Vince Lombardi won an incredible nine straight postseason games, a streak he might not have launched without the help of President John F. Kennedy. The 1961 NFL championship took place during the Berlin Crisis, and the United States had called Ray Nitschke, Paul Hornung and Boyd Dowler into service. With Lombardi's persistence, Nitschke and Dowler obtained special weekend passes to play. Private Hornung, however, wasn't released until Lombardi called an old acquaintance, Kennedy.
"Paul Hornung isn't going to win the war on Sunday, but the football fans of this country deserve the two best teams on the field that day," Kennedy assured Lombardi, days before the game against the New York Giants.
The best team was Green Bay, by a 37-0 count, and after Kennedy released Hornung, the Golden Boy scored 19 points, an NFL title game record.
The Berlin Crisis pitted the U.S. against East Germany for several months, until the East German government backed down. The crisis ended in the summer of 1962. Kennedy visited Berlin and delivered a famous speech before he died in 1963.