Scott Adamson, Author at Adamsonmedia.com

A rivalry renewed

I love history, and especially enjoy researching and writing about sports history. However, facts and figures alone can be boring.

Frame them with a heaping helping of nostalgia, though, and sometimes they come alive all over again.

**Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl**

That’s the feeling I’m hoping for – and expect – on Sunday when I plant my patootie at Bartow Arena. Seeing the UAB Blazers take on the South Alabama Jaguars in men’s basketball will be a blast from one of the most memorable parts of my past.

When I was a freshman at UAB, intercollegiate athletics was in just its second year. But thanks to Gene Bartow, the roundball Blazers were already turning heads.

In their debut season of 1978-79 – playing as a Division I independent – the team did well enough to earn an NIT bid. And year two was their first in the Sun Belt Conference, a dynamic young league stocked with great players and a couple of notable coaches.

Bartow, of course, was the headliner, having led both Memphis and UCLA to Final Four appearances.

VCU was coached by J.D. Barnett, and his histrionics made him a guy I loved to hate (especially since his teams had good success against UAB, including a 67-65 win in Birmingham in 1983 that saw the Rams rally from 18 points down in the second half).

And South Alabama? Cliff Ellis was in charge of the Mobile-based team, and had already transformed the Jags into a consistent winner. Since UAB and USA were both “basketball schools” sharing a state and conference, I decided to give plenty of weight to their hardwood rivalry.

I mean, Alabama and Auburn already had their thing, so it seemed logical that those of us who spent game nights in the Blazers and Jaguars student sections needed our own battle for bragging rights.

The first time I saw the teams play live was on February 17, 1980, at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center Coliseum. Now known as Legacy Arena and much improved from its earlier incarnation, the old BJCC was three miles from campus and – considering it was built for hockey and had seats far from the floor – you felt like you were three miles away from the action.

But that’s where my guys played so I didn’t complain, although South Alabama won that meeting in devastating fashion, 66-65. Herb Andrew hit a last-second jumper that broke my heart and wrapped up the regular season SBC title for the bad guys

But here’s a fun fact: that was the last time I ever saw the Blazers lose to the Jaguars when I was in the building. And I attended a lot of UAB-USA clashes even after I graduated.

For me, perhaps the most memorable “W” in the series came on January 31, 1981, when Ellis brought his 14^th-ranked team to the BJCC. A crowd of 16,131 (a Sun Belt record) showed up to watch Oliver Robinson score 24 points and break the Jags’ 18-game road victory streak. The 73-70 victory also moved the Blazers to the top of the league standings.

I might still be a little hoarse from that one.

And I made some personal history on January 21, 1984, when I took a bus trip to the Port City to watch the teams play at the Mobile Civic Center. It was the only time I’d witnessed them clash in person at a venue other than the BJCC.

The game was fantastic, made better by the fact that Eugene Jones drained a jumper with six seconds remaining to give UAB an 80-79 lead that held up to and through the final buzzer.

It spoiled USA’s homecoming, but made my trip going home to Birmingham much more enjoyable.

So here we are again, more than four decades after their first meeting. The teams haven’t played since 2012 (which is a shame) and UAB is in its final year in Conference USA before moving to the American Athletic Conference. South Alabama – a founding member of the SBC – remains in the league I’ll always respect.

And of course, my Blazers now play on campus in the house named after the man who started it all. And fortunately, unlike the fan experience at the BJCC many years ago, the stands are in the same zip code as the court.

Truthfully, I’m looking more forward to this game than any in recent memory. With Jordan “Jelly” Walker lighting things up for a 25 points per game average and getting plenty of help from guys like Eric Gaines and Ledarrius Brewer, Andy Kennedy’s squad could be headed for a special season.

And seeing South Alabama again will be like reconnecting with an old frenemy. As an added bonus, the Jags are coached by former UAB assistant Richie Riley, who I got to know a little (and like a lot) when I worked in South Carolina and he was at Clemson.

If you’re in the area and get a chance, join me and few thousand of my friends for some good college basketball on Sunday. I’m particularly excited because I have a lot of history with these two teams.

More than that, seeing the Blazers and Jaguars make new history means a great old rivalry will come to life for me once again.

An alternative (football) reality

If you’re a fan of alternative football leagues, this has been a heckuva week. Not only did XFL 3.0 rosters start to take shape with Tuesday’s selection of quarterbacks (followed by a two-day position draft), but the USFL announced it was moving into a new market – and expanding its hub model.

The fact that not one but two pro circuits outside the NFL and CFL were vying for the spotlight in mid-November is something of an early alt-football holiday present.

