I like how golden anniversaries are the same weekday as the event being celebrated. This coming Wednesday is the semicentennial of the first Wednesday kickoffs of the World Football League's only full year of play.
WORLD FOOTBALL LEAGUE
The WFL is formed for the 1974 season with twelve teams.
The regular season is 20 games from July to November, and there are no
preseason exhibition games in this first season. In "World Bowl I,"
held Dec. 5 at Legion Field, the Birmingham Americans win 22-21 against
the visiting Florida Blazers. Thanks in part to a blown call negating a
touchdown by Blazers running back Tommy Reamon, the Americans win, but
their uniforms are seized after the game.
Notably, the Americans owe $237,000 in back taxes and
haven't paid players in over a month going into the title game. Three days
before the scheduled tilt against the Blazers, Birmingham players walk off the
field wanting their pay, but they're back to practice the next day. Owner Bill
Putnam vows that the Americans will get rings for victory. Coach Jack
Gotta personally pays for his team's meal before the championship game.
Florida's players haven't seen checks for 14 weeks, coaches
host them at their homes for dinner once in a while, and head coach Jack
Pardee is once on the receiving end of suspicion about his $20 bill being
funny money.
In this league, touchdowns are worth seven points, and the
PAT, or "action point," has to be run or passed. Also, regular-season
games as well as playoff games can go to overtime.
The three MVPs of the WFL are Reamon, Southern
California Sun quarterback Tony Adams, and Memphis Southmen
running back J.J. Jennings. Only Reamon will play in the NFL. All three
split the $10,000 cash with which they are presented at halftime of the World
Bowl, brought there by armed guards.
During the season, the New York Stars become the Charlotte
Hornets, and the Houston Texans become the Shreveport Steamer.
The Detroit Wheels (1-13) and Jacksonville Sharks (3-11) cease to
play after 14 games out of a scheduled 20, although the Wheels will be back in
'75.
The Southmen are originally to be the Toronto Northmen, but
the Canadian government rejects that idea just by mulling a Canadian Football
Act that would prevent non-CFL teams from being placed in that country.
In one draft, teams select players from college, while
another involves NFL and CFL players. Sixteen NFL players and a CFL player jump
from their leagues to the WFL in the first season.
The Texans select Lynn Swann with the 24th
pick in the college draft. Of course, he doesn't sign.
Among the NFL players picked in the pro draft who would
never play in the WFL: Oakland Raiders QB Ken Stabler, New
York Jets QB Joe Namath, San Diego Chargers QB Dan Fouts,
Los Angeles Rams DE Jack Youngblood, Raiders DB Jack Tatum,
Pittsburgh Steelers DT Joe Greene, and Minnesota Vikings
OT Ron Yary.
The second overall pick is Miami Dolphins FB Larry
Csonka, whom the Southmen will sign the next season. The Northmen, as they
are still known, also draft teammates HB Jim Kiick and WR Paul
Warfield to contracts, combined for nearly $3.9 million of what is said to
be guaranteed money over three years.
Stabler, who signs to play in the WFL once his option is
played out, sues to have his WFL contract ruled void because of late payments.
He wins.
To help him catch the ball, Rick Eber of the Steamer
uses thumbtacks. "Those WFL refs were something else," he will later
recount. "I'd catch a ball and give it back to them with scratches all
over it and they never suspected a thing." Using the tacks, Eber scores
two touchdowns in a game against the Philadelphia Bell, whose head coach
has to be the one to show the none-too-bright officials what's going on. Eber
will say he wasn't the only one to use tacks.
The Bell has high attendance figures for its first two
games, but it soon comes to light that many of those tickets are given away,
not sold. Hawaiians players have trouble in paradise when they're
released and can't afford to fly back to the mainland. The Wheels have no
programs or game film. The Steamer's visiting opponents leave hotel bills
unpaid. Maybe three out of ten players get their entire salaries. Teams lose
$10 million in total.
The man behind this league and the ex-commissioner by
year's end is Gary L. Davidson, who was also one of the fathers of the
ABA and the WHA. The WFL will not survive an entire 1975 season, so the rule of
threes does not quite apply here. Or does it?
MEANWHILE, IN CANADA...
Future NFL coach Marv Levy is coach of the Canadian
Football League's Montreal Alouettes. He wins the Grey Cup for the first
time in 1974, as his Alouettes defeat the Edmonton Eskimos 20-7 in
Vancouver.
Johnnie Rodgers of
the Alouettes is the highest-paid player with a record contract, but the
running back finishes second in MVP voting to Eskimos QB Tom Wilkinson.
Rodgers will sign with the Chargers in 1976.
East German swimmers, Soviet weightlifters,
England playing cricket overseas, Spain's best bullfighter, and a prestigious
event in France: Sports74 Gold spans the globe July 26.
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