The 1961 Season
American Football League
 ALL-STAR GAME
 

AFL

West 47

East 27

 

January 7, 1962
Balboa Stadium, San Diego
The first American Football League All-Star Game was played on January 7, 1962 at Balboa Stadium in San Diego, CA. The game was hosted by the San Diego Junior Chamber of Commerce as a charity event to raise funds for the Breitbard Athletic Foundation. The game was a rousing success for the new league turning a profit and gaining much needed television exposure for the stars of the league as the game was aired nationally by ABC TV. The coaches were Lou Rymkus of the Oilers and Sid Gillman of the Los Angeles Chargers.

The East did all of the scoring in the first quarter when George Blanda of the Houston Oilers connected on a 32 yard field goal. Abner Haynes of the Dallas Texans fumbled in his own end zone and was tackled by Jim Hunt of the Patriots for a safety. It was 5-0, East after one quarter. In the second quarter, Cotton Davidson of the Texans replaced Jack Kemp of the Chargers and promptly hit Donnie Stone of Denver with a 45 yard touchdown pass. Stone was playing in his twenty-fifth pro game of the 1961 season, having played a the full season in Canada. The East responded as Blanda hit teammate, Billy Cannon, with a 43 yard touchdown to make the score 12-7. Haynes answered with an 11 yard touchdown run and Davidson threw a 24 yard touchdown strike to San Diego’s Dave Kocourek. The halftime score was 21-12 in favor of the West.
In the third quarter, Haynes returned a punt 66 yards for a touchdown and Davidson hooked up with the Charger’s Don Norton on a 10 yard touchdown pass. The East came back when Boston’s Gino Cappelletti caught a 5 yard touchdown pass from Blanda. The score at the end of the third period was 35-19. In the final period, the West put it away when Oakland’s Fred Williamson picked off a Blanda pass a returned it 53 yards for the West’s sixth touchdown. Blanda was intercepted five times on the afternoon. New York Titans quarterback Al Dorow replaced Blanda and hit Charley Hennigan for three yards and a touchdown. Dorow carried the ball over for the two-point conversion. The final score of the day came when the West’ Stone carried the ball over from 12 yards out. The final score was West 47, East 27.

For the day, Cotton Davidson completed 16 of 28 passes for 239 yards and was voted the game’s MVP.

 

Houston's George Blanda passes for the East.

 

Boston's Larry Garron eludes Dallas' Dave Webster.

 

Ken Adamson of Denver leads Texans' Abner Haynes on sweep.

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Click to see AFL All-Star Squads
1961 West Squad East Squad (to be added)

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SUMMARIES OF EACH AFL ALL-STAR GAME

        The American Football League did not play an All-Star game after its first season in 1960, but did stage All-Star games for the 1961 through 1969 seasons.  All-Star teams from the Eastern and Western divisions played each other after every season except 1965.  That season, the league champion Buffalo Bills played against a team made up of all-stars from the other teams.
        Because the games were played at the end of the season, they occurred in the next calendar year.  Thus, the 1961 AFL All-Star game (with players selected as all-stars for the 1961 season) was played on January 7, 1962; the 1962 game was played in January 1963, etc.
         The links below will take you to summaries of each game, originally created by Mark Bolding.   Most of the content of this and the other AFL All-Star Game summaries was retrieved from the 'Internet Archive Wayback Machine' at archive.org/web/web.php, which claims copyright for the work. 
         *Other than the final score and the image of the game program, his summary of the 1964 season all-star game incorrectly gave the report of the previous year's game. 
         Bolding's original site classified the games by the calendar year they were played in.  Since they were played at the end of AFL seasons and the All-Stars involved were so chosen for their play in those seasons, I classify them by the AFL season which they represented.  Thus the AFL All-Star Game that featured stars of the 1961 season was played in January 1962, etc.
1961 Season AFL All-Star Game: January 7, 1962 'Wayback' link
1962 Season AFL All-Star Game: January 13, 1963 'Wayback' link
1963 Season AFL All-Star Game: January 19, 1964 'Wayback' link
1964 Season AFL All-Star Game: January 16, 1965 *'Wayback' link
1965 Season AFL All-Star Game: January 15, 1966 'Wayback' link
1966 Season AFL All-Star Game: January 21, 1967 'Wayback' link
1967 Season AFL All-Star Game: January 21, 1968 'Wayback' link
1968 Season AFL All-Star Game: January 19, 1969 'Wayback' link
1969 Season AFL All-Star Game: January 17, 1970 'Wayback' link
         Perhaps the greatest highlight of AFL All-Star Game history came not on the field of play, but in the actions of black players, supported by their white teammates and owners, when the best players in the AFL boycotted the City of New Orleans because of the disrespect black players were given when they arrived there for the scheduled 1964 season AFL All-Star Game, scheduled for January 1965.
          The game was moved to Houston in a seminal action in the early civil rights movement in America.  It is still recognized as such, as recently as a March, 2007 article by Evan Weiner on MSNBC.  Another description of the incident is at my AFL Clippings page.
 
 

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