1963 Season AFL All-Star Game

The 1963 Season
American Football League
ALL-STAR GAME

AFL

West 27

East 24

January 19, 1964
Balboa Stadium, San Diego

The 1963 Season AFL All-Star game was played at Balboa Stadium in San Diego for the third year in a row. A small crowd of 20,016 saw the game. Television covered the event, which was not blacked out in the San Diego area. The coaches were Sid Gillman of San Diego for the West and Mike Holovak of Boston for the East.
.
The first half was a quarterbacking clinic put on by Babe Parilli of the Boston Patriots. With runs by Cookie Gilchrist of the Bills and Larry Garron of the Pats, the East drove to the West one in the first quarter where Gilchrist carried it over. Boston’s Gino Cappelletti added a field goal later in the quarter. In the second quarter, the West drove to the East one yard line, but the defense stiffened, pushing the West back to the eleven. They had to settle for a 19 yard field goal by Jim Fraser of Denver. Parilli then led the East to two scores. He hit his Patriots teammate Larry Garron for 12 yards and a touchdown and followed that with a three yard scoring pass to Bill Mathis of the New York Jets. The halftime score was a commanding 24-3 lead for the East.
.
The West started a comeback in the third quarter when Keith Lincoln of the Chargers executed a sensational 64 yard touchdown run. His teammates, Tobin Rote and wide receiver Lance Alworth then teamed up on a 51 pass play that took the ball to the East five yard line. Another Charger, Paul Lowe, carried the ball in from the four and the score was 24-17 at the end of three quarters. At 12:32 left to play, Cotton Davidson of the Oakland Raiders assumed the quarterbacking duties.

Davidson had only been selected to the squad due to a coin flip. Coach Gilman needed a back-up to his own Tobin Rote. Because Oakland had finished second in the West, Gilman asked Oakland coach, Al Davis, to provide the back-

up. Davis tossed a coin to choose between his quarterbacks, Davidson and Tom Flores. Davidson led the West on a drive and Fraser connected again on a field goal, this time from 12 yards, making the score 24-20 in favor of the East. In the game’s final moments, Davidson drove the West into East territory. With :43 left in the game, he hit his Oakland teammate, Art Powell, with a 25 yard touchdown pass. Powell, who dived for the ball at the back of the end zone, beat Buffalo safety Willie West on the play. The final score was 27-24.

The offensive MVP honors went to Lincoln, who established a rushing record with 121 yards. His 64 yard run also tied a record set by Curtis McClinton the previous year. Archie Matsos of Oakland won game defensive honors. It was the third straight win for the AFL West.

Todd Tobias has a great photo gallery from this game on his blog 'Tales From the American Football League'. The game was played on 19 January 1964, so it is called by some the "1964 AFL All-Star Game". But it was played after the 1963 season, with 1963 AFL All-Stars, so I prefer to call it the 1963 AFL All-Star Game. See the photo gallery by clicking HERE.

Paul Lowe scores on four yard run in the 3rd quarter.

Lance Alworth carries the ball.

Click to see AFL All-Star Squads
1963	West Squad	East Squad

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 Games 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.

AFLdotcom

Hit Counter