This KC man made history as one of 1st male cheerleaders at Chiefs’ 1st Super Bowl
For years, Larry Euston of Leawood kept his white Kansas City Chiefs cheerleading sweater with the big red “C” on the chest. He kept the seat cushion from Super Bowl I in Los Angeles.
As he turns 77 on Feb. 22, his ability to do backflips, as he could in 1967 as a 19-year-old Rockhurst College student, has long passed.
This week, as the Chiefs gear up for Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas — their fourth Super Bowl outing in five years — Euston’s memories can’t help but float back to when the game’s Roman numeral was a single digit: I.
“I mean, can you imagine at that age, just the situation — going to the Super Bowl,” Euston said this week.
OK, probably best to forget that the Chiefs on Jan. 15, 1967, lost Super Bowl I to the Green Bay Packers, 35-10. Fans prefer to remember the Chiefs’ victory three years later in Super Bowl IV.
But Euston made history of his own as one among six young Kansas City men who were truly the first male cheerleaders to root at a Super Bowl. Much was made in 2019 at Super Bowl LIII when it was reported that two men cheering on the Los Angeles Rams would be the first men to cheer at a Super Bowl.
That was wrong by 52 years.
Even now, Euston said, he remembers the beautiful Los Angles weather. He remembers the Chiefs running onto the field at the Los Angeles Coliseum, and how the cheer squad would hold up a simple white placard, “Go,” to rouse the fans.
And he remembers the steak. Yes, the steak — served on the chartered Boeing 707 that they flew together with the Chiefs’ superfan Red Coaters.
“It was almost like a first-class flight,” Euston said. “They had filet mignons for each person, branded with the Chiefs’ Arrowhead logo on it.”
Oh, he also has photos, including outside the Los Angeles Coliseum.
In 2020, Euston’s daughter, Diane — who is an English, broadcasting and KC history teacher at Grandview High School — wrote a piece about her father as a reporter for The Telegraph serving Martin City and south Kansas City. Part of her intention was to correct the record on who the first real male cheerleaders were at a Super Bowl.
“They made a huge deal all over the news,” Diane Euston said of the 2019 story. “They were on like ‘Good Morning America.’ ‘You’re the first two male cheerleaders ever in the Super Bowl.’ I’m like, ‘That’s not true.’ That’s what causes misinformation.”
She said she knew her dad had been a Chiefs cheerleader before she was in kindergarten. At age 3, she dressed up as a cheerleader with a sweater with her first initial, “D,” on the front.
“I can remember my dad saying, ‘Look, just like me.’ Because he had the white sweater with the red ‘C’ in the middle.”
The Rams at the Super Bowl ended up losing to the New England Patriots, 13-3, in Atlanta.
At Super Bowl I, Euston was on the squad with five other men, including his friend Mike Nauman, who had recommended him after another cheerleader was injured and had to drop out.
Not only were men on the Chiefs’ cheerleading squad for Super Bowl I, they were on it with young women from the earliest days, soon after owner Lamar Hunt in 1963 moved the team from Dallas, where they were then called the Dallas Texans. The cheerleading squad was started by Randy Neil, a then 21-year-old junior at the University of Kansas after he transferred from the University of Kansas City, now UMKC.
Last year, the Chiefs released a video celebrating 60 years of Chiefs cheerleading that started and ended with Neil, who said he had always wanted to be a cheerleader.
Euston cheered for the Chiefs for another year until 1968 when the squad became all female. Euston keeps a black and white photograph of him hoisting a young woman during a tryout, then held at Ward Parkway shopping center.
If further proof is needed, Euston also possesses a letter, sent to him from Lamar Hunt. Date: June 5, 1968:
“Dear Larry,
A very belated but most appreciative ‘thank you’ for the outstanding job you have done for the Kansas City Chiefs — not only your participation as a cheerleader, but the many extra hours so willingly given to promotional work.
Again, thanks for being on our team.”
After college, Euston would go on to work as a commercial pilot and retire after nearly 40 years. He has three children and some grandchildren, and splits his time between Leawood and a home in Florida. He remains an avid Kansas City Chiefs fan, and will be watching them on TV Sunday.
Although neither of his two sons or daughter became a cheerleader, Euston said, the granddaughter of a cousin did. Her name is Josie Euston.
She cheers for the Chiefs.
