Category: Alternative Football

One of the most significant dates in professional football history came on August 14, 1959, when Texas millionaire Lamar Hunt announced the formation of the American Football League.

But how about January 8, 1959?

That was the date the Mid-American Professional Football League was introduced and it seemed, at the time, quite newsworthy. Initially touted as a minor league feeder system for the National Football League, the new circuit quickly set its designs on growing into a