Hall of Fame Professional Football Player. Born Leonard Ray Dawson, he
played the quarterback position for both the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns of the National Football League and the Dallas Texans/Kansas City Chiefs of both the American and National Football Leagues from 1957 to 1975. He played football collegiately at Purdue University before being drafted with the fifth pick of the first round by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1957 NFL Draft. His tenure with the Steelers was uneventful in his only three years with the team and he was traded to the Cleveland Browns in late 1959. His stint with the Browns was similar and he ended up leaving the team in 1962 for the Dallas Texans of the upstart American Football League. He was reunited with his old college coach Hank Stram, who was the head coach of the Texans, and he would go to start for the Texans (later Kansas City Chiefs) for the rest of his career. While with the Chiefs, he won four AFL passing titles and was selected an AFL All-Star six times. He also led the team to three AFL championship titles (1962, 1966, and 1969) and 1 Super Bowl win (IV), of which he was the Most Valuable Player of the game. He would go to garner many other honors and awards during his career. He retired after the 1975 season. His playing statistics included 28,711 passing yards with a passer rating of 82.6. His playing career was later honored by him being inducted into both the Kansas City Chiefs Hall of Fame in 1979 and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1987. He started in the broadcasting industry, while still as a player and after he retired, stayed in the business in various aspects such as co-hosting the popular HBO program "Inside the NFL" and being a color analyst for both NBC's NFL coverage (1977 to 1982) and the Chiefs' radio broadcast team (1985 to 2017). The broadcast booth at Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium was named for him in 2017.