’69 Chiefs

A Team, a Season, and the Birth of Modern Kansas City

’69 Chiefs is a vibrantly written and vividly photographed narrative of the legendary season of the 1969 Kansas City Chiefs’ journey to a world championship in Super Bowl IV. Along with an intimate view of the team and their historic season, readers are given a clear perspective of a crucial point in Kansas City’s history, when the Heart of America stood on the verge of becoming a thoroughly modern American city.

The year 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of this legendary season in Kansas City sports history—when the Kansas City Chiefs reached the pinnacle of pro football, defeating the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV to become world champions. Experience the magic of this epic journey through the words of award-winning writer, Michael MacCambridge, and pictures, including a treasure trove of photographs from Rod Hanna, the Chiefs’ team photographer during that historic season (many never-before-seen). You’ll join the Chiefs on their extraordinary journey, from the heat of training camp at William Jewell College in Liberty, to the adversity of losing quarterback Len Dawson to an early-season injury, to the triumph of upset playoff wins over the defending world champion New York Jets and the arch-rival Oakland Raiders, to the final triumph in Super Bowl IV, after one of the most chaotic Super Bowl weeks ever.
This lavish book documents how the Chiefs revolutionized pro football, transformed the way the rest of the nation saw Kansas City, and helped Kansas Citians see themselves more clearly. Whether you’re a longtime Chiefs fan who wants to relive that thrilling season, or a younger Chiefs diehard seeking to better understand why the Chiefs of that era were so beloved, this is the book for you.
 

About the Author

Michael MacCambridge has written about movies, music and popular culture, but he is best known as one of the nation's foremost authorities on pro and college football. His 2004 book America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured A Nation was named by the Washington Post as one of the most distinguished works of non-fiction that year; in 2016, the book was ranked No. 1 on NFL historian Chris Willis’s list of "The Top 100 Pro Football Books of All Time." In 1999, MacCambridge was the editor and a contributing writer for the New York Times bestseller ESPN SportsCentury, a retrospective of sports in the 20th Century, and in 2005 he edited the critically-acclaimed ESPN College Football Encyclopedia, hailed by Sports Illustrated as "the Bible" of the sport. His most recent book, the biography Chuck Noll: His Life's Work, was published in October 2016. MacCambridge's freelance work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, GQ, and many other publications. He lives in Austin, with his children, Miles and Ella.

Rod Hanna has been a professional photographer for more than 56 years. He began his career as Staff Photographer at the Davenport (IA) Times Democrat in 1962 and moved on to the Topeka (KS) Capital-Journal in 1965 where he soon became Chief Photographer. In 1969 he moved to Kansas City to freelance and among his clients were the Kansas City Chiefs where he was their official photographer. Over the years, Rod's photographs have appeared in virtually every major magazine in the United States—including Sports Illustrated, People, National Geographic, Time, Newsweek, and Travel & Leisure. His photographs of games in the National Football League over 25 years have appeared in numerous books published by the NFL. His nature landscape work has appeared in numerous art shows and exhibitions, including an individual 50-year Retrospective at the Steamboat Art Museum in 2012. He is currently represented by Wild Horse Gallery in Steamboat Springs.  
 

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