a question whether one of the team’s participating was even still part of the league. Mostly because only three teams (Dallas, Denver, and Los Angeles) had anyone there even remotely qualified to judge and select players. As a result, those three “general managers” kind of selected for everyone. First, they had a “territorial” draft. Each team received a player that played their college ball in that team’s region. Then, the three “general managers” would separate the eight best players at each position, put those names in a hat, and have each team blindly select a player. Each position was addressed in this manner. To fill out the entire roster, the draft lasted 33 rounds. The AFL Draft was held about a month before the NFL Draft to hopefully get a jump on signing the college prospects. Each team had to put together an entire roster. They weren’t just adding to one.
Among the players assigned to the Minnesota AFL franchise:
Dale Hackbart, QB, Wisconsin - territorial selection
Maxie Baughan, C, Georgia Tech
Carroll Dale, End, Virginia Tech
Abner Haynes, RB, North Texas State
Jim Otto, C, Miami
Dale Hackbart would eventually play defensive back for the Vikings from 1966-70.
Following the draft, it felt like Minnesota’s time in the AFL was over. During the first week of January 1960, the Minneapolis ownership group made it official. They withdrew from the AFL. One would think that if George Halas had done the recruiting that entry into the NFL was a given. According to Cleveland Browns head coach Paul Brown, it wasn’t a done deal. The owners voted on the league’s expansion at their annual meeting in late January. Brown said that a straw poll revealed there wasn’t enough votes for approval. It’s a good thing that Brown was there to save the day for Winter, Skoglund, Boyer, and Haugsrud.
From PB: The Paul Brown Story:
I was upset and told the owners, “We had promised these people they could have a franchise in our league. If we make a promise like that, we must deliver.”
When the meeting recessed, I saw how angry Max Winter and Charley Johnson, the sports editor of the “Minneapolis Tribune,” were getting, and when the meeting reopened, I was more determined than ever to press hard for fulfillment.
”If we promised these people, then we must fulfill that promise,” I told them again. “We can’t vote against this just because one or two people might not like the idea of having to take a lesser cut of the revenue pie. Our word has to mean something, and if we don’t give them the franchise, the American Football League will move in and make tremendous capital of the way we mishandled this matter.”
That did it, and the Vikings were voted into the NFL.
I’m sure that Brown played a role in getting Minnesota into the NFL but I question his heroic view of his efforts. I believe that it was more a combination of Halas and Brown as well as completing the blow to the AFL.
After playing the role of Minnesota savior, Brown felt a degree of responsibility for the league’s new team. At the Browns 1960 training camp, he invited Vikings personnel director Joe Thomas to view some of the Browns players that might have difficulty making the team’s roster. This little favor resulted in the trade that brought Jim Marshall, Paul Dickson, Jim Prestel, Jamie Caleb, Dick Grencni, and Bill Gault to Minnesota.
On January 28, 1960, the Minneapolis ownership group of Max Winter, E. William Boyer, H.P. Skoglund, Ole Haugsrud, and Bernard H. Ridder Jr. were granted an NFL franchise. The team would begin play in 1961.
Two months after the Minneapolis group unofficially bolted from the AFL, the new league found their eighth team. The choice of Oakland was actually one of necessity. Los Angeles owner Barron Hilton threatened to drop out if he wasn’t given a geographic rival. As that Chronicle article revealed to me in early 1977, the Oakland Raiders were an AFL team because the Minnesota Vikings weren’t. The Raiders got Minnesota’s spot in the league as well as their strange draft class. A class that included Jim Otto.
I’ve often wondered if I would’ve become a fan of the Minnesota Vikings if they’d lived the AFL life. Being from California, I had no geographic ties to the team. Becoming a fan just happened. I don’t remember a time when I was interested in football and not interested in the Vikings. As soon as I discovered the purple uniforms, horned helmet, amazing defense, scrambling quarterback, incredible coach, and snowy games, I was hooked. It really was love at first sight. Once it hit I was interested in the team’s past as well as their present. I preferred the NFC and by extension the pre-merger NFL. That included the 41 NFL years before the Vikings were born.
