Mr Cool takes a drag during half time at 1st Super Bowl
Everybody loves a local sports heroe…
And deceased Chiefs quarterback Len Dawson is no exception. That said, most of that so-called “love” is based upon our reverence for athletes – as some call it “jock sniffing” – dating back to the grade school bullies of our lost youth.
Any of that sound controversial?
I grew up watching Dawson kick butt in the old Municipal Stadium from my dad’s 50 yard line seats at games punctuated by politically incorrect cartoon Indian program covers. Like the August 9, 1963 Buffalo Bills game, featuring a goofy-looking Native American dude wielding a knife and fork while riding a buffalo with a sign that read, “Historic Indian Meat.”
In front of the 5,721 fans in attendance, Len Dawson won his first home game in KC, alongside 8 AFL all-stars, which did not include Dawson.
Lenny the Cool trivia ranges from him being the 9th of 11 children and the 8th oldest quarterback to win a Super Bowl. When the Chiefs signed an even more famous No. 16 in 1993 – Joe Montana – Dawson worked quietly behind the scenes to prevent Montana from taking his retired No. 16 jersey, which many Chiefs fans at the time wanted Joe to have.
And while wife Linda Dawson has been front and center in Len’s post death news coverage, missing-in-action mostly has been like his 62 year-old namesake son, Len Dawson, Jr. and his sister.
Len and first wife Jacqueline Puzder
Not exactly the norm, in these sort of circumstances.
Which kinda goes hand-in-hand with a Squire publisher Tom Leathers stories, alluding to the circumstances surrounding Dawson’s first wife Jacqueline Puzder‘s death, and whether Len had anything to do it, and if had it been covered up by a friendly.
“Rumor has it that she passed on at a very young age from a cancer-related complication,” reads one recent report. “However, the type of cancer that led to her demise still remains a mystery to unravel.”
Other accounts of Dawson’s 41 year-old first wife’s death vary.
Dawson had married high school sweetheart Jacqueline Puzder in 1954 until her death in 1978. The details surrounding her demise are vague, with few specifics, and conflicting references to her dying of “chronic illness after a stroke” to “complications related to cancer.”
Given the low profile of her and Len’s children, one has to wonder.
Other things that seemed mostly overlooked in recent years include Star, Pitch, and Landmark sports columnist Greg Hall‘s Y2K Sofa Award to Dawson for Worst TV Sports Anchor:
“Lenny the Cool is a local sports icon and has a hit show on HBO, but the guy was awful as the lead sports anchor at Channel 9 in 2000,” Hall wrote. “He mispronounces more names than Les Nessman … or is it Nes Lessman?”
As for Dawson staying in KC after his playing career, that was far less unusual, owing to the fact that players made so little money comparatively back then.
“I would ride with my Dad or Uncle Mort after school, sometimes with All Pro Jerrel Wilson or maybe Jim Tyrer,” comedy club icon Craig Glazer wrote about his childhood, a year or so before his death. “Over the next few years Mort would have about six or seven players working for him.”
Ditto for my dad’s company, B.C. Christopher, where local sports stars like Johnny Robinson, Jim Lynch and Pete LaCock worked during the off season, like Dawson did at Channel 9.
Anecdotally Dawson was known for being kind of curt and rude, but Westport businessman Bill Nigro got to know him when he was living near Glazer at the Sulgrave Regency apartments on the Plaza.
“Remember Ernie Ladd who played for the Chiefs in the 1960s?” Nigro says. “Len told me at the very first game they played against him afterwards that he got up on the line and said, “Lenny, I’m going to get you and nobody on your team can stop me.’ And I knew he was right, so I ran almost all of the plays to the other side of the field, because I didn’t want to get hit by him.”
Len and Jackie had what you might call a business relationship with me up to her death and I can tell you this, they were a happy couple always in my presence and Jackie in my book was a wonderful lady, very kind and down to earth. Len was Len, polite, respectful and always with a good word along with a handshake to me. Yes Jackie did have some severe medical issues that led to her death and it was a very private matter with them.
Very interesting, Super D…
Any idea what she actually died from? And I’m sure long as you’ve been around you must have seen Leathers weird takes on what happened to her. Any theories on why Len’s son and daughter were and continue to be so estranged seeming?
No two ways about it, it was a very odd situation it seems to me. Wish Craig were around to help flesh a few things out. I do recall him saying that when Dawson remarried a much younger woman, she more or less forced him to abandon the low key apartment living on the Plaza and build a huge house on Ward Parkway.
In respect to the Dawson Family, I won’t discuss medical issues that they kept more or less very private. Yes I remember Tom’s version of things and you may find it at the KC Library. I saw Len Jr just one time after his mom had died and was not to long before Len sold the place down by Red Bridge Rd. The kids never did like the limelight and being semi close to my age the kids in school really bagged on them for being the kids of the famous ball player. Sometimes I think being the child of a celebrity is harder than being the celebrity.
