Scott Adamson, Author at Adamsonmedia.com

Showtime for Stallions draws near

**Safety JoJo Tillery (27) looks on during Tuesday’s practice. (Scott Adamson photo)**

BIRMINGHAM – The passes had a bit more zip, the runs were a bit more aggressive, and the urge to lay a big hit was a bit more tempting.

If Tuesday’s practice is any indication, the Birmingham Stallions are chomping at the bit to start the 2022 season.

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

The home team of the United States Football League’s Birmingham hub worked out at Protective Stadium today, and now have just four more sleeps before meeting the New Jersey Generals in the new circuit’s inaugural game on Saturday.

“We’re all eager to get going,” Birmingham quarterback Alex McGough said. “We want to play against somebody else and we’re all just looking forward to it. You know, we’ve been kind of itching … some people have been out of the game for a while, and I really haven’t played in a game since college. Saturday night gives us a chance to get back and play in front of the fans and play in front of however many people are gonna watch on Fox and NBC.

“We’re really excited to go out there and be part of the first game.”

The Stallions-Generals contest starts at 6;30 p.m. and will be televised by both Fox, which owns the league, and NBC.

“You know, I’ve always called it the circus around college football,” Birmingham coach Skip Holtz said. “You play the game and you’ve got 18 and 22-year-olds and I’ve said it’s the best reality TV there is, performing live and in front of 80 million people at home. And in this league, it’s the pageantry of the lights, cameras, fireworks, the two sky cameras, and the drones flying around. We got a little taste of it in our scrimmage the other day, which I’m glad we did because I couldn’t keep my eyes off the drone.

“I think the pageantry of this will be even greater than what you see in college.”

As important to the league as the “show business” aspect might be, the game is the thing for the coaches and players. McGough said last week’s scrimmage against the Pittsburgh Maulers was a good test run in allowing the Stallions to work on themselves.

“We took a lot out of that scrimmage,” he said. “We went in with just sort of the game plan of trying to learn our stuff, not so much worried about what the Maulers were doing. We just wanted to get good with the 35-second clock, getting in and out of the huddle, and making sure all of our pre-snap procedures were right and that I was saying the plays right in the huddle and the guys were hearing them all correctly. Just fine tuning the craft.”

While McGough is QB1, Holtz said J’Mar Smith – who played for him at Louisiana Tech – has also looked good at practice and might see action on opening night.

“Alex has done a really nice job of picking it all up as soon as we drafted him,” Holtz explained. “He’s learned (the offense) and he knows it really well. He’s executed really well. I think he’s doing a really nice job for us. I think both him and J’Mar have done a really nice job, and I think I’m still rolling with both of them. I mean, I’m not convinced they both won’t play Saturday night. They’re both doing a really good job.

“They’re both playing a leadership role, and they’re both playing at a really high level right now.”

One of the players who’ll be protecting the quarterbacks is former UAB standout Justice Powers, who is transitioning from tackle to guard.

“It’s not been comfortable, but that’s a good thing,” Powers said. “I like adversity. They’ve moved me around after playing pretty much the same position since I started football, but it’s been great. I’ve just been taking it day by day and trying to be a sponge, learning everything I can.”

Brian Allen, the Stallions cornerback who has spent time with six different NFL teams, said at the start of practice he hoped to take on a leadership role and help bring the younger players up to speed.

So far, so good.

“We’ve learned new techniques and stuff and I’ve been in a couple of different systems, so I’ve tried to help the guys learn what we’re doing, especially those that are coming right out of college,” Allen said. “Just trying to give those guys some of the things that I’ve learned over the years. We haven’t played our first game and we had a couple of hiccups today, but we still got time to get ready for Saturday. We’re still growing as a group and we’ve got 10 weeks ahead of us together.”

And like the rest of his teammates, he’s ready to tee it up. “We’re just trying to put our best product out there,” Allen said. “We’re already talking about who’s gonna make the first tackle and who’ll make the first touchdown, and all the firsts that can happen in the opening game. We just want to come up with a good show for the city of Birmingham, and hopefully bring them a championship.”