The USFL will start its second season next April, and that in itself is significant; no domestic play-for-pay spring outdoor league with teams in the United States has done that since the World League of American Football (1991-92). And now the Memphis Showboats have joined the league, taking the place of the Tampa Bay Bandits.

Yet while the Bandits never made it to Tampa (the entire league played its regular season in Birmingham in 2022), the Showboats will actually play their home games at home – in Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium (formerly the Liberty Bowl). Memphis will serve as the second South Division hub and will also house the Houston Gamblers in 2023.

The USFL champion Stallions will return to Protective Stadium next spring and summer, sharing space with the New Orleans Breakers.

A North Division hub hosting the Michigan Panthers, New Jersey Generals, Philadelphia Stars and Pittsburgh Maulers is rumored to be headed for the Detroit area, although the USFL has yet to make an official announcement.

“Completing a remarkably successful inaugural season and preparing for a second season shows the USFL is a stable and professional league run by people with football experience,” Daryl Johnston, USFL Executive Vice President of Football Operations, said on Tuesday during a news conference in Memphis. “In 2022, we accomplished every goal we set – high-quality, exciting, and competitive football, establishing a fan-friendly affordable and fun stadium experience, being a catalyst for the evolution of football through innovative rules, and achieving ratings success that gave viewers unprecedented access and the best football production on television. We showed our fans, our players and coaches, our communities, and our public and corporate partners that the USFL is here to stay.”

The XFL, meanwhile, signed a bunch of quarterbacks on opening day of its draft week, including one of my favorite players – Luis Perez – and Kyle Sloter, who both called signals in the USFL last season.

Perez is becoming an alt-football legend, having played in the Alliance of American Football, 2020 XFL, The Spring League and USFL. I cheered for him when he led the Birmingham Iron in the ill-fated AAF in 2019, and got to watch him help lift the lid on the new United States Football League last April when he took snaps for the Generals.

He was signed by the Vegas Vipers on Tuesday.

Sloter, who quarterbacked the Breakers last summer, also jumped leagues and joined the Arlington Renegades.

Other names of note (or at least guys who made me go, “Hey, I know him!”) include Troy product Brandon Silvers, who played in the AAF and XFL 2.0 and is now with the Houston Roughnecks, and former Alabama QB A.J. McCarron, who has been on the roster of five NFL teams and will now try to win the starting job for the St. Louis Battlehawks.

Arguably the top player signed on Wednesday was former NFL wideout Martavis Bryant, who averaged 21 yards per catch during his rookie season with the Pittsburgh Steelers back in 2014.

Like USFL teams, XFL rosters will have a mix of players trying to get back in the NFL and those looking for their first shot.

“Congratulations to all the players selected in the inaugural XFL Draft,” XFL Senior Vice President of Player Personnel Doug Whaley said in a statement released on Thursday. “Together they will serve as the backbone of our league and be the center of the dynamic football our fans will experience when teams take the field in February. For our teams, this week represents the first step in building their rosters and another step closer to kickoff.

“Over the next two months, the league will hold a supplemental draft and claiming period for players who were not eligible for this week’s draft, including players currently under contract with other professional football leagues and graduates of the NFL Alumni Academy. With 442 players selected over the last two days, and 528 spots to fill in training camp, there are still opportunities for players looking to take the field for the XFL in 2023.”

The rebooted XFL’s season starts on February 18 while the USFL’s second campaign kicks off on April 15. The eight teams in both leagues will play 10 regular season games each followed by the playoffs.

And that begs the question; if the two spring/summer leagues can survive, can they also coexist?

Sure, they can … whether they will or not is another question.

It’s hard for me to imagine them operating separately over the long haul if for no other reason than one will continually try to outspend the other for players. Supposedly the XFL is offering more money than the USFL (this will be key when it comes to signing the best available quarterbacks), so one would assume the USFL will have to upgrade its salaries to keep up.

History suggests that when sports leagues engage in bidding wars, there’s only one winner. But that’s one of those “if and when questions” that need not be answered for a while.

For now, all fans need to know – and something we should be happy about – is that there is plenty of talent to stock both leagues.

The USFL has joined forces with the HUB Football scouting service, while the XFL has partnered with both the NFL Academy and Indoor Football League to cull players.

And consider this … there are 131 programs in the Football Bowl Subdivision, 130 in the Football Championship Subdivision, and 169 in Division II. Throw in NAIA schools (96), JUCOs (65) and even Division III (242), and there is no shortage of young, talented players good enough to play a fan-pleasing brand of football.

In addition, the USFL is owned by FOX with NBC as an additional TV partner, while the XFL has the Disney media empire (i.e., ESPN and ABC) behind it. That’s some impressive reach.

