Author: Scott Adamson

Nine years before the United States Football League brought pro tackle football to the spring – and 17 years before the NFL unveiled the World League of American Football – Bill Caruso had a terrific idea.

It was ahead of its time, although the timing, as it turned out, was all wrong.

Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl and Instagram @scottscribe60

With minor league football teams scattered across the country and receiving little if any publicity competing against the NFL and NCAA in the fall, Caruso in 1974 proposed the All-American Football League. It would consolidate all the top minor league teams and – more importantly – the schedules would shift to the spring.

Caruso was a plumbing executive who had worked with the Atlantic Coast Football League in 1970, the last year NFL teams had working relationships with minor league clubs.

That arrangement created conflict since only 12 NFL teams had access to second tier circuits, so the big league’s competition committee dissolved the limited farm system.

But Caruso’s confederation would solve that problem because there would be plenty of minor league squads to go around.

An organizational meeting with 34 team owners was held in New Jersey on October 27. Representatives from the Seaboard Coast, Mid-West, Pacific, Trans-American and Dixie leagues were there. The idea was to have three divisions – Atlantic, Midwest and Pacific – with each division split into North and South sections. The 10-game schedule would run from April 15 to July 1 and the circuit would have a draft at the end of the season to give major league teams the chance to get their pick of the litter.

There were only 26 NFL franchises in 1974 (the new World Football league started with 12 and was down to 10 by October), so the minor league player pool would be substantial. And, the feeder system was designed to be cost effective with a $75,000 operating budget for each team. “This is a new concept in minor league football,” Caruso told the San Francisco Examiner for an October 26, 1974 story. “We are attempting to bring all existing minor league operations in the country under one umbrella. They will play in the spring to develop players for the majors.”

The All-American League would be open to players age 25 and younger, so the teams would provide players who didn’t make pro rosters right out of college a chance to hone their skills.

“It’s ridiculous trying to compete against the National Football League with minor league teams,” Caruso said. “What we hope to do now is work hand-in-hand with the NFL to develop major league players. Our goal is to get a financial subsidy from the NFL.”

How much?

“The minor leagues as they operate today are strictly a loss operation,” Caruso told United Press International. “They play at the same time as the major leagues and are totally disorganized. My idea is to bring all the minor league teams together, go to a spring schedule and get the pro leagues to give us two coaches for each team and $25,000 from every big league club to develop talent for them.”

Considering the profit machine that the NFL is today, $25,000 is couch money. But that wasn’t so in 1974.

In fact, the New York Times reported that eight NFL teams lost money that year, and although its teams averaged an after‐tax operating profit of $256,000, that was down by 45 per cent from the average profit of $472,500 in 1973.

Plus, there was a player strike over the summer, resulting in the cancellation of the annual College All-Star Game. Exhibition games were played with all-rookie rosters.

Throw in the fact there had been a bidding war with the WFL, and there was little appetite for the NFL to spend money on anything other than itself. By February, 1975, the league was still being touted, only this time under the direction of Bill Flowers, an executive with the Orange County Rhinos. Of course, nothing came of it. Forty-seven years later the All-American Football League remains a good idea, but one that still hasn’t come to fruition.

Fifty years ago today, I was most likely doing one of three things: pretending I was Wendell Hudson while shooting at the basketball goal tacked onto an oak tree in the middle of my backyard; pretending I was Don Maynard running an improvised pass pattern while reeling in a Joe Namath aerial; or pretending I was a puppet master while playing with my Adventure Team G.I. Joe (with life-like air and beard).

All three were noble pursuits for a 10-year old, especially on a Saturday in the early summer. But the day was also quite significant in my journey as a sports fan. Why? Because on May 29, 1971, American newspapers announced that the Canadian Football League would begin televising some of its games on U.S. stations.

Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl and Instagram @scottscribe60

According to Associated Press:

The Canadian Football League, which has lured some big-name college players north, may take away some of college football’s television audience this fall.

The International Broadcasting Company, an independent network with headquarters (in Hayward, California), announced last week that CFL games will be telecast next season, mostly on Saturday afternoons, to at least 15 major markets.

Robert M. Green, president of the network, said the U.S. television rights were purchased for about $500,000.

The CFL’s commissioner, Jake Gaurdaur, (sic) was here for Thursday’s announcement and called the television money “minimal at present.”

But, he said, the U.S. television exposure will help CFL teams sign more good American players.

“If an American player is seen on television here, he’ll establish his name for the time when he finishes his playing days,” Gaurdaur (sic) said.

Despite misspelling Gaudaur’s name, the story brought good tidings. At the time I thought the only “TV football” that existed was the kind offered by the NFL and NCAA, but here was a whole new league (to me) that started play in the summer.

And while I’d love to tell you specifics of the first CFL game I ever watched, I can’t – I only know that whenever a game was on, I made every effort to watch.

Recalling memories from half a century ago can be tough – and sometimes you later learn that a few of them are false. I never remember a CFL game being broadcast on a Saturday afternoon, and I’m quite certain they never went head-to-head with college football on ABC – at least not in the Birmingham TV market. But I want to say the games I saw as a kid were on the CBS affiliate, always on a taped delayed basis, always at night, and edited to fit into maybe a two-hour window.

I watched the Hamilton Tiger-Cats play and became a fan of the team based on their hyphenated nickname and black and gold color scheme.

There was a game involving the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in which the announcers talked about how big and pesky the mosquitoes were. Weird that bit of info stuck with me, but it has.

And I recall Alex Karras doing color commentary and thinking, “Hey … he used to play for the Detroit Lions.”

All random stuff, I know, and mere snapshots to the bigger picture, which was that of a gridiron style that I fell in love with. Three downs to make 10 yards was downright exotic in my book, and those end zones (25 yards deep at the time) meant a QB could throw long on first-and-goal situation.

Further research shows that the 1972 American TV slate was aborted in August of that year because the syndicated network didn’t think the CFL games could compete with the NFL, which was already well into its exhibition season.

But in 1973 another American syndicate – this one led by baseball Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner – reached a 21-week deal with the CFL that resulted in midweek TV games.

By 1974, however, the league’s appearance on U.S. stations was reduced to 30-minute highlight packages that were lost in the shuffle of “traditional” football. I might’ve whined more were it not for the fact the World Football League began play that year, so my summer football passion had shifted to the Birmingham Americans.

But Jack Gotta – who led the Ottawa Rough Riders to the Grey Cup in 1973 – was the head coach of the Ams, and starting quarterback Georgia Mira had spent his previous two seasons with the Montreal Alouettes. So, in a way, the CFL lived on in my new favorite ballclub.

All these years later I’m still passionate about the Canadian Football League, hoping it comes back healthy and looking forward to watching as many games as I can on ESPN+. And when news breaks about the TV schedule this time, I won’t be outside pretending to be Wendell Hudson or Don Maynard or playing with G.I. Joes.

At least not as far as you know …