Scott Adamson, Author at Adamsonmedia.com

Football’s original alternative

As you might’ve surmised by now, alternative football is my kink. If a new league comes along, whether it’s big-time, small-time – or as is usually the case, short time – it has my interest.

Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl

But here’s an interesting twist; 100 years ago pro football was, in fact, alternative football. Not only that, it was viewed by many as an abomination to the sport made popular by college athletes.

History shows that 1920 was a pivotal year in the evolution of the game, so let’s dip into the primordial soup …

As the 1900s entered its teen years, professional football had no central governing body and was split into regional loops scattered across the country. Ohio and Minnesota were states that seemed to take it most seriously, with Ohio home to the American Professional Football Conference (made up of the Akron Pros, Canton Bulldogs, Cleveland Tigers and Dayton Triangles). Still, there were teams and leagues from coast to coast, often barnstorming and utilizing informal schedules.

And the fact that they stocked their rosters by luring both former and current college players with money did not sit well with the “establishment.”

In December, 1919, officials of the Western Intercollegiate Conference Athletic Association voted to revoke letters and “disqualify for all employment in connection with conference athletics” any player who made the jump. In January, 1920, other college officials joined in the move to thwart any professional leagues.

Upon returning from the National Intercollegiate Association Convention, L.W. St. John – Ohio State director of athletics – expressed solidarity with the WICAA. “Professional football is a posthumous child of the game,” he told the Buffalo Courier for a February 1, 1920, story. “There is not a thing that can be said in its defense by any sensible man who loves sport. Professional managers are unscrupulous in their dealings with players. They tamper with college men still in school. Young players in need of money are often unable to withstand the temptations held out to them. Their morals are corrupted.”

Some newspaper columnists of the day sided with traditionalists. A national syndicated column known as “The Insider Says” had this to say …

This autumn sees a bigger boost than ever in professional football. Elevens have been formed all over the country. They are especially thick in the Midwest. The game has progressed so that regular sectional schedules are followed, leading to a championship. These pro teams are made up mostly of former college stars. A wide range of colleges are represented on the line-ups.

“One thing you’ll notice – there are mighty few Yale, Harvard and Princeton grads playing professional football. One can’t help feeling this fact is a credit to those institutions. No great glory attaches to the institution that supplies a large number of professional football athletes. Football is fundamentally a strictly amateur college game.

On the other hand Jack Veiock – the noted sports editor of the International News Service – saw professional football as inevitable. He wrote:

Each succeeding season sees the pro grid game increasing in popularity and many followers now believe that it will only be a matter of time until a professional football league will be in operation.

The professional game has been played for many years by scattered teams. With a few exceptions these elevens, or “clubs,” have made a big success of the game financially. And as football grows in popularity, the chance for the professional game to flourish will grow in proportion.

Ohio is the stronghold of the pro game, Jim Thorpe’s brilliant aggregation, the Canton Bulldogs, who laid claim to the national title in their class after defeating the Massillon Tigers 3 to 0, furnish a vivid example of what the game may develop if it is taken up by competent promoters.

… Suppose Chicago, Boston, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit or Cincinnati should suddenly be stung by the professional football bug and a league formed. Do you think it would lose money?

Those words were written in January, 1920.

Eight months later, wire services picked up this story:

CANTON, OHIO – Jim Thorpe, famous Indian football player and coach of the Canton Bulldogs, a local professional team, has been chosen head of the American Professional Football Association, the only professional football organization in the country, according to an announcement here today.

Representatives of eleven cities unanimously voted Thorpe to the presidency with Stanley Cofall of Cleveland as vice president and Art Ranney of Akron for secretary and treasurer.

A decision was reached to refrain from luring players out of college for the professional game.

The new league featured members of the Ohio-based APFC along with the Buffalo All-Americans, Chicago Cardinals, Chicago Tigers, Columbus Panhandles, Decatur Staleys, Detroit Heralds, Hammond Pros, Muncie Flyers, Rochester Jeffersons and Rock Island Independents. It had actually been formed on August 20, 1920, but this was the first time a “ceasefire” had been announced between the amateurs and the pros. There were still some shady dealings early on, but after a couple of years the hands-off approach was in full effect. Thus, college ADs no longer had to worry about their athletes being “corrupted,” and could continue to look down their noses at men who played for pay.

As for the pros, well, the game might’ve been intended as a spectacle for amateur athletes, but they ended up providing a pretty good brand of alternative football. After the American Professional Football Association opened its inaugural season on September 26, 1920, it played one more year under the APFA banner.

On January 28, 1922, it changed its name to the National Football League.

