MONROE, La. -- As part of this weekend's Super Bowl 50 celebration, CBS Sports is taking a trip back in time by airing a special feature called 'Before They Were Pros,' which features players from the previous 49 Super Bowls.
Former ULM fullback and linebacker Smokey Stover will be featured in the special that will air on CBS on Sunday morning at 10 a.m. central time.
Stover joined the football program at ULM after two seasons at Murray State College in Oklahoma. “My junior college coach was a friend of one of the coaches at what was formerly called Northeast Louisiana State College in Monroe,” said Stover. “He talked to me and recommended that I pursue my college football career there. I visited the school and fell in love with it and I am still in love with it to this day.”
Stover had a successful career that featured Second Team All-Gulf States Conference honors as well as team MVP honors following his senior campaign. Stover led the team in rushing in 1959 as he tallied 400 rushing yards on 117 attempts and three touchdowns.
Following his collegiate career, Stover played seven seasons in the American Football League (AFL). His pro career began in 1960 with the Dallas Texans, one of the charter members of the AFL.
“All of the coaches at ULM were really terrific,” stated Stover. “I remember them and respect them. They played an important part of my ability to play professional football. Devone Payne was the head coach, but the assistant coaches [George Luffey, Bob DeMoss and Jim Coats] had the most influence on me.”
After three seasons in Dallas (1960-62), the team relocated to Kansas City, Missouri and became known as the Kansas City Chiefs. Stover's final four seasons in the AFL were spent in Kansas City (1963-66).
In 1966, Kansas City posted an 11-2-1 record and defeated the Buffalo Bills, 31-7, in the AFL Championship. With the win, Kansas City battled the National Football League (NFL) Champion Green Bay Packers on January 15, 1967 in what was then called the First World Championship Game AFL vs. NFL. The following year, the game earned a much shorter name, one which we know well: the Super Bowl.
“At the time of the first Super Bowl, it was hard to visualize how special it was to play in that game,” said Stover. “There was a big rivalry between the AFL and NFL and that was a big deal for us. Years later it became evident how big the Super Bowl really was.
"When we went out to midfield for the coin flip, there were two captains for Kansas City, two captains for Green Bay and one official. Nowadays, they have ten billion people standing around you. We played against Green Bay in the Los Angeles Coliseum which had a capacity of 100,000, but I think we had about 30,000. It has grown in attendance since then as has the ticket price. I still have my wife's ticket; it was $12.50 for a ticket to the first Super Bowl.”
Not only has the attendance number or ticket price changed over the years, so has the game itself.
“Athletes nowadays are bigger, stronger and faster,” added Stover. “The athleticism of today's athlete is really something else. We didn't train year-round like they do now. Athletes stay in shape year-round as they are always working out or practicing, whereas when we were through with the season most all of us went back to school or had a job we had to go to. Training is also a key for athletes as we are much more knowledgeable about our health and getting stronger with various weight exercises as well as drills.”
In addition to research about building strong muscles and staying in shape, athletes are more conscious of what they put in their bodies.
“I have a picture of Len Dawson with a coke sitting between his legs while he was smoking a cigarette during halftime of a Super Bowl,” Stover mentioned. “The first thing most players did when they came off of the field was drink a coke and smoke a cigarette. We didn't know about training and food or what we needed and what we didn't. We simply did the best we could and that was the way it was back then.
"When I played college as well as professional football, there was no such thing as giving water to the players during two-a-day practices or at any time, really. Then, of course, during my last couple of years playing with Kansas City, they finally started bringing us water during practices. It made a huge impact as we no longer had guys getting dehydrated and passing out.”
After Super Bowl I, Stover was released by Kansas City and he played one season in the Canadian Football League with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. The Tiger-Cats won the 1967 Grey Cup and following that championship, Stover stepped away from the game of football.
Leaving the game he loved was difficult, Stover mentioned. “I hated to, but I had completed my master's degree at ULM and with a wife and two little boys, I knew I wanted to settle down before they got into school. I told myself, 'this is enough, it's time to get into some type of career.' So that's what I did as I moved to Lafayette, La., and I have been here ever since."
ULM was a special place to Stover. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in Geology from ULM in 1961. He is also the first in a lineage of three Stover's to graduate from ULM. His son, Stewart, Jr., followed in his father's footsteps as he earned a bachelor's degree in Geology in 1984. Stover's granddaughter, Brittany, earned a bachelor's degree in Mass Communication in 2012.
“I tell you what, football was good to me,” Stover closed with. “The people that I met, the association I had with my teammates—it was really great. Being able to say I participated in the first Super Bowl is something else too. But the only thing about that is, when you get old, that is when you make history.”
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