Description
Collector's Note – Why This Issue Matters
The September 16, 1968 issue of Sports Illustrated featuring Don Meredith on the cover is a primary document of professional football at one of the most historically interesting moments in the career of one of the game's most distinctive personalities — and at a specific point in the NFL's development that gives any primary source from this season considerable historical weight. The 1968 NFL season was the last full season before the Super Bowl era's commercial and cultural dominance had been fully established, and the specific competitive landscape that Sports Illustrated was covering in September 1968 was one of the most talent-rich in the game's history. Don Meredith in September 1968 was entering what would prove to be his final NFL season as a player — he would retire after the 1968 season at age thirty, ending a Dallas Cowboys career that had established him as one of the most capable and most charismatic quarterbacks of the 1960s. A Sports Illustrated cover with Meredith in September 1968 is therefore primary documentation of the final active season of a career that would, within a few years, be transformed by his television work into a different and in many ways more culturally visible second chapter. Meredith's transition to Monday Night Football in 1970 would make him one of the most beloved broadcast personalities in American sports television, and his SI cover from September 1968 captures him in his original identity as an active NFL player in the final year before that transformation. For collectors building a serious archive of Sports Illustrated's football coverage, the Sports Illustrated collection at OriginalMagazines.com provides essential depth across the publication's full run, with the late-1960s NFL season issues representing a particularly historically rich tier within the football documentation.
The September 16, 1968 date places this issue at the opening of the 1968 NFL season, a specific and historically interesting competitive moment. The Dallas Cowboys were one of the dominant teams of the era under Tom Landry, and Meredith was their established franchise quarterback — having led the team to consecutive NFL Championship Game appearances in 1966 and 1967, both of which produced heartbreaking losses to the Green Bay Packers in what are now remembered as two of the most celebrated games in NFL history. The "Ice Bowl" of December 31, 1967 — the NFL Championship Game played at Lambeau Field in minus-thirteen-degree temperatures — was eight months in the past when this September 1968 cover appeared, and Meredith was entering the 1968 season with the specific motivation of a quarterback who had twice reached the championship game without winning it. The broader context of September 1968 — the same month whose first weeks had seen the tumultuous Democratic National Convention in Chicago and whose overall atmosphere of national crisis and political upheaval was the specific backdrop against which the NFL season was opening — gives any primary source from this specific moment an additional historical dimension. The full range of 1968 magazines and publications from this year documents American culture at one of its most turbulent and most historically consequential moments, and this Sports Illustrated cover sits within that body of material as a primary document of American sports life continuing its seasonal rhythms against that specific national backdrop.
Don Meredith's specific cultural significance extends beyond his playing statistics and competitive results in ways that give a September 1968 Sports Illustrated cover a resonance that extends beyond football history. Meredith's combination of genuine athletic excellence, self-deprecating humor, and an almost theatrical indifference to the pressures that destroyed other quarterbacks made him one of the most distinctive personalities in the NFL during its most commercially significant growth decade, and his subsequent reinvention as a broadcast personality — the "Dandy Don" of Monday Night Football alongside Howard Cosell and Frank Gifford — made his 1960s playing career the foundational chapter of a cultural legacy that outlasted his relatively brief time as an active player. The September 1968 Sports Illustrated cover is therefore a primary document of Meredith before that second chapter — the quarterback rather than the broadcaster, the active player rather than the cultural personality.
About the Publication
Sports Illustrated was founded in 1954 and had established itself by 1968 as the most authoritative and most widely read sports journalism publication in the United States, its combination of long-form reporting, exceptional photography, and the specific editorial ambition that distinguished it from newspaper sports coverage giving it a cultural authority in American sports journalism that no competing publication matched. By September 1968, the publication was covering the NFL's most commercially consequential growth period with the editorial depth and photographic quality that had made its football coverage the standard against which all sports journalism was measured. Its covers were among the most recognized images in American sports culture, and its football season opening issues were among its most commercially and editorially significant annual publications.
Key Highlights Inside
- Don Meredith cover — Dallas Cowboys quarterback in his final NFL season documented — The confirmed Meredith cover is primary Sports Illustrated documentation of one of the most distinctive quarterbacks of the 1960s NFL at the opening of what would prove to be his final active season, capturing him in his identity as an NFL player nine months before the Ice Bowl and two years before his celebrated transition to Monday Night Football.
- September 1968 NFL season opening coverage — the final pre-Super Bowl dominance era documented — The confirmed September 1968 NFL season coverage preserves primary Sports Illustrated documentation of the game at the opening of one of the most talent-rich seasons of the pre-merger era, capturing the competitive landscape of American professional football at a specific and historically interesting transitional moment.
- 1968 Dallas Cowboys season coverage — Landry-era championship contender documented — The confirmed football content documents the Dallas Cowboys at the opening of a season in which they were among the league's most competitive teams under Tom Landry, preserving primary evidence of the specific competitive context in which Meredith was operating in what would prove to be his final year as an NFL player.
- Multi-sport September 1968 editorial — American sports culture documented at turbulent national moment — The confirmed additional articles on athletes making waves in 1968 preserve primary Sports Illustrated documentation of the broader American sports landscape in September 1968 — the specific competitive and cultural context of American athletics during one of the most historically turbulent months in postwar American history.
- Note: Specific article titles, additional sports covered, statistical content, and the complete editorial contents of this issue beyond the confirmed Don Meredith cover feature have not been independently verified beyond the listing description. The highlights above reflect what is documentable from the listing and the well-established historical context of Don Meredith and the 1968 NFL season.
Condition & Rarity
This issue is described as being in good condition with minor wear throughout consistent with its age, protected by a plastic covering — an honest and representative condition profile for a weekly sports journalism publication now over fifty-five years old that was produced for active reading use rather than archival preservation. Good condition with minor wear indicates consistent storage care that has avoided the more severe deterioration affecting less carefully preserved examples from this era. The plastic protective covering indicates deliberate preservation care. The listing does not specify whether an address label is present on the cover, which is worth verifying from the accompanying photographs — Sports Illustrated was primarily a subscription publication, and labeled copies are the norm among survivors, with no-label newsstand examples presenting with cleaner cover surfaces. Don Meredith Sports Illustrated covers from the late 1960s are actively collected within the overlapping communities of NFL history collectors, Dallas Cowboys memorabilia enthusiasts, and Monday Night Football legacy researchers who follow Meredith's full career arc from his playing years through his broadcasting celebrity.
Looking for More Issues Like This?
Sports Illustrated NFL season-opening issues from the late 1960s — and particularly this September 1968 edition featuring Don Meredith in his final Cowboys season, capturing one of the most distinctive personalities in football history at the last moment before his transition to the broadcasting career that would define his cultural legacy — are actively sought by NFL history collectors, Dallas Cowboys archivists, and Monday Night Football enthusiasts who recognize these publications as primary documents of one of professional football's most historically interesting transitional periods. If this September 16, 1968 issue is no longer available, the Sports Illustrated collection at OriginalMagazines.com is the most comprehensive resource for exploring what else has surfaced from this publication's extraordinary football coverage archive. For collectors building a broader documentary record of American sports and popular culture during one of the most turbulent years of the twentieth century, the 1968 magazines collection brings together a wide range of primary source material from that extraordinary year.