NEW ORLEANS — In a quiet corner across from the Tulane University Reily Student Recreation Center, near a campus soccer field, sits a stone marking the location of Super Bowl IV.
It’s a reminder of a game that set the stage for both the Kansas City Chiefs and the city of New Orleans.
It was Kansas City's first Super Bowl title and the city's first time hosting the event, a game you could attend for just $15.
It was a price hike from Super Bowl I in Los Angeles. Hall of Famer Bobby Bell chuckled at the $12.50 ticket price for Super Bowl I.
“We were like, who in the world is going to pay $12.50 for a ticket?” Bell recalled with a smile.
Back then, being an NFL star was a far cry from the mega-celebrity status athletes enjoy today.
In fact, Bell had previously visited New Orleans a few years prior, hoping to land an NFL team; the city was set to host the 1965 AFL All-Star Game.
But during their stay, the players encountered racial discrimination at hotels, in cabs and at restaurants.
Bell recounts an incident when a woman working at a hotel restaurant told the players they could order food but had to take it up to their rooms.
"That's when I said, 'This is not right,'" Bell remembered.
The experience sparked anger among the players, who threatened to boycott the game if conditions didn’t improve.
"We all got together and said, 'Hey, if that's the way they’re going to treat us, we're not going to play,'" Bell said.
The AFL ultimately moved the game to Houston, a move that’s detailed in the book "Moving the Chains."
Historians credit that protest with setting the stage for New Orleans to eventually land the Saints as its own NFL franchise just two years later.
"It was to stand for what was right," Bell said. "And from that point on, they decided that if they wanted an NFL team, things had to change."
Bell, who says he has attended every Super Bowl since, is proud of how far the game and the league have come.
"Nobody knew the game would become something like this," he said, looking around the glitzy Super Bowl experience of today. "Look at it now."
He says that, despite all the changes over the years, the essence of what they stood for has not been lost.
"I've been around all the Super Bowls, and it's nice to be back," Bell said. "But it's changed a lot."
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