Category: Alternative Football

By 1983, my Hamilton Tiger-Cats fandom was pretty solid.

I had jumped on their bandwagon when Canadian Football League games were first beamed into my living room back in the early 70s, and my fondness for the Tabbies was holding strong.

With a black and gold color scheme and a hyphenated nickname born of the merger of the Hamilton Tigers and Hamilton Wildcats, what wasn’t to love?

But for a brief period that year, it appeared I might have to look for another side to support: Ti-Cats owner Harold Ballard threatened to fold the team.

Ballard wanted to move the franchise to Toronto’s Varsity Stadium after the Hamilton city council refused to renovate Ivor Wynne Stadium and grant him concession rights.

“We have been approached by the Tiger-Cats and all I can say at this point is that we have been asked what would be involved in moving the club to Toronto,” CFL commissioner Jake Gaudaur told United Press Canada on March 15, 1983. “We replied that the team would have to receive permission from the Toronto Argonauts and then from the CFL.”

Permission was denied.

The Argos quickly exercised their territorial rights, and prevented the Tiger-Cats from shifting 40 miles east and creating an intra-city arch rivalry.

Thus, Ballard put the club was on the chopping block, threatening to relegate the Oskee Wee Wee cheer (“Oskee wee wee! Oskee wa wa! Holy mackinaw! Tigers, eat ‘em raw!”) to the dustbin of history.

But 1983 was also the first season of the United States Football League, and Canadian John Bassett – who owned the Tampa Bay Bandits of the USFL – was chairman of the fledgling circuit’s expansion committee.

After failing nine years earlier to get a Toronto franchise in the World Football League (I wrote about Bassett’s WFL days last week), he believed Hamilton could have a future in the USFL.

“Hamilton is a great football city,” Bassett said in a Canadian Press story published on March 22. “It’s rich in football tradition and Ivor Wynne Stadium is acceptable. I know all kinds of people in Canada who would be willing to own a USFL franchise in Hamilton. I absolutely guarantee that it would take less than two days to get owners from the USFL to approve of Hamilton.

“If (Ballard) wanted to leave Hamilton, or if he wants to fold the Tiger-Cats, the USFL would welcome the opportunity to take advantage of the Hamilton football market. The people in Hamilton are sitting there thinking they can lose a football club, but they should know it won’t take very much to get another club.”

Ballard was a majority owner of the NHL Toronto Maple Leafs, so it made sense he’d want his football team in the same town as his skaters.

After being rebuffed by the city council, he had all the Ti-Cats equipment loaded on a van and moved to Maple Leaf Gardens.

“It’s all over,” Ballard said. “I’m changing the location of the team.”

Hamilton mayor Bob Morrow wanted to keep Hamilton a CFL city, of course, but reportedly expressed interest in the USFL if Ballard pulled the plug. After all, competing in a new circuit would be better than having no tackle football team at all.

Morrow announced that he had been charged with mediating the dispute.

“Council has authorized me to negotiate with the necessary people to keep the Ti-Cats in Hamilton, and that includes Mr. Ballard,” Morrow said in a radio interview. “I’m confident we can do that. We’ll do what we have to do.

“The bottom line is keeping our team. I’m looking closely at every aspect of our association with Mr. Ballard.”

If you don’t remember the “Hamilton to the USFL” talk – and the only reason I know anything about it is because I stumbled across it doing research – it might be because it ended almost as quickly as it began.

On March 23, the Hamilton city council – following six hours of debate – reached an agreement with Ballard. They approved a $300,000 contract package for use of the stadium, and Ballard got control of all concessions at Ivor Wynne.

“I’m glad to be back in Hamilton,” Ballard said after the deal was closed. “The politicians are lousy, but the people have always treated me fine. They even cheered me once.”

As intriguing as the thought of the Hamilton Hammers (or Hamilton Whatevers) participating in four-down football might have been, the original USFL played just three seasons.

Fortunately for gridiron supporters in Steeltown – and me – the Tiger-Cats play on.

The club is now owned by Hamilton Sports Group, with Bob Young the largest shareholder, and Ivor Wynne Stadium was demolished in 2013; the Tabbies currently ply their trade at Hamilton Stadium (originally Tim Hortons Field).

And all those years later, I’m still a fan – of both the Ti-Cats and the Canadian Football League.

Which reminds me … the Ti-Cats host the Argos in a preseason game on May 24. I should probably go ahead and start working on my Oskee Wee Wee cheer.

