Hometown Patriot Played For Original Pats

Swampscott's Tom Stephens would have fit nicely into a Bill Belichick system that values versatile players.

In Stephens' five seasons as a member of the original Boston Patriots football team, from 1960-64, he played tight end, safety, corner back and practiced at flanker.

Sunday he will huddle with fellow Patriots fans in the living room of he and his wife Lonnie’s winter home, a condo in Naples, Fla.

They have two couches and will haul out chairs to set up the cheering section around the 20-inch television.

The Pats fans will snack on cashews and peanuts and order pizza at halftime. The mood will be buoyant.

The room will grow loud at 6:30 p.m. as Stephens' favorite player, Tom Brady, and the gang clash against Eli and his crew in Super Bowl XLV1.

The scene will be a familiar one, played out in countless living rooms around Swampscott, and New England, the country and beyond. An estimated 110 million viewers will watch the game on television.  

That’s a world removed from the early days of the AFL and the Boston Patriots, the team that in 1960 played in the league's first ever exhibition game,  a win against Buffalo, and first ever regular-season game, a loss against the Denver Broncos.

Stories about the Boston Patriots' early years are surprising, funny and legendary.

They played their first two years at Nickerson Field at BU, drawing 8,000 to 10,000 fans per game, and, in their third year, moved to Fenway Park, Stephens said.

Long before Mark Henderson, on a prison work-release program, entered New England lore in 1982 by clearing a spot with a snowplow for the Patriots’ kicker to win the game on a field goal, there was the phantom play.

At a Patriots game in 1961 at Nickerson Field, a fan slipped on to the field and joined the Patriots defense as the 12th player in a game-ending, goal-line stance.

He knocked down the Dallas Texan quarterback’s pass and secured victory for the Patriots before melting back into the crowd.

See it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g2UdXWyla0

The 12th player probably earned as much as a Patriots' player earned.

Stephens earned $8,000 and a $500 advance in his first year on the Patriots, and $10,000 in his final year.

The team had a president, Billy Sullivan, and 10 owners, the former player said. Ownership sold stock in the team for an initial offering price of $4.75, according to http://www.remembertheafl.com/Patriots.htm

Money did not flow freely in the old AFL.

Stephens remembers the team flew a charter to Buffalo that got them in at 10 am for a game against the Bills that Sunday night.  The owners put the Patriots up in hotel rooms until game time.

The players were told to just rest on top of the covers, he said.

It would have cost the team an extra $5 per room if a player mussed the bed and it had to be remade.

Stephens stayed atop the covers but a few players later told him they had slid under the sheets and made the beds so well that nobody noticed their transgressions.

Stephens said some of the best players on the early Patriots were Gino Cappelletti — a longtime radio voice of the Patriots — Nick Buoniconti, Ron Hall and Babe Parilli. 

Stephens went into coaching after his career ended with the professional football team. He coached at Harvard University and, later, for many years, at Curry College, where he was also athletic director.

He was on the coaching staff at Harvard in 1968 when the Crimson scored 16 points in the last 42 seconds of the game against Yale to earn a tie.

A post-game headline read: Harvard Beats Yale 29-29, Stephens said.

He and Lonnie moved to Swampscott in 1974 so their kids, Tom and Lynda, could attend the local schools, known as the best in the state.

Both kids, like their mother and father, went on to graduate from Syracuse University.

Both father and son played football at Syracuse.

The father played running back in the late 1950s taking the place of multi-sport star Jim Brown — recognized by many as one of the greatest athletes in American history — after he graduated.

All the Stephens still live in Swampscott.

On Sunday Lonnie and Tom will be rooting for the team that started out as the Boston Patriots.

Lonnie is especially excited for the game, and will be vocal, he said.

“Oh yeah, my wife yells a lot," he said. "She was a cheerleader."

Stephens predicts a Patriots win. It will be sweet, considering the last time the two teams clashed, but he expects a close game.

“I don't think they will win by much," he said.