Category: Alternative Football

Fifty years ago, Pete Rozelle began plotting the future of the National Football League.

The commissioner already oversaw a blossoming 26-team circuit – one that grew by 10 three years earlier when the merger with the American Football League became official. And the NFL was coming off a season that produced the league’s first (and so far, only) perfect team – the 17-0 Miami Dolphins.

But there was still plenty of room to grow, and in early September, 1973, Rozelle announced that nearly two dozen cities were in the running for a future NFL franchise.

In an interview with U.S. News & World Report, Rozelle said an NFL committee was doing market research on possible NFL sites “within this decade.” The targets included: Anaheim, Birmingham, the Carolinas, Chicago, Columbus, Ohio, central and north central Florida (Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville), Honolulu, Indianapolis, Louisville, Mexico City, Nashville, greater New York, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Portland, San Antonio, Seattle and the Tidewater area of Virginia.

Exotic locales such as Honolulu and Mexico City were in the running, but Rozelle said the league had no interest in going north of the border.

“There are a number of negatives,” he told the USN&WR. “One is the weather. The Canadian football season really ends around Thanksgiving because of the cold weather. And there is also concern that if we moved into one of the major Canadian cities, we could be helping contribute to the death of the Canadian Football League, which we would not want to do.”

All that was big news as the NFL prepared to start its 54^th season. And if Rozelle was paying attention (and you know he was), he might’ve noticed that other groups were out to grab a slice of the pro football pie, too.

In fact, 1973 was also the year that not one, not two, but three World Football Leagues were being organized – all with designs on competing with the NFL.

Louis P. Roberts was the first to unveil WFL plans, and he was followed later in the year by Tony Razzano and Louis S. Goldman’s circuit as well as Gary Davidson’s – the latter the only World Football League that made it off the drawing board and onto the playing field.

According to a Philadelphia Inquirer piece from February 27, 1973, Roberts – an insurance executive based in Anniston, Alabama – was looking to convince several millionaires to invest in a 10-city World Football League. The inaugural franchises in 1974 would be selected from Birmingham, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Honolulu, Jacksonville, Jersey City, Los Angeles, Memphis, Mexico City, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Seattle, Tulsa and Wichita.

“The cost of a team will be at least $5 million,” Roberts told the Inquirer. “But we prefer the man to have $10 million in backup capital. We expect to line up eight to 10 teams in the next few months and sign the articles of association.”

Roberts had actually been seeking investors since 1972, so give him credit for being the WFL early bird.

Then on October 6, a story broke announcing that Davidson was ready to go with his World Football League for 1974. Chicago was getting the first franchise and Boston, Honolulu, Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo and Toronto were expected to join soon.

“We plan for at least eight and possibly 12 teams operating the first season,” Davidson said to the Associated Press. “We currently are negotiating with 19 groups for franchises covering 15 cities from Mexico City to Vancouver.”

(For the record, Roberts told the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1974 that Robert Schmertz, owner of the WFL New York Stars and John Bassett, who owned the Memphis Southmen, stole his idea and Davidson ran with it.)

Finally, there was the WFL proposed by Razzano and Goldman, which had to change its name to Universal Football League since Davidson beat them to the WFL punch when he held the first press conference.

“We had originally settled on the title of World Football League for our organization, and then when this other group made the announcement, we had to change ours,” Rozzano told the New Castle News for an October 9 story.

Its gimmick was to utilize some key CFL rules (12 men to a side, three downs to make 10 yards, etc.), plus kickoffs from the 20-yard line and field goals of varying point values.

Inaugural franchises were planned for Anaheim, Birmingham, Chicago, Mexico City, Memphis, New York, Phoenix, Tampa, Toronto and Seattle.

As you know, only one of the three pretenders to the NFL throne ever got beyond the idea stage.

They never had a franchise outside the United States, but Davidson’s WFL did make it to market – although its colorful history was short and marked by financial disaster.

Of course, we all know the next wave of NFL expansion came in 1976 when the Seattle Seahawks and Tampa Bay Bandits joined the league. And over time, six of Rozelle’s targets were hit – either through expansion or relocation.

Anaheim, for example, was home of the Los Angeles Rams for 15 seasons (1980-94).

Indianapolis infamously became an NFL city when Mayflower moving fans took the Baltimore Colts to Indiana in 1984.

Phoenix (or at least the Phoenix ‘burbs) tasted the gridiron big leagues when the St. Louis Cardinals headed West in 1988. They were the Phoenix Cardinals for six seasons (1988-93) and have been known as the Arizona Cardinals ever since.

The Carolinas got in the NFL in 1995 with the addition of the Charlotte-based Panthers, and Jacksonville joined them that same year with the birth of the Jaguars.

And Nashville was the new playground of the Houston Oilers after that franchise relocated to Memphis for the 1997 season and made a permanent move to Music City a year later, ultimately rebranding as the Tennessee Titans.

When it comes to the rest of Rozelle’s list, most found homes in upstart leagues – but not in the NFL.

(Birmingham, Columbus, Orlando and San Antonio did get consolation prizes, though, in the form of the NFL-funded World League of American Football). Regardless, it’s fun to look back on what was an active planning year in professional football half a century ago – even though many of those plans were never fully realized.

