By Anthony Holden
CBS SportsLine Historian
As Jerome Bettis of the Pittsburgh Steelers found out on Thanksgiving Day 1998, the coin toss can be a tricky maneuver.

Of course, Abner Haynes of the Dallas Texans had learned the same lesson back in 1962 prior to the start of overtime in the AFL Championship Game against Houston at Jeppesen Stadium.

Although Haynes (No. 28) flubbed the coin toss, the Texans still won the game. (AP)

The Texans and Oilers had battled to a 17-17 standoff through regulation, so the captains of both teams met at midfield for the coin toss to determine which side would get the ball first in the extra period.

Winning this toss was paramount because of the sudden death nature of overtime. First team to score wins, so it stood to reason that the team with the ball first had a distinct advantage.

Referee Harold Bourne flipped the coin into the air, and as it was descending, Haynes called "heads" and it came up heads. Bourne then turned to Haynes to see what the Texans wanted to do, and Haynes, fouling up the instructions given to him by coach Hank Stram said, "We'll kick to the clock."

Stram had wanted Haynes to choose a side of the field to defend because there was a fierce wind blowing that had wreaked havoc throughout the game. Stram was willing to give up the initial possession because he wanted the Oilers traveling into the wind against his strong defense, figuring the Texans would wind up in excellent field position with the wind at their backs.

By saying, "We'll kick to the clock" Haynes gave the Oilers the ball, and the wind, and it nearly cost his team the championship.

"When we went into overtime, coach Stram called me to the sideline and told me that we did not want to receive," said Haynes. "Our plan was to kick the ball to them, hold them, try to get a good runback on the punt return, and get on the board with the field goal."

"Abner just said it wrong," Stram said. "As soon as he said the word kick, the Oilers automatically had their choice of which side of the field they wanted. It was a mistake you don't like to make, but what can you do after it's made."

What the Texans did was stuff Houston's first possession after the kickoff, negating Haynes' blunder, and then Johnny Robinson and Bill Hull came up with interceptions of George Blanda passes later in the fifth period to kill Houston scoring threats.

"When we got the ball that last time, I thought we were going all the way," said Houston coach, Pop Ivy. "Blanda looked like he had a hot streak going."

After Hull's interception late in the first overtime -- the fifth of the game thrown by Blanda -- the Texans took possession at midfield and proceeded to drive to the winning score.

After two Curtis McClinton's runs gained just two yards and brought an end to the first overtime period, Texans quarterback Len Dawson opened the sixth quarter with a critical 10-yard pass to Jack Spikes that converted the third down at the Oilers 38. Prior to that play, the Texans had run just one play in Houston territory during the third and fourth quarters.

Spikes followed with a 19-yard run, and from there, the Texans -- now with the wind at their backs -- just positioned the ball in the middle of the field for a winning field goal attempt.

Rookie Tommy Brooker trotted onto the field, and after a Houston timeout, he told his teammates, "Boys, it's over. We've got it." He then calmly backed up his prediction by nailing the 25-yard field goal, ending the longest game in pro football to that point after 77 minutes, 24 seconds.

"Our kicker, Tommy Brooker, didn't have great range or much consistency," said Stram. "We always held our breath on field goals that year, especially that one."

Dallas had opened a 17-0 halftime lead as Brooker made a 16-yard field goal in the first quarter, then Haynes had scored on a 28-yard pass from Dawson and a two-yard run. But Houston had pulled even as Blanda threw a 15-yard TD pass to Willard Dewveall, kicked a 31-yard field goal, then the tying extra point after Charley Tolar's one-yard run with 5:38 remaining in regulation.

The Dallas victory, achieved in front of an AFL record crowd of 37,891 and a national television audience, ended Houston's two-year reign as league champions. It also let the country know that the AFL was here to stay as TV ratings for the game for above the league's normal average.

League commissioner Joe Foss said, "We couldn't have written a script like that."

GAME PLAYER PROFILES

Johnny Robinson, Texans
Like his more heralded college teammate, 1959 Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon, Johnny Robinson was an outstanding running back at LSU.