So, we can spend our time bemoaning the history of failed spring football leagues – and goodness knows I have – or we can view them in their present state.

And if you do that, there’s a lot to look forward to in 2023.

Remembering NFL Europa

History will be made on Sunday when the Seattle Seahawks and Tampa Bay Buccaneers tangle at Allianz Arena in Munich.

For the National Football League, it’ll mark its first regular season game played on German soil.

And for German fans, it’ll be a chance to ask, “What took you so long?”

While tackle football’s most prestigious league has made England its primary international stop for several years, a strong German fan base has been there for decades. All you have to do is look back at NFL Europe, which began as the World League of American Football but spent its final season as NFL Europa – with five of its six franchises located in Germany.

“It’s ubiquitous in Germany,” Brett Gosper, NFL Head of United Kingdom and Europe, told the Daily Mail in September. “When I visit, I always get the feeling you talk to the taxi drivers about NFL – but here (London) not quite. As a sport maybe it scratches an itch that other sports don’t in that market. Rugby is not a big game in that market – there is not another contact sport. There’s a lot of professional sports kicking around in England, from cricket, to rugby, to football, and so on. And NFL still finds its way in that competitive landscape.

“But in Germany, there just seems to be a wider possibility to come in and occupy a space that maybe is not occupied by someone else.”

Alexander Steinforth of NFL Germany was interviewed by the Ran sports website in July and said there had been more than three million ticket requests for the game set for the 75,024-seat venue. He knew tickets would be in high demand, he just couldn’t imagine how high.

“Based on the roughly 600,000 registrations for this pre-sale in the past few weeks, we could already guess a bit in advance,” he said. “At the peak, however, there were around 800,000 people in the virtual queue at the same time. Ticketmaster informed us afterwards that they could have sold around three million tickets. There would be such a demand worldwide – whether at sporting events or concerts – otherwise only at the Super Bowl.

“Thus, this advance sale for the NFL Germany game has once again exceeded all expectations.”

So, where did this passion for the gridiron game begin?

The WLAF, which hit the field in the spring of 1991, featured three European teams – the Barcelona Dragons, Frankfurt Galaxy and London Monarchs. Eight of the nine other franchises were located in the United States with one in Canada.

The Monarchs drew 40,483 fans per game during the inaugural season, followed by Frankfurt (29,856) and Barcelona (29,002). By year two London’s attendance slipped to 21,909 per home outing while Frankfurt’s grew to 36,293. Barcelona played before 30,756 during home dates.

However, poor TV ratings, subpar attendance in North American markets and mounting financial losses convinced the NFL to suspend the World League after the 1992 campaign and examine what options were left for a developmental circuit.

The option was to go across the pond, and the WLAF returned in 1995 with an all-European lineup. Frankfurt, Barcelona and London resumed operations, and were joined by the Amsterdam Admirals, Rhein Fire and Scottish Claymores.

By 1998 the NFL’s spring gridiron experiment had changed its name to NFL Europe, and the London Monarchs were renamed the England Monarchs (playing in Birmingham and Bristol as well as London).

Yet while the novelty of minor league American football began to fade in England, Spain and Scotland, German clubs continued to have plenty of support.

The England team folded in 1998, Barcelona called it quits in 2003, and Scotland’s last year in NFL Europe was in 2004.

The lineup in 2005 featured Amsterdam, Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Rhein, meaning NFL Europe was – for all practical purposes – NFL Germany Plus One.

Rebranded as NFL Europa for its final season in 2007, the six teams averaged 20,24 fans per game – the highest per game attendance since the league was rebooted in 1995.

The farewell year saw Frankfurt draw 33,043 each game, followed by Rhein (24,473), Hamburg (20,874), Berlin (15,710), Cologne (14,352) and Amsterdam (11,668).

Despite the strong support from German fans, the NFL was losing $30 million per year on the league and decided to dramatically alter its European presence and fold NFL Europa on June 29, 2007.

“A foundation of American football fans in key European markets has been created and the time is right to shift our strategy,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said. “The next phase of our international growth is to focus on initiatives with global impact, including taking advantage of developing technologies that make the NFL more accessible on a global scale and ensuring the success of our new international series of regular-season games.”

The Galaxy was the only franchise in WLAF/NFL Europe/NFL Europa to compete in all 15 seasons and had the most titles with four.

“NFL Europa has created thousands of passionate fans who have supported that league and our sport for many years,” Mark Waller, senior vice president of NFL International, said. “And we look forward to building on this foundation as we begin this new phase of our international development.” And part of that new phase means that 15 years after NFL Europa showcased Germany, the NFL is finally showcasing a regular season clash there.