January 2011, the Tri-Star Collector Show rolls into H-Town bringing with it the Houston Oilers and the Luv Ya Blue phenom starts all over again. I was able to meet and chat with 18 of the old Luv Ya Blue team.
“Luv Ya Blue” was a movement by fans of the Houston Oilers of the National Football League in the late 1970s that featured fight songs, pom-poms and other features more reminiscent of the college game than the NFL.
I remember that AFC Championship game in 1980 between the Houston Oilers and Pittsburgh Steelers. Yes, I hated the Pittsburgh Steelers. They were our nemesis and I disliked everything about them. That year, my dad had season tickets and watching the Oilers in the 8th Wonder of the World was something a kid would never forget. The Astrodome’s exploding scoreboard brought the games to life. The Dome was the past’s vision of the future. The greatest dome ever conceived at the time and with it came the invention of AstroTurf. As the old Houston Chronicle stated, “It is a climate-controlled wonderland of science and cutting-edge engineering, the biggest indoor space ever made by man, an immense decorated cylinder with a flying-saucer roof-line. Half-a-mile around, it was as big as Houston’s dream for itself, as big as the idea of Texas.”
Watching the Oilers miss the Super Bowl by one game was amazing. Sad, but amazing. Our Houston Oilers had their Super Bowl dreams slip through their fingers when Mike Renfro’s TD in the 3rd quarter was denied. No instant reply plus no referees paying attention equals no touchdown. The score would stay 10-17 and the Pittsburgh Steelers would go onto win 13-27. The previous season’s AFC Championship game saw the same Steelers rough up our hometown Oilers 5-34.
Head Coach Bum Phillips
Following the game, my dad and I went to the Astrodome to welcome back our team. A Luv Ya Blue pep rally was forming and inside the 8th Wonder of the World we cheered on our team even as failed to make the Super Bowl. We waited inside for over three hours for the Oilers to arrive, but when they did, oh man, was it worth the wait. Inside the dome there were well over 70,000 screaming fans, not to mention the ten’s of thousands waiting outside and long the freeway. To us and everyone else, the outcome of the game didn’t matter. Houston was loyal and passionate and all we wanted was to welcome home our team. Our LUV YA BLUE team! The rallies of ’79 and ’80 will never be forgotten. I am so thankful my dad let me be part of it.
Oilers Quarterback Dan Pastorini
The late-1970s “Luv ya Blue” Houston Oilers provide context, the relationship with their fans serving as professional football’s definitive example of a torrid love affair between a city and a team. After years of humiliation and embarrassment, in which the Oilers were cast as the NFL’s laughingstock franchise of the early 1970s, the Bum Phillips-Earl Campbell era ignited a frenzy unparalleled in NFL history.