Delhi, La.-native could run the ball with speed and power and was an excellent pass receiver out of the backfield, but he always played a secondary role to his more star-studded teammate.

It was much of the same when the two players joined the AFL in its inaugural 1960 season. Both had signed contracts to play in the NFL but spurned the older league in favor of the AFL. Both had signed their new AFL contracts at the same time, under the goalposts at the Sugar Bowl following their final collegiate game. Both had been taken to court for that action, but were exonerated and allowed to stay with their AFL teams, Cannon in Houston and Robinson in Dallas. But references to that turbulent time always seem to include Cannon, not Robinson.

During their first two years in the AFL, Cannon became the star running back everyone expected him to become, but playing behind Abner Haynes in Dallas, Robinson wasn't given the same opportunity.

Robinson rushed for 658 yards and caught 77 passes for 1,228 yards in 1960 and '61 combined -- solid numbers for sure -- but Texans coach Hank Stram realized he didn't need help on offense. Stram's defense needed bolstering, so he switched Robinson to safety, and it was at that position that Robinson became one of the finest players in the history of the game.

Over the next 10 years, he intercepted 57 passes, ranking him fifth all-time in pro football history at the time of his retirement following the 1971 season, and he was voted to the all-time AFL team.

"He was a chess master, and it's a chess match out there," said Hall of Fame linebacker Willie Lanier, who became Robinson's teammate in 1967 after the Texans had moved to Kansas City and become the Chiefs. "You have to have the mindset of the quarterback and Johnny had that. He was intuitive. He just had a knack for the game."

Robinson had played safety in college as a two-way performer, and he was a natural at the position when he made the move in 1962. He was pleased with the move because it gave him a chance to make a difference.

"I got tired of the jokes about our league," Robinson said, referring to the perception that no AFL teams actually played defense. "When I was switched to defense. I was determined I would make the people who didn't believe eat their words."

Robinson intercepted 10 passes in two different seasons, the last in 1970, to lead the NFL in the first year of the merger.

"Johnny Robinson's the player I've had the most trouble with as a passer," said Oakland quarterback Daryle Lamonica. "He's broken up more plays against us than any other."

Robinson played in two Super Bowls with the Chiefs, a loss to the Packers in the first meeting between the AFL and the NFL. He was also a member of the Chiefs winning Super Bowl IV team over the Vikings, which was the last time teams from the AFL and NFL played against each other.

Jerry Mays, Texans
Upon graduation from Southern Methodist University in 1961, Jerry Mays' father just assumed his son would join him in the family engineering business.

"My father thought it was time I quit playing games," Mays said, even though it was apparent the All-Southwest Conference defensive tackle had a career waiting for him in pro football.

Mays convinced his father to let him give football a try and see where it might take him, and 10 years later, it landed him a spot on the all-time AFL team, and garnished him with a Super Bowl ring.

He was drafted by the Texans in the fifth round and by the Minnesota Vikings in the NFL draft a few months later. Knowing Mays was a Dallas native the Vikings told him they would trade his rights to the Dallas Cowboys, but Mays decided to go with the AFL because it seemed to have a healthy dose of camaraderie between the teams.

"That's what made the AFL so enjoyable," he said. "We not only wanted to beat the other clubs, we worried about them. When the New York Titans' paychecks started bouncing, our players were asking 'What can we do?'"

Mays became a starter at right defensive tackle in 1962 and that year he earned the first of his six All all-star selections. He anchored the middle of the Dallas defense along with linebackers E.J. Holub and Sherrill Headrick and the Texans led the league in fewest points allowed, and fewest rushing yards allowed.

Later in his career Mays was switched to defensive end and he played that position with equal skill. He never missed a game during his career, which ended following the 1971 season.

"I wasn't proud of the image I had as a pro football player," Mays said in recalling his start with the Texans. "A lot of people I associated with looked down their noses at pro sports. Then, all of a sudden, after I played a full game, I was proud to be a football player."

Sadly, cancer took Mays in 1994, at the age of 53.