Come on H, you have had more than one wife and you have to know how wives can be about what they perceive as a home plus Craigs take on things sometimes were open for interpretation. Craig was just a year and few months older in age to me and Len Jr was I think 2 years younger than I so he wasn’t in the age group or either one of us back in the day of running around in eastern JOCO. Oh how I remember those days. Going to the old ball park as you mention and to be honest maybe it was due to being younger but Kaufaum Stadium never felt as good to me as the old Municipal Stadium did watching a ball game as the pigeons flew around above you. Then again my first real music concert was at the stadium when I was lucky to have a mother who was Beatle crazy and we all go to go see them. So 5 days before my 10th birthday I got to go to the stadium for the first time and see the hottest group going in the states at that time. Kids nowadays have no clue how cool the 60’s and 70’s were to us all here in KC. Max Floyd and I just yesterday were talking about that.
Wow, didn’t realize how connected you were!
There was like one kid in my 7th grade class at Pep Day that got to see that Beatles show. I started kinda late but went to a ton of concerts up until the last two years, really.
I enjoyed baseball and football downtown, but had no issues moving to the new sports complex.
Hanging with Max Floyd, eh? Guess you know Jack and Tanna too?
You definitely got me on the “more than one wife,” not sure your point on this though.
Needing an interpreter for Craig…take a number. I needed a legion of fact checkers as well.
He did have a pretty decent catalogue of memories from the ’60s forward. Kinda miss him, which I say somewhat guardedly
Remind me – if you don’t mind – what Leathers thought happened to the first Mrs. Dawson…
Have to say, for someone married to THE town celebrity to dies so young and with practically zero fanfare or reporting – at least that I can recall – seems very odd.
As does not a single soul tracking down or mentioning Len Dawson Jr. under the circumstances.
Then again, this isn’t the first time I’ve been stumped by life’s twists and turns.
I’ve met some of my childhood heroes, and as such expectations can give way a harsh reality… they’re only human. 1960’s, my first football hero was Len Dawson. The first experience mine with #16 to my last, he was always cordial and never showed an hint having clay feet; that others mileage/personal experience may vary, par this course. I could tell stories/name names former Chiefs re: chinks in their image armor… won’t.
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As a QB the only other who I considered on par with Len was Bart Starr, another Hall of Famer. Similar was their ‘game’, as well smarts, size and humility. Other end of the spectrum contrast, oversized egos stroked by media-massagers to include the likes of Joe Namath, Daryle Lamonica & Roman Gabriel, among others. Terms ‘team success’ as well stats realized/attributed individually, none of the latter’s have a resume equal to Dawson.
I think Len remains ‘the’ most underrated QB, ever, despite his HOF career/induction. When the ‘great ones’ are talked about, you won’t often if ever hear his name. Which is odd, because he doesn’t even have a HOF receiver his detractors can point/give credit to (Otis Taylor should be in the HOF, but is not by that very media’s own decision.) So how did Lenny do it/make it KC to Canton – smoke & mirrors?
To wit, no QB threw as many tds between 1962-’69 as Dawson – not Starr, not Unitas, not Jurgensen, not Tarkenton, not Gabriel, not Brodie, not Blanda, not Lamonica, not Namath, not Hadl – no one; maybe the DOJ/FBI should investigate because Dawson’s being given short shrift is criminal.
Len also STILL holds the all-time pro football record for most league-leading seasons completion %, affirmation of Hank Stram’s oft-stated belief “Len is the most accurate passer in pro football.”
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A couple of Dawson ‘isms’ stick with me: “we got the ball to him” reference throwing a td pass to a teammate(s), in lieu the typical ‘I I I me me me – wasn’t that a great throw on my part’, self-adulation epitomizes ‘modern’ players – too many of whom gum beat, chest thump and gyrate around the field like a spastic in the throes gran mal seizure… crass will never be mistaken for class. The other Len-ism/quote – “There is a time and a place to fool, but the playing field is neither the time nor the place.” How refreshing in a day & age media as well player self-aggrandizement is both acute & chronic.
Were/remain no ‘saints’ outside a child’s imagination or writer’s poetic license, but to this day very few players memory stood out from most the rest, as Len Dawson. Hero worship? You’d better believe it… are so few who merit mention/consideration, still.
I agree 100%
Good man, Super Dave… pleasantries/reverence the subject of this post topside where said belongs, on to underbelly, follows.
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As if didn’t miss the referenced professionalism afield displayed Len Dawson enough, submitted DISapProval today’s NFL game @Indianapolis, Colts vs Chiefs, ‘snatching defeat jaws victory’.
On cue, one the smallest craniums atop one the largest bodies KC’s roster, gave further evidence indictment modern football. Revulsion is only salved by comeuppance: is hard to type while shaking one’s head and simultaneously busting a gut.
Today’s exhibit Mr. Jones, who contrary to Mrs. Jones, ain’t got a thing goin’ on… ‘tween his ears. Reward? Said gum beater beat his to a tizzy – his smack talk leading the local footballers getting smacked directly ‘L’ column. Poetic justice, even if he had help… did.
The usual suspects KC’s undisciplined traveling band misfits: Jones loose lips, Mahomes pout and Kelce spasms headed up the ‘veteran leadership’ on display today, least the version has been playing locally for awhile.
Where have you gone Lenny D & peers, memory turns its lonely eyes to you…