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During the entire 1969 professional football season, all NFL players wore a shoulder patch on their uniforms, reading "50 NFL". American Football League fans petitioned the AFL owners to have their players wear a patch commemorating the league's ten years, especially since it was the AFL's final year. The AFL owners declined, in Lamar Hunt's words, because they felt that a patch would make the uniforms "too busy".
Fans enlisted the support of AFL players. By the end of the season, after a request to Hunt by the Buffalo Bills' Jack Kemp (a request no doubt reinforced by the fact that Hunt's Chiefs would be in the final inter-league Super Bowl) Hunt agreed to have the Chiefs wear a ten-year AFL patch in Super Bowl IV.
AFL Hall of Fame coach Hank Stram supported the idea and used the patch as a motivating factor for his team. Stram was later quoted (http://www.superbowl.com/features/insider/chiefs) as saying "You could not believe it when you saw the faces of the players. These were great men, and great pros, but they were like kids in a candy shop when they saw that patch."
Years later, Chiefs linebacker Willie Lanier remarked (http://www.superbowl.com/features/insider/chiefs) "It lit us up. We knew what it meant." Wearing the AFL patch, the Chiefs went out and defeated the Vikings 23-7.
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