As the nation commemorates the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination this Friday, schedules around pro sports will continue uninterrupted as they do any other weekend.
But 50 years ago, after the president was killed on the Friday precluding Sunday football, retaining normalcy in pro sports was anything but possible.
Seven NFL games were scheduled for that Sunday following the assassination, and in hindsight, they should have been canceled. The games were played, but the NFL’s mistake has since been corrected.
After the first week of the 2001 season, the NFL suspended its slate of games the weekend following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. The MLB also pushed back its postseason that year into November for the very first time as a result.
While the country mourned the slain president in 1963, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle faced the dilemma of either postponing or continuing the scheduled games. Rozelle ultimately made a decision that he repeatedly declared as being his biggest mistake as commissioner.
The nation’s attention was diverted from sports that November weekend, of course, and was largely focused on Kennedy’s death. Columnists around the country criticized Rozelle the following weeks for letting the games play on.
While the league’s players were ordered to take the field as usual that Sunday, CBS canceled scheduled telecasts of the seven games in favor of news coverage on the assassination’s aftermath.
It was wrong to let football be played that Sunday 50 years ago. Bob Costas helped demonstrate that on Wednesday night with his NBC Sports Network special on the perspective of the 1963 Dallas Cowboys following Kennedy’s death.
In the first game played amid the hysteria surrounding the assassination, the Cowboys traveled to Cleveland to face the Browns, representing the city where the president had been killed two days prior.
The Cowboys players were met with a lot of anger directed toward them. Home fans booed and threw items at the Cowboys players on the field. Browns owner Art Modell reportedly barred the PA announcer from saying “Dallas” when referring to the Cowboys.
On Sunday morning before the games started, news broke that Jack Ruby had shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald, further taking more of the nation’s attention away from football.
Rozelle should have suspended Week 11 of the 1963 season, and various NFL players have since voiced that their heads and passions weren’t invested in it anyway.
Although Week 11 happened, it was a week with a loss of genuine competition on the field. The president had been shot and killed two days earlier, relegating a Sunday afternoon football game to a trivial affair.