A world of wonder

Playing the “What if?” game is pointless, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. And when applied to sports, it often opens up a whole new conversation.

**Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl and Instagram @adamsons60**

When I wrote The Home Team: My Bromance With Off-Brand Football, I came across some great information that went unused because it didn’t really fit into the book. One tidbit concerned the first few months of the World Football League, which coincided with a National Football League strike that lasted just over five weeks.

And that got me thinking … what if the NFL work stoppage had wiped out or diluted its 1974 season? Would that have given the upstarts the opening they needed to establish themselves as a legitimate threat to the pro football establishment?

The strike began on July 1, 1974, which was just nine days before the start of the WFL’s inaugural season. Picketing began on July 3 at the San Diego Chargers’ training camp (they were the first of the 26 NFL teams to open workouts) and demands included elimination of the reserve clause, waiver system and “Rozelle Rule,” which allowed NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle to order compensation for a franchise if one of its players played out his option and signed with another team.

Meanwhile, everything was all rainbows and unicorns for the 12-team WFL – at least as far as the general public knew. The Southern California Sun, New York Stars, Philadelphia Bell, Chicago Fire, Detroit Wheels and Houston Texans gave it a presence in major media markets, while the Portland Storm, Birmingham Americans, Jacksonville Sharks, Memphis Southmen and Florida Blazers were franchises designed to tap into new pro football hotbeds. The Hawaiians, based in Honolulu, rounded out the flagship clubs and provided an exotic touch to the WFL.

It had already rocked the sports establishment by signing NFL standouts such as Larry Csonka, Calvin Hill, Jim Kiick, Paul Warfield and Ted Kwalick for 1975 and Ken Stabler for 1976. In fact, nearly 70 NFL players had either jumped or were set to make the switch by 1976.

The WFL played four weeks of its regular season schedule while the strike was under way, and the NFL’s preseason games were contested by rookies and non-striking veterans in front of small crowds.

Perhaps owners would’ve fielded “scab” teams during a lengthy strike, but it’s quite possible the NFL season would’ve been wiped out had both sides dug in their heels. With the 26 traditional franchises sitting idle, the new league would be the only domestic pro game in action and would’ve almost certainly benefited at the box office. Plus, the future WFL players could’ve claimed they were being locked out by NFL owners and free to sign with the competition right away.

In that scenario, it would’ve also been interesting to see if the WFL could’ve managed to wrangle some kind of temporary network TV deal (with the resulting infusion of cash) during the NFL work stoppage.

The syndicated TVS network televised a game of the week each Thursday, and most teams had local market coverage for road games. That offered some national exposure, but was hardly a financial boon compared to a major network contract. In fact, the TVS deal was worth only $1.5 million to the league.

The NFL, on the other hand, was set to start a four-year, $400 million contract with NBC, CBS and ABC in 1974. But with no games to televise, might one of the “Big 3” been tempted to get the WFL to move games to Sunday and/or Monday and fill their gridiron void?

As a longtime fanboy of the World Football League, I’ve often wondered about that alternate reality and how it might’ve changed the pro football landscape. But while an NFL strike would’ve certainly put the WFL in a much bigger spotlight, the newbies were headed for self-destruction from the outset.

Built on a financial house of cards, many WFL owners spent money they didn’t have and hundreds of players went months without a paycheck. Stability problems existed long before play began on July 10, and hindsight points to a league that went to market when it was nowhere near ready for prime time.

Despite the fact that most issues remained unsettled, the NFL’s striking players went back to work on August 10 and by the end of the season the labor strife was mostly forgotten by fans. The WFL, on the other hand, limped to the end of the 1974 campaign. Along the way two of its franchises folded, two more changed cities, and the entire league went under only to be reformed in 1975 as New League Inc. (doing business as the WFL). The rebooted circuit went out of business for good on October 22, 1975.

And although people like me are always happy to discuss the “What ifs?” of the renegade league, ultimately it proved to be more of a short-lived inconvenience to the old guard rather than a major threat.

A golden anniversary

As the years roll into decades and the decades begin to stack one on top of another, memories become blurred. Things so clear and bright long ago are now sepia-toned – familiar, yet lacking sheen and focus.

For me, though, one particular memory is frozen in time – almost as vivid as I spy it in my rearview mirror as it was when it happened half a century ago.

From a historical perspective, September 19, 1970, is probably best remembered as the day the first Glastonbury Festival opened in South West England and the “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” premiered on CBS.

My history, however, is forever linked to the day because it’s when I saw my first-ever live football game.