As part of Watson Brown’s first recruiting class at UAB in 1995, Anthony Blevins helped the Blazers blaze a trail as the program transitioned to what was then known as the Division 1-A level of college football. He had five tackles in a 29-0 loss to Auburn on August 31, 1996 – UAB’s first game as a member of the NCAA’s top division.

Twenty-seven years later, the former cornerback – now Dr. Anthony Blevins – continues to forge new paths.

On July 7 Blevins was named head coach of the XFL Vegas Vipers, becoming the first former UAB player to take the reins of a professional football team. His most recent role was assistant special teams coordinator for the NFL’s New York Giants, and his coaching experience ranges from prep to pro.

 “Our players will have an incredible opportunity to learn from a coach with NFL and NCAA experience, and we look forward to seeing his impact on the field and in the locker room,” XFL President Russ Brandon said.

Thing is, stalking sidelines was hardly Blevins’ passion after he graduated from UAB with a sociology degree in 1998.

“I started coaching at Alabama State University in Montgomery right after I was done playing college ball,” said Blevins, a Pleasant Grove High School product. “I got a taste of coaching, but didn’t really think I wanted to do that. So, I decided to get into corporate America and took a couple different jobs.

“I also tried to make another run at playing in the (original) XFL in 2001 (with the Birmingham Thunderbolts), but after a knee injury, I knew that was done.”

And while he was planning on getting away from coaching, coaching kept seeming to find its way back to him.

“I ran into one of my former college coaches and we talked about different guys who were bouncing around,” he explained. “The name of one of my former coaches at UAB (George Pugh) came up, and he was coaching in Atlanta. I ended up taking a job with UPS in their corporate office, which was based in Atlanta, and we ended up catching up. He offered me an assistant coaching job to help out with his high school team (Meadowbrook High School) but I wasn’t interested.

“He talked me into meeting up for lunch and we went up to the high school just to check it out. He only had one other coach helping with 45 kids, so I decided to help them out while he was looking for assistants. After a few weeks I asked him if the offer as an assistant coach still stood because I was really having a lot of fun with the kids and enjoyed what we were building.”

Then, it hit.

“When I coached right after school, I was young and going through the process,” he said. “It was when I was in Atlanta coaching high school when I fell in love with it.”

Blevins was at Meadowbrook from 2003-04, and moved to the college ranks from 2005-07, working with wide receivers, defensive backs and special teams at Mississippi State. It was during his time with the Bulldogs when he earned a Master’s degree in instructional technology.

That was a springboard for three other college jobs (including a one-year stint at UAB in 2012) and assistant coaching gigs with the Arizona Cardinals (2013-17) and Giants, where he started in 2018 as a special teams coach.

He was part of the Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship Program with the Chicago Bears (2008), Cardinals (2010) and Indianapolis Colts (2011).

Oh, and he also managed to get a PhD in instructional systems and workforce development at Mississippi State in 2015.

“The PhD ranks right there at the top of the board, and it’s not even close,” Blevins said. “Education is something no one can take away from you. You can lose certain jobs in coaching, you can have different titles, but no one can take away all the hard work and dedication I put into my degree, and I’m proud of that.”

When the Vipers came calling, they quickly knew they’d found the right man for the job.

“Anthony’s talent and potential were evident throughout the interview process and in speaking with some coaches, staff and former players from the New York Giants, it was clear that he knows how to connect with players and staff,” XFL Executive Vice President of Football Operations Marc Ross said. “He is a very bright coach who has made stops at every level of football from coaching high school in Atlanta to the Giants with collegiate and NFL stops in between. On top of his coaching experience, he knows what opportunity our league can provide to players and staff.”

Although injuries prevented him from competing in XFL 1.0, Blevins was a member of the Regional Football League’s Mobile Admirals in 1999 and played for the af2 Birmingham Steeldogs a year later.

So, how did suiting up in alternative leagues help prepare him to coach in one?

“To me, that’s simple – you have to be able to adapt, adjust and be flexible,” Blevins said. “If someone was in the NFL or major Division 1 program, they have certain resources. In different leagues, you have to be flexible with a bunch of different things, whether that’s on practice time or sharing certain facilities.

“Those attributes off the field will certainly help our guys when they take the field if something doesn’t go as planned in a game.” 

Remembering the lessons learned from his college days doesn’t hurt, either.

“Being a former player helps give me an insight into the players, but the coaching game is so different from being a player,” he said. “There certainly have been certain instances where I think like a player as a coach, but mainly from a teaching perspective. I want to make sure that players understand what we are teaching them, so from time to time I’ll put on my former player hat and say, ‘Would this make sense to me as a player?’”

Last season the Vipers – under the direction of Rod Woodson – struggled to a 2-8 record, last in the North Division of the rebooted XFL.

Blevins hopes to flip the script when a new season kicks off next February.

“We’re going to come out and work every day,” Blevins promised. “We are going to play a style of football that’s tough and physical. We want to dictate to the other teams that they have to play us a certain way.

“There’s no film on me as a head coach, so I can’t give away too many secrets, but we’ll be a fun team to watch.”