Sharron Hunts Super Ball

[sheajets]

The one that inspired the games name...does anybody know if she still has it? I don't think I've ever seen a definitive answer to this

[Mark L. Ford]

I imagine that, like most toys, the historical significance of that Wham-O product wasn't realized at the time and that, like most bouncing spherical toys, it got lost. Chances are, it rolled into a storm drain on a Kansas City street in the spring of 1967, then floated out to sea on the Missouri River.

[lastcat3]

Yep like most of those types of toys prior to video games and the internet becoming a thing kids would take it outside and either lose it or just leave it out there after they were finished and the dog would run off with it somewhere. Or it just got dropped at the bottom of a box in the garage and sat there for years until it eventually just got thrown away.

It's probably in some midwestern landfill right now.

[JuggernautJ]

Ha.
My "Super Balls" usually got lost when trying the "you can bounce it over a house" trick.
It was true (you could bounce it over a house) but there was no telling where the damn thing would land...

[rhickok1109]

Is that even a true story? Newspapers were calling it the Super Bowl almost as soon as the first AFL-NFL World Championship Game was scheduled.

[JohnH19]

Is that even a true story? Newspapers were calling it the Super Bowl almost as soon as the first AFL-NFL World Championship Game was scheduled.

Yes, they were calling it the Super Bowl pretty much from the get go. I, too, have wondered if the Super Ball story has any basis in fact.

[lastcat3]

What you can do is try to see when the 'Super ball' story first appeared. If it didn't appear until later good chance that it was just something they decided to latch onto the origin of the championship game title. If it indeed has been around since the '60's then there is probably a far better chance that it is true.

[vikingsfan1963]

I just viewed a Jan. 14, 1967 Associated Press preview story about the game and the first sentence described the game as the much ballyhooed Super Bowl

[JohnR]

From wiki...

Lamar Hunt, founder of the American Football League and owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, watched his children playing with a Super Ball and then coined the term Super Bowl. He wrote a letter to NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle dated July 25, 1966: "I have kiddingly called it the 'Super Bowl,' which obviously can be improved upon." The league's franchise owners had decided on the name AFL-NFL World Championship Game, but the media immediately picked up on Hunt's Super Bowl name, which became official beginning with the third annual game in 1969.[8][17][18]

[Mark L. Ford]

The "super ball" story is half a century old, and even Hunt told a reporter, "I don't know how I came up with it" but added that "I think it must be related to a ball which was popular with the kids at the time. It was called a super ball." He added, "Kinda silly, isn't it? I'm not proud of it. But nobody's come up with anything better." https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=O ... %2C4718358