Now it’s Holtz in charge of the home team

**Skip Holtz leads the Stallions into action on Saturday. (Scott Adamson photo)**

BIRMINGHAM – The last time Skip Holtz and his team came to Protective Stadium, most of the fans took great pleasure in watching them lose.

Next time when they trot onto the turf at the Uptown Birmingham venue, the majority of spectators will be on their side.

Such is the fickle nature of sports – and sports supporters.

Holtz was coach of the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs in 2021, and a November visit here resulted in a 52-38 loss to the homestanding UAB Blazers. Since the Blazers and Bulldogs are natural enemies – if not in the wild at least in the field of competition – that partisan reaction was the natural order of things.

But Holtz is now in charge of the Birmingham Stallions of the new United States Football League, and he’ll have Magic City faithful in his corner on Saturday when the Stallions meet the New Jersey Generals at 6:30 p.m.

“This is an adventure and every day we’re learning,” Holtz said. “It’s been awesome … I’m like a kid in a candy store.”

Not a lot was awesome for Holtz last season, as a 3-9 record at Tech resulted in his dismissal. But while one door closed, another opened when the USFL gave him his first shot at coaching in the pros.

“It took me more than 30 years to get a chance to be a pro coach,” he said. “And I’m sincere when I say I’m having more fun than I’ve ever had before.”

Any time an alternative football league crops up, the focus is usually on the players. Will this new opportunity give them their next chance or last chance to make a living playing the game? But it’s also a fresh start for coaches.

Michigan Panthers boss Jeff Fisher had a long NFL coaching career that ended in 2016, but found the itch again after six years off the sidelines.

When it comes to resumes, it’s hard to find a more diverse one than Mike Riley of the New Jersey Generals. Before coming to the USFL, he had been a head coach in the NFL, Canadian Football League, World League of American Football, Alliance of American Football and two different colleges.

Todd Haley was head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs from 2009-11, and most recently served as offensive coordinator with the Cleveland Browns. The Tampa Bay Bandits give him the chance to guide the fortunes of a whole team once again.

Pittsburgh Maulers coach Kirby Wilson has spent more than two decades as a fine NFL assistant coach, but now – finally – he gets to call all the shots.

Bart Andrus now heads up the Philadelphia Stars, but his background includes head coaching gigs in the CFL, NFL Europe, United Football League, The Spring League and the XFL’s “Team 9” (from the shortened 2020 season).

Houston Gamblers coach Kevin Sumlin and New Orleans Breakers skipper Larry Fedora – like Holtz – are getting their first taste of pro coaching after long college careers. For all eight it’s a new challenge.

“I’ve been taught that life and success is all about your attitude,” Holtz said. “That’s one of the greatest lessons my parents taught me and every day when you wake up and put your feet on the floor you have a decision to make on what you want to accomplish. I’m passionate about this and excited about what we’re doing.”

Watching Holtz at practice, and even during last week’s scrimmage, is evidence that he’s fully invested in his new job. His enthusiasm seems to pick up as the day goes along, and it appears to be rubbing off on his players.

His attitude suggests that he doesn’t want them to run through a brick wall for him – he just hopes they’ll run through the door in the wall he’s holding open.

“Nothing great was ever accomplished without passion,” Holtz said. “You have to have passion and energy. We’ve got some great young men on this team and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know them. I’m still learning faces, names and numbers and sometimes when they put on their helmets I go, ‘Oh no, I can’t recognize them.’ But it’s been great.

“When the fans come out Saturday night, they’ll see that we’re gonna play hard, play emotional and play passionate.”

And for the first time at Protective Stadium, he and his charges will hear the fans cheering for them instead of against them.

A wild world of baseball

There must have been something in the water in the early 1970s – or at least something in international waters.

The World Hockey Association hit the ice in 1972, the World Football League took the field in July, 1974, and in April, 1974, the World Baseball Association announced its intention to make the National Pastime the Global Pastime.