Fifty-one years ago this month, John Bassett shocked the sports world when he lured fullback Larry Csonka, wide receiver Paul Warfield and running back Jim Kiick away from the Super Bowl champion Miami Dolphins to the Toronto Northmen of the fledgling World Football League.

Of course, the Northmen never materialized, and relocated to Memphis (where they became the Southmen).

If you’re a football history geek, you probably already know that.

But did you know that just five months before the trio’s debut – and the start of the WFL’s ill-fated 1975 season – there was a deal in the works to send them to Chicago’s new franchise?

In early March of 1975, there was still some question as to whether or not the WFL would be around for a second try. After the epic financial disaster of the 1974 campaign, new league commissioner Chris Hemmeter was overseeing a “reorganization” plan for the league, which wouldn’t be finalized until April.

Meantime, Bassett had announced on March 2 that he had offered a group of Chicago investors Csonka, Warfield and Kiick in exchange for a joint ownership of a new Windy City-based franchise.

The Chicago Fire, which played in 1974, had folded in January, 1975.

“I would hope Csonka, Kiick and Warfield don’t have to play in Memphis,” Bassett told the Commercial Appeal in Memphis for a March 2 story.

Bassett thought the Southmen were strong enough to be a winning team even without the three. By sending them to Chicago, it would give the WFL a boost by having them showcased in a major media market – thus possibly saving the circuit from extinction.

“Their contract is a very simple one,” Bassett said. “It is a standard player’s contract with a  couple of alterations – the main alteration being that there are some personal guarantees, and the second one being that I have to be associated with the football team.”

Under Bassett’s plan, he would own both the Memphis franchise and be a part owner of the Chicago entry.

“It is conceivable that corporately we could have two separate football teams,” he told the paper. “The contract was originally signed with the Toronto Northmen, which is the general partner in Memphis. The contract is still with the Toronto Northmen.”

Bassett said the season ticket holders he had talked to in Memphis seemed to be fine with the potential loss of the NFL stars.

“We phoned every season ticket holder, and we only lost 35 subscribers – 19 had moved away or died,” he said. “We picked up 500. That was the week after the speculation, the Csonka-Kiick-Warfield story, broke. Fans could be really upset if we were 3-17, but we had the best record in North America in 1974 (17-4 with a playoff loss to the Florida Blazers).”

With stars in Memphis such as running backs J.J. Jennings and Willie Spencer, as well as wide receiver Ed Marshall, the Southmen already had plenty of weapons.

Chicago’s new team, however, needed to make a splash.

“Is it wrong to want to showcase the best you have in a suitable arena (Soldier Field) to get the maximum benefit from them?” Bassett asked. “I think not.”

Two weeks later, Csonka told the Commercial Appeal he wasn’t concerned about what team he’d be repping in ’75.

“To tell you the truth, I’m tired of hearing and reading about where we’re going to play,” the future Hall of Famer said. “One day it’s this city, the next day it’s somewhere else. As long as I get to play football, it doesn’t matter where.”

That said, the goings on behind the scenes in the WFL didn’t inspire confidence.

“It seems to me that while arguing over a sandwich, they’re going to miss dinner,” Csonka said. “It seems very, very shaky to me. I think the league is far behind schedule, and it disenchants me to know they aren’t any farther ahead at this point than they are.

“I would have thought they could have had all their groundwork completed for a second season, and be ready to go by now.”

As the calendar shifted from March to April, things got even more interesting.

Eugene Pullano had emerged as the principal owner of the Chicago franchise. And not only was he negotiating with Bassett for the “big three,” he was also trying to lure Joe Namath from the New York Jets.

Although Namath was past his prime, he would’ve certainly made the WFL a major news story.

Heading into league meetings, Pullano said he needed to close one or both deals or he wouldn’t join the league.

“Without Namath, I won’t accept the secondary package,” Pullano said in an interview with the Chicago Tribune. “If the WFL assures me in writing of Csonka, Kiick and Warfield, I’ll conditionally join the WFL. It’s one package or the other … we won’t go without them.”

On April 16, Hemmeter announced that the WFL was a go for 1975 and would feature at least 10 franchises. That same day, however, Bassett and Pullano broke off negotiations for Csonka, Warfield and Kiick.

“They will play for the Memphis Southmen, period,” Bassett told United Press International. “It did not become necessary for me to sell their contracts to the league in order for the WFL to continue.

“Initially, I never intended them to play anywhere else but in Toronto, but when I was forced to move to Memphis, I never intended for them to play anywhere else but Memphis.”

Namath ultimately turned down Chicago’s $4 million offer, but Pullano reconsidered and decided to move forward with the new franchise, nicknamed the Winds.

