How is it that Ken Norton Jr. has pores and skin in Tremendous Bowl LIX? The previous UCLA and NFL Corridor of Fame linebacker and longtime NFL and school assistant coach has zero ties to the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs or Philadelphia Eagles.
However Norton holds the excellence of being the solely NFL participant to win three consecutive Tremendous Bowls, starring for the Dallas Cowboys in 1993 and 1994 thumpings of the Buffalo Payments and for the San Francisco 49ers of their one-sided win over the San Diego Chargers in 1995.
The Chiefs are trying to change into the first staff to win three Tremendous Bowls in a row after defeating the Eagles in 2023 and the 49ers final 12 months. So any Chiefs participant on the roster for a 3rd consecutive season would tie Norton’s file with a victory Sunday in New Orleans.
That would come with the megastars in quarterback Patrick Mahomes, tight finish Travis Kelce and defensive finish Chris Jones, amongst others.
Profitable three in a row didn’t appear so distinctive to Norton when he completed it. He was jubilant after his third Tremendous Bowl title, feeling like he would possibly proceed successful without end.
“I can’t inform you how fantastic I really feel,” he instructed The Occasions after Tremendous Bowl XXIX. “I’ve bought 5 fingers, so why cease at three?”
He did win one other Tremendous Bowl ring in 2014 as a member of the Seattle Seahawks teaching workers in a dominant 43-8 win over the Denver Broncos. He additionally gained a school nationwide championship as an assistant coach at USC in 2009 and almost superior to this 12 months’s Tremendous Bowl as an assistant with the Washington Commanders.
Norton grew to become attuned to wins and losses at an early age because the son of heavyweight champion boxer Ken Norton Sr.
“All by means of the varsity life, if he gained a battle, I used to be everyone’s pal and everyone needed to know who I used to be,” Norton Jr. instructed ESPN in 2021. “But when he bought knocked out or misplaced a battle, it was, ‘I hate that man. Your dad sucks.’ Early on, going by means of grade faculty, your identification is form of caught up within the wins and losses and your mates and issues like that, so it turns into fairly robust.
“And it’s everyone. It’s the principal, it’s the academics, it’s the youngsters that flip their again on you when it’s a loss they usually’re hugging you when it’s a win. It’s a fairly unusual approach to undergo it.”
Norton Sr. is remembered largely for breaking the jaw of Muhammad Ali in a surprising upset in 1973 when his son was 7 years outdated. His profession was bittersweet after two shut losses to Ali — together with a controversial choice within the rubber match — and a WBC title match loss to Larry Holmes in 1977 at Caesars Palace that Norton Jr. watched on tv.
The fifteenth and remaining spherical was epic, with Norton Sr. and Holmes repeatedly pounding one another. Holmes gained in a break up choice to take Norton Sr.’s title. Norton Sr. had by no means allowed his son to observe him field, however witnessing his father’s braveness on TV “was a turning level for me as a younger man,” Norton Jr. instructed ESPN.
“I used to be looking for an identification and I discovered who I used to be by watching him battle that fifteenth spherical. It was a warfare. It’s top-of-the-line rounds of all time. That spherical actually confirmed me who he was and … it actually made me perceive the kind of particular person I’m and I’ve to be as I am going into making an attempt to make my method in life so far as my angle, how I’m going to strategy it, who I’m going to be and what my values are going to be.”
Norton Jr. grew up in Southern California, starred at Westchester Excessive as a working again and linebacker and helped UCLA to 4 consecutive bowl victories from 1985-1988. He blossomed with the Cowboys after transferring to center linebacker in 1991, main the staff in tackles the next 12 months in a season that culminated in a Tremendous Bowl win, Norton Jr.’s first.
The third got here with San Francisco, with whom he performed the final seven years of his profession. Then got here a embellished subsequent act as an assistant coach beneath Pete Carroll at USC and with the Seahawks, adopted by stints with the Raiders, Seahawks (once more) and a return to UCLA in 2022-2023 earlier than leaving for the Commanders.
Norton Jr.’s profession has been studded by showers of victories at almost each flip. His signature accomplishment is successful three Tremendous Bowl rings in a row, an accomplishment he would possibly quickly share with a number of Chiefs.
Mahomes, for one, is trying ahead to the chance.
“It’ll be one thing I’ll look again on the finish of my profession, if we’re capable of go on the market and get that three-peat,” Mahomes mentioned, “however on the identical time, you simply deal with it as one season and one Tremendous Bowl run, which is all the time laborious to do.”