President and co-founder Sean Morton Downey Jr. (who would later become better known simply as Morton Downey Jr., a confrontational talk show host who helped pioneer trash TV) held a news conference in Washington, D.C., proclaiming the WBA was ready to challenge Major League Baseball. The WBA would feature 32 franchises with 16 in the United States and the other 16 scattered across Mexico, South America, Cuba, Japan, Taiwan and Canada. A 72 to 84-game regular season would begin in January, 1975.

“We’ll better the American and National League salaries, yet our players will have to play less than half the number of games the current major league teams expect of their players,” Downey said in an article published by Associated Press. “We anticipate longer player life, more offense In the game, less lengthy games and player participation in operation of the association.”

Downey stressed that this would be big league all the way, with the WBA going after 160 “front line” players.

It was revealed at the news conference that franchises had already been awarded to Columbus, Ohio; Jersey City, N. J.; Birmingham; Memphis; Tampa -St. Petersburg; and Mexico City. Each franchise cost $150,000 and two and a half percent of all gross revenues annually would go to the WBA, a “profit-making corporation that will direct all activities of the league, including hiring of ballplayers, coaches and managers and umpires.”

A manager/player draft was to be held in June.

“We have some substantial people, people with money, already involved,” WBA co-founder Wayne Nelson told the Miami News. “I can’t tell you who they are, but a couple of our people make (American Football League founder) Lamar Hunt look like a pauper.”

But it wouldn’t be a 1970s sports venture without some groovy rule innovations, and the WBA was gonna shake things up dramatically.

Some of the ideas included:

* Orange baseballs used for night games.

* Five designated hitters to replace five defensive players who remain in the game.

* One designated runner per game.

* Pitchers required to release a pitch within 20 seconds.

* Three balls instead of four for a walk.

* Two runs for stealing home after the sixth inning.

Shortly after the announcement Dick Williams, who managed the Oakland A’s to a pair of World Series titles, said he had been approached about becoming the new league’s commissioner.

“I’ve had three short conversations with those people,” Williams told AP. “I have no idea what the job would entail. I know of 70 players who have been contacted already. It’s got every chance to go. I think the WBA will put a lot of pressure on the rest of baseball.”

It certainly would’ve been entertaining to see this wildly reimagined version of baseball actually come to life. But for that to happen the WBA needed teams, and as the spring turned to summer and the summer turned to fall, it became apparent teams were hard to come by.

In June it was announced that Washington had joined the league, and Downey Jr. expected to name six flagship franchises by September 10 and two more by December 10. He said the WBA would likely start with 10 to 14 American clubs for the first year.

January, 1975, came and went without the WBA, and little was heard from the fledgling league until late November when new president Marvin Adelson told AP it would have a “sneak preview” with a six-game winter exhibition series in Cuba. The tournament would feature a “team representative of the World Baseball Association against clubs representing various provinces of Cuba and the national championship team, Santiago de Cuba.”

Adelson said the delay in launching a full season was simply a case of smart business.

“We’re really being tough on people who want franchises,” he said. “We can’t afford the bad publicity the World Football League got. That’s the reason it’s taken so long. You’ve got to be prepared to lose money – big money. We want to go slow and easy and be on solid ground.”

Adelson said five franchises had been sold in North America, but he declined to give names or locations. He added that five more franchises had been awarded to cities in Japan, two in the Dominican Republic, two in Puerto Rico and one in Manila.

As for the international tournament, well, it was never played.

In September, 1975, the WBA released a statement saying that a United States team would face a Japanese team in Honolulu and Tokyo, which would be the first actual game associated with the league.

That was never played, either.

And by December of 1976, Adelson had abandoned his role as WBA president in order to buy the Triple A Pawtucket Red Sox. He also hoped to own an MLB club within five years.

Thus, the World Baseball Association joined the increasingly long list of professional sports ventures that never made it past the idea stage. And as for the other 1970s leagues with “World” in their names, their worlds ceased to exist before the decade came to a close.