The Big Event of Sunday, January 15, 1967 would irreversibly, irrevocably, maybe even irreverently alter the face of professional basketball – way more even than the unprecedented dominance of that season’s Wilt Chamberlain-led Philadelphia 76ers, who’d won 41 of their first 45 games after knocking off Coach Russell’s men on their own home court that very day.
No, the ultimate domino fell into place not in a gym, but on a gridiron. When Lombardi’s Boys from Green Bay dispatched the Kansas City Chiefs in the Los Angeles Coliseum, up in smoke went the dreams and schemes – at least temporarily – of a California cat by the name of Dennis Murphy.