Mack Lee Hill
Running Back
Career: 1964-1965
Induction: 1970
Ask Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt about the best $300 he ever spent and he assuredly would reply: Mack Lee Hill.
He was perhaps the best $300 in investment in the history of the Kansas City Chiefs. That was all it took to sign the shy young man from Southern Louisiana University who had a smile for everyone and the uncanny ability to run over anyone who stood between him and the goal line.
Hill was the first star to grace the Kansas City Chiefs roster after the team moved from Dallas to Kansas City in 1963. He was a powerful 225-pounds who never took himself seriously.
Hill played with a brute combination of strength and speed. He was a combination "Mack" truck and speeding bullet as he would bowl over one defender, then make another look as though he was running in quicksand.
Hill had problems remembering plays, but knew what to do once he wrapped his meaty hands around a football.
His seemingly unlimited potential on the football field was never fully realized as he suffered a knee injury in the next-to-last game of the 1965 regular season, a 35-24 loss to Buffalo.
He died on the operating table the following Tuesday, the result of acute heat stroke.
The man may be gone, but Hill's legacy will live forever. Each year the Chiefs present their outstanding rookie with the Mack Lee Hill Award, given in memory of the big man with the big smile, who made such an impact in a very short time, on the football fans of Kansas City.
