Jack Teele, 1930-2017: NFL, Rams executive from Long Beach helped organize first Super Bowl

Long Beach native and longtime sports executive Jack Teele passed away Wednesday night at the age of 87.

Teele was a sportswriter at the Independent Press-Telegram for 10 years and then spent 33 years in the front offices around the National Football League, including 21 years with the Los Angeles Rams, where he rose to the rank of vice president of administration.

Teele was a long-familiar face in Long Beach sports, an influential pro-sports decision-maker and one of a handful of NFL employees who coordinated the first Super Bowl — at the time called simply the NFL-AFL World Championship Game, long before it became the nation’s most important sporting event.

“He was one of the truly good guys,” said longtime Press-Telegram sports editor Jim McCormack. “Jack was a special part of the Independent Press-Telegram before I got there and he was exceptional in his duties in the NFL.”

“My dad was a Long Beach legend,” said Lisa Owen, one of Teele’s two daughters. “He loved everything about Long Beach and had a passion for sports of all kinds, especially football.”

“He always had time for me and my sister, Dana,” she added. “He was the best dad of all time — a genuine, loving person.”

In addition to his duties with the Rams, Teele became a senior front-office member of the Chargers and was CEO of the Barcelona Dragons during the NFL’s European expansion.

Teele was written up in the Press-Telegram for being one of the first students to attend all levels of education in the city, having graduated from Garfield Elementary, Washington Junior High, Long Beach Poly, Long Beach City College, and Long Beach State. He was one of the first graduates of the university, which was then called Long Beach State College.

Teele was also a member of the first-ever 49ers men’s basketball team under head coach Herman Schwarzkopf.

Teele enjoyed a number of remarkable intersections with Long Beach sports history, and personally negotiated much of the city’s history with the NFL.

It was Teele who signed a deal with city manager John Mansell that brought the Rams’ summer camps to Blair Field from 1967 to 1980. Teele also negotiated the agreement to move the Rams from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to then-Anaheim Stadium in 1980.

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Teele, in his role helping to organize the 1967 game that would later be known as Super Bowl I, used his intimate knowledge of Long Beach to book the American Football League champion Kansas City Chiefs into the Edgewater Hotel in town — later called the SeaPort Marina Hotel.

Teele also secured the Hank Stram-coached team its practice-field space at Veterans Memorial Stadium at Long Beach City College. The Chiefs went on to lose to the Green Bay Packers in the historic title game, 35-10.

Teele was thrilled at the number of Poly players who ended up in the NFL, including six different alums making appearances in 10 Super Bowls.

Teele also coined a name for a piece of L.A. Rams history. During the 1960s, the Rams suited up a particularly awesome defensive line — including future Hall of Famers David “Deacon” Jones and Merlin Olsen, as well as Roosevelt Grier and Lamar Lundy.

“Everywhere we went, people asked me about our defensive line,” Teele told columnist Vincent Bonsignore in 2013. “So I decided we had to have a name.”

Teele nicknamed them the Fearsome Foursome. “It immediately stuck,” Teele said proudly. And that name still resonates today.

Teele also said he was pleased to see the Rams return to Los Angeles last year.

“I’m delighted,” said Teele during a 2016 interview in his home in Leisure World. “I’ve been rooting for them all along. I was sad when they moved to St. Louis. The Rams belong in L.A.”

Teele and Long Beach baseball coaching legend John Herbold were also instrumental in bringing a famous coach to the city. Teele and Herbold served with Bill Mulligan as part of the Army’s counter-intelligence unit in Tokyo during the Korean War. The three became close friends — and when a coaching and teaching job opened up at Poly, Teele and Herbold called Mulligan to come out to Long Beach.

Mulligan did. And he ended up coaching Poly’s 1960 and 1964 CIF championship basketball teams, as well as assisting head coach Dave Levy during the Poly football team’s 1958 and 1959 CIF title seasons.

Teele is survived by his wife, Marilyn, and their daughters, Dana and Lisa.

Teele’s family said services will likely be at Grace First Presbyterian Church but a date and time haven’t yet been selected.

Southern California News Group staffers Rich Archbold and Vinnie Bonsignore contributed to this report.