Norma Hunt, only woman to attend all 57 Super Bowls, dies at 85

Norma Hunt, matriarch of one of Dallas’ most famous sports families and the only woman to attend all 57 Super Bowls, died Saturday night in her Highland Park home.

The Hunt family announced her passing in a Sunday evening statement. Though her cause of death was not specified, a spokesperson for the Hunts said that she died peacefully, surrounded by family. She was 85.

Norma Hunt just four months ago was at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., to watch her beloved Kansas City Chiefs win Super Bowl LVII 38-35 over Philadelphia.

In hindsight, it was a fitting confluence, Hunt celebrating the third championship of the franchise that her late husband, Lamar, founded in 1960 as the Dallas Texans of the old American Football League.

“She was the only person we knew who rivaled his love of sports,” the Hunt family statement read in part. “The two of them found such joy together, whether at home, or in stadium stands around the world.”

Norma Lynn Knobel grew up in Richardson and was a history teacher at her alma mater, Richardson High, when she met Lamar. To supplement her teaching salary, she sold season tickets for the Texans until their 1963 relocation to Kansas City.

In the January 1964 Dallas Morning News story announcing their engagement, 25-year-old Norma said of her 31-year-old fiancé: “I love Lamar and football, too.”

Lamar Hunt — a former SMU reserve football player, the son of oil tycoon H.L. Hunt and younger brother of oil barons Nelson Bunker and William Herbert Hunt — became a titan in the sports world.

The marriage of Norma and Lamar, who died in 2006, produced sons Clark and Daniel and was a four-decade adventure of love and sports.

Lamar Hunt founded the AFL (which merged with the NFL in 1966); was an original Chicago Bulls investor in 1966; founded the Dallas Tornado soccer club in 1967; co-founded the World Championship Tennis circuit in 1968; and in 1996 was a founding investor of Major League Soccer.

In 2011, Norma Hunt recalled to The News that her first weekend of dating Lamar consisted of a Friday night high school football game, a Saturday football game at SMU, a college football game later that night in Waco, a Chiefs game on Sunday and another college game at the Cotton Bowl on Monday.

“A fiveple-header,” Lamar proudly dubbed it.

Said Norma with a laugh: “I guess I demonstrated that I loved football.”

On Sunday, NFL commissioner and longtime Hunt family friend Roger Goodell reacted to Norma Hunt’s passing.

“I was fortunate to know Norma for nearly 40 years and was always struck by her warmth and grace, her partnership with Lamar, and her pride in their family,” Goodell said in a statement.

“Norma’s sense of family extended to the Chiefs’ organization which she greatly adored. Norma was one of the most passionate fans of the Chiefs and the NFL, and understood and enjoyed every aspect of the game.”

Lamar famously, and accurately, is credited with coining the name “Super Bowl,” but Norma, too, unknowingly played a key role.

Hunt said that he first blurted the words “Super Bowl” during a late 1960s NFL owners meeting, amid discussion about whether to have one or two weeks between the conference title games and the championship game.

“What do you mean, ‘The championship game?’ ” Lamar recalled someone asking, to which he replied: “Well, you know, the final game, the last game, the Super Bowl.”

He later surmised that he must have subliminally thought about the Wham-O Superballs he had seen his children bounce around the house. It was Norma who purchased the balls at Toy World in Dallas, although he told The News in 2011 that she claimed “no importance” to history.

“I was buying some other toys and brought my purchases to the counter and saw this box of balls with a poster behind it, showing the balls being bounced over the house,” she recalls. “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh. My ball-loving children would just love to have these.’ “

Norma Hunt’s streak of attending every Super Bowl began because the Chiefs played in and lost to Green Bay in the inaugural championship game between the NFL and AFL.

Through the years the streak was more important to Lamar than to Norma. Norma learned just how important it was to Lamar, shortly after his Dec. 13, 2006 passing.

“He told Clark to be sure that I went to the Super Bowl, when he was so sick in the hospital that he could barely talk,” Norma told The News. “He was so sick that he was afraid that he wouldn’t make it and he couldn’t bear for me not to make it. And he thought that if I didn’t make it, I wouldn’t go again.

“When I heard that, I realized, ‘OK, I’m on board for the rest of this ride, for as long as I can do it, because he wants me to do it.’ “

Norma attended that Super Bowl and all others since, including the Chiefs’ second championship in 2020 and their third in February.

“It was a fitting conclusion to her streak as the only woman to attend every Super Bowl,” Sunday’s Hunt family statement said.

“Her quiet yet deep faith sustained her throughout her life, and we take great comfort knowing that she is home with the Lord. She will be greatly missed by our family, the extended Chiefs and FC Dallas families, and by everyone who knew her.”

Twitter: @Townbrad

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