After Mix’s final season of USC football in 1959, the AFL began its existence in its inaugural season of 1960. Had Mix graduated from USC a year earlier, there would have been no AFL draft to compete with the NFL draft. As it was, the Los Angeles Chargers took Mix with their first pick in the first AFL draft. The Baltimore Colts selected Mix with their first pick in the 1960 NFL draft. Mix had a choice. He remembered the calculations he had to do:
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“The NFL thought the AFL would just be here and go away. I know I was the number one draft pick of the Baltimore Colts and the number one pick in the AFL as well, and the Colts offered me now. So I was the 10th player taken in the NFL draft. On paper, a lot of people thought I was the 10th best player in the entire country. They (the Colts) offered me a $1,000 signing bonus and a one-year, non-guaranteed contract in $7,500.
“I know it sounds like the amount of money you just tip, but in reality, it was more money than the average American made. I told (then-Colts owner) Carroll Rosenbloom that the Chargers had offered me a guaranteed two-year contract, $12,000 a year and a $5,000 signing bonus. I told him I’d rather play for the Colts.”
Ron Mix wanted Rosenbloom and the Colts to increase their offer. If they had matched the Chargers, Mix would have headed to Baltimore. Rosenbloom did not relent. Mix went to the Bolts and the AFL, where he won a championship a few years later in 1963.
Mix made the right decision, the Colts made the wrong one.
This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Why USC’s Ron Mix Chose AFL Over NFL Entering Rookie Season