He Almost Kept the Chiefs Out of K.C.

David F. Dixon died on Sunday in New Orleans. He was 87 years old.

Dixon was an art & antiques dealer, who owned a store and gallery in the French Quarter. He was a city leader in the Big Easy and was known for his philanthropy, in big ways and small.

His passing did not cause even the slightest ripple on the Kansas City sports scene. But some 47 years ago had Dixon been successful the Kansas City Chiefs as we know them would not exist. In a closet in Dixon’s office you will find a box with various mementoes from his remarkable life. In that box is another smaller box with some 50 pencils. Stenciled into the side of each pencil are the worlds:

New Orleans Saints 1963.

If it had been up to Dave Dixon, the Texans team that left Dallas after the 1962 American Football League season would have landed in New Orleans. Instead, it found a home in Kansas City, became the Chiefs and the rest is pro football history for middle-America.

But it just as easily could have meant the introduction of pro football to Louisiana. Lamar Hunt wanted to move his football franchise to New Orleans. Dixon toured the city with him in late 1962 and early 1963. The only problem was where the Texans/Saints would play. At the time, the only stadium that was of interest to Hunt was Tulane Stadium, and old bowl on the campus of Tulane University.

But the school had a prohibition against activities on campus, including the stadium, on Sundays. Dixon worked behind the scenes for years trying to get Tulane officials to lift the ban. He helped stage an NFL exhibition game in New Orleans in 1972 that was played at Fairgrounds Park, a much older facility that was in disrepair. One moment he would get closed door assurances that the stadium was available. The next time the school’s board would meet and said publicly that they were not going to lift the ban.

Ultimately, Lamar Hunt couldn’t wait any longer. New Orleans dropped of his radar screen. It was replaced by a cow town that straddled the Kansas/Missouri state line. Hunt was very familiar with Municipal Stadium and Kansas City because he and his brother had frequently traveled there to watch the Kansas City A’s play, usually against the Yankees or some other good American League team. In those days every American League team was better than the lowly A’s.

H. Roe Bartle stepped forward and with the help of Kansas City business leaders convinced Hunt that enough season tickets would be sold to make the move of his franchise a financial success. It didn’t happen overnight with that first season in 1963, but eventually the city embraced the team that was named the Chiefs.

Dixon did not let that disappointment stop him. He continued to search for a way to bring pro football to New Orleans. Eventually, with a little help from Louisiana politicians in Washington, an expansion franchise was granted to the Crescent City to start play in 1967. Of course, the Saints are celebrating their first championship, won back in February in a Super Bowl victory over Indianapolis.

In his death, Dixon has been called the father of pro football in New Orleans. Yet there’s so much more to the resume of his life. Eventually, he would go into business with Lamar Hunt, as they were the founding partners of World Championship Tennis. The WCT changed the way tennis was viewed around the world. It was Dixon who pushed and pushed for years to build a domed stadium that eventually went up as the Louisiana Superdome. The building has hosted six Super Bowls, three BCS college championship games, four Final Fours, the 1988 Republican Convention and a host of other events since it opened in 1975 and reopened in 2006 after it was repaired post-Katrina. He was also one of the founding fathers of the United States Football League.

And the football fans of middle-America need to remember him as the man who almost got Lamar Hunt’s football team before Kansas City did.