Let the record show that Alabama 51, Virginia Tech 18, was the lid-lifter on my in-stadium fan experience, as I was one of 53,958 fans at 72,000-seat Legion Field.

That was the headline but it doesn’t come close to telling the story – a story that had a pretty sweet plot twist.

Having become obsessed with football a couple of years earlier, I was really itching to see a game up close. I envied the people I saw packing the stands on televised games, and thought surely that had to be the greatest thrill imaginable.

So once September rolled around my dad promised to take me to a game, and that game would be played on September 19.

But …

The contest we were supposed to see was a small college clash between Jacksonville State and Samford at cozy Seibert Stadium. My older brother, Don, attended Jax State briefly, but Samford was in Birmingham and I was, too, so I was a bit conflicted about which school to cheer for.

Who knows? Maybe I’d take turns rooting for both, waiting to jump on the bandwagon of the team leading in the fourth quarter.

It was an afternoon game – 1:30 p.m., Central Daylight Time – and I’m quite sure I was ready to go by 9 a.m.

But by noon we still hadn’t left the house, and I was getting antsy.

“Pop,” I asked, “When are we leaving?”

“In a bit.”

“But the game starts at 1:30.”

“Don’t worry.”

But I did worry … and as the clock struck 12:30 I wondered how we were going to get all the way across town in time for the opening kickoff.

Then came the horrible news.

“We’re not going to make the Samford game, son,” Pop said.

But before the tears rolled and the sobbing commenced, Pop produced three tickets.

“We’re going to the Alabama game tonight.”

I was nine years old and had no idea what a bucket list was, but going to see a big-time college football game would’ve been near the top of it.

A week earlier, the Crimson Tide had been throttled 42-21 by Southern Cal at Legion Field. The Trojans were the first fully integrated team to play a game in the state of Alabama, so the contest’s significance carried far beyond the football field. However, the social implications were a bit more than my work-in-progress brain could process at the time. And seven days after that historic encounter, my only focus was going to a football cathedral to see one of the gridiron’s most storied names – even if they were 0-1 and had dropped out of the Top 20 following a three-touchdown home loss.

Don had scored the tickets and met us at the house around 5ish. We left shortly thereafter, allowing plenty of time to make the 7:30 p.m. kickoff.

We parked at my dad’s downtown office and took a bus to the game, which I learned was standard procedure for fans who lived in the suburbs. As we prepared to board Pop bought a game day newspaper. It had the rosters of both Alabama and Virginia Tech (the Tide’s foes were listed as the “V.P.I. Gobblers” and the cartoon on the page opposite the rosters had Alabama’s mascot, an elephant, menacing a poor, featherless turkey).

The trip to the stadium was a short one but man, was I ever impressed when we arrived. Legion Field – the Football Capital of the South – was the epicenter of my world on this night, and as my dad, Don and I got closer I could hear the muffled sounds of the marching band.

That made me smile.

And for the next few hours, I was as close to heaven as I thought you could get.

Don bought a football player plush toy and shaker for me, and as I sat between him and Pop, I carefully placed them under my aluminum seat – checking periodically to make sure they were safe.

Then I watched as Alabama All-Americans and All-SEC players from the 1960s were honored along with Alabama head coach Paul “Bear” Bryant, who received a plaque for being voted the greatest coach of the last decade. It was a pregame ceremony that was like attending a school assembly – only much cooler.

Then again, everything was much cooler than anything that had come before it.

The Coke I drank was the best Coke ever.

The hot dog I ate was the greatest hot dog ever prepared.

The feeling was one I’d never, ever had before.

I got to see Johnny Musso – Alabama’s future All-American running back – throw a touchdown pass on a trick play. Like my two sisters he had gone to Banks High School in Birmingham, so I felt like I “knew” him.

I hooted and hollered as the Crimson Tide scored 30 points in the first half.

And weirdly, I recall their last score coming with 9:04 left in the game.

I remember that seemingly random factoid because that’s when my dad said, “Well, they’ve got this one wrapped up … you ready to go?”

“No!” I yelped, not meaning to raise my voice but drawing a smile instead of a reprimand from Pop.

“OK,” he said, patting me on the shoulder. “We can stay ‘til the bitter end.”

And we did.

As we filed out of the stadium and headed back to the bus (with me clutching my plush toy and shaker), I never stopped grinning. Instead of envying the people in the stands I was one of them, and I wondered if fans at home who listened to the game on the radio heard me cheer.

I’m quite sure they did.

Fifty years later to the day, that snapshot from my life remains distinct and crisp. And when I close my eyes and remember, it’s still picture perfect in my mind – and heart.