Super Bowl XXVII : THROUGH THE YEARS : Footnotes To History : IV : JERREL WILSON : KANSAS CITY CHIEFS

In Super Bowl IV at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, a 23-7 Kansas City rout of Minnesota, Jerrel Wilson set the record for the highest punting average--48.5 yards--sending four kicks a total of 194 yards, one of them 59 yards.

A pretty fair highlight, right? Maybe, but that’s not the memory Wilson cherishes.

“I’ll never forget that game because it gave me the chance to play in the city where I was an orphan in front of the man who was my father,” Wilson said.

Wilson was 6 when he was adopted by Nan and Douglas Wilson, an oil company roughneck who later became an oil field seismologist and earned a law degree.

“That was the luckiest day of my life,” Wilson said.

Because of the nature of Doug Wilson’s work, the family moved often in Jerrel’s youth, from Louisiana to Mississippi to East Texas, a lifestyle that sometimes had its drawbacks.

“I didn’t even know my teachers’ names,” he said.

But Wilson discovered that moving from town to town could be a bountiful experience if he played it right. Young Jerrel found it easy to make friends, pleasant to enjoy outdoor pursuits such as hunting and fishing and enriching to learn something about each town. His was a movable classroom.

At Mississippi State in Hattiesburg, Wilson’s classroom stayed put. It was the football field. By the time he got to the Chiefs, he was booming kicks that looked as if they had been shot from a launching pad.

After the Chiefs, led by quarterback Len Dawson, had disposed of the Vikings, Wilson was in the locker room changing from his uniform to his street clothes when his father and uncle stopped by.

“Dad had been talking to me before about getting a real job, you know, but he said, ‘Son, I read in the paper what you guys are making and now I think maybe you should stay with it a little longer.’ ”

* 1970 AT NEW ORLEANS

Minnesota 0 0 7 0 -- 7 Kansas City 3 13 7 0 -- 23

KC--FG Stenerud 48

KC--FG Stenerud 32

KC--FG Stenerud 25

KC--Garrett 5 run (Stenerud kick)

Min--Osborn 4 run (Cox kick)

KC--Taylor 46 pass from Dawson (Stenerud kick)

A--80,562

Winning Coach--Hank Stram

MVP--Len Dawson