It was a bad idea.

Chicago was the first team to fold in the WFL’s second season, going cleats up after just five regular season games and finishing 1-4. Their final game, incidentally, was a 31-7 road loss to the Southmen.

The rest of the league followed suit after 12 weeks; Memphis fans got to see Csonka, Warfield and Kiick perform at the Liberty Bowl just seven times before waning fan interest – and a lack of a national TV contract – doomed the WFL for good.

“I still want to play some football,” Csonka said on the day the WFL folded – October 22, 1975. “But the league just fell out from under us.”

If social media had been around on this day 30 years ago, Canadian Football League accounts would’ve been blowing up.

I mean, as far as CFL news days go, February 16, 1995, was epic.

For openers, San Antonio’s arrival as a CFL city was made official when that town’s city council approved an agreement to move the Sacramento Gold Miners to South Texas.

Elsewhere, the sale of the Ottawa Rough Riders remained in limbo, and matters became more complicated when head coach and director of football operations Adam Rita bolted for Memphis to become that expansion franchise’s offensive coordinator.

And the Las Vegas Posse, whose inaugural season was a disaster both on the field (5-13 record) and at the box office (8,953 was the average per game attendance), was pondering a move to either Los Angeles or Jackson, Mississippi.

Yet while all that made for hot conversation topics in the land of rouges and 20-yard deep end zones, it paled in comparison to rumors that the CFL was going to fold within six weeks and rebrand under a new name.

The Toronto Globe and Mail, citing confidential sources, reported that, “ … Owners and lawyers have been secretly examining the idea of folding the league and then reopening a few days later under a new name, in time for the 1995 season.”

Now, if you’re not a CFL fan (and really, you should be because it’s fantastic) you might have either forgotten or didn’t know that the circuit was in the midst of experimenting with U.S.-based franchises.

The Sacramento Gold Miners joined in 1993, and in 1994 the Baltimore CFL Colts (later renamed the Stallions because the NFL has a lot of lawyers), Las Vegas Posse and Shreveport Pirates were added.

In 1995 the league had 13 teams, including five in the United States (the Stallions, Birmingham Barracudas, Memphis Mad Dogs, San Antonio Texans and Pirates).

The CFL’s “ratio rule” stipulated that at least 20 players on a team’s 37-player active roster had to be Canadian. However, labor laws in the United States prohibited such restrictions, so American teams could load up on U.S.-born talent.

Thinking that would tip the power balance heavily in favor of teams south of the Canadian border, a “new” league would end the ratio rule and, thus, level the playing field.

“Yes, it looks like it could be coming to this – the end of the CFL,” a management source told the paper. “It’s unfortunate, but it may be the only way we can get rid of the Canadian quota.”

So, while legacy clubs such as the British Columbia Lions, Calgary Stampeders, Edmonton Eskimos, Hamilton Tiger-Cats, Ottawa Rough Riders, Saskatchewan Roughriders, Toronto Argonauts and Winnipeg Blue Bombers would still be around, they’d be in the North American Football League or Can-Am Football League, and be able to fill out their rosters with no restrictions.

Canadian rules (three downs to make a first down, 12-players per side, longer and wider field, etc.) would remain in effect, though.

“If the CFL folds up and then becomes another U.S. Football

League or World Football League, it would do irreparable damage to its reputation,” CFL Players Association rep Dan Ferrone told the Globe and Mail. “It would be taking a major step backwards, in my opinion.”

As you can imagine, reaction to the bombshell was swift, with CFL commissioner Larry Smith calling it “totally preposterous.”

“The author and the source of this story have a vivid imagination and are obviously attempting to undermine our negotiations with the Players Association,” Smith said in a statement. “The league and the Players Association have agreed to negotiate in good faith between the parties and not in the press.”

Well, six weeks passed and by April, the CFL was still the CFL. And when the season started later in the summer, the ratio rule was in place for the Canadian teams and the American sides got to ignore it.

The end result was the Stallions winning the league title with an 18-3 record and establishing themselves as one of the great Canadian Football League teams in history.

But leading up to the 1996 campaign, the only folding being discussed involved sides that called the United States home.

With the NFL returning to Baltimore, the Stallions exited Maryland and morphed into the rebooted Montreal Alouettes. The other American teams simply went out of business. Thus, there was no longer a need to change the CFL’s name because it was – once again – truly the Canadian Football League.

And 30 years later, I’m grateful that it still has its identity, still has the ratio rule, and still proudly reps its nation. It might not employee the world’s best tackle football players, but it might just have the world’s best style of tackle football.

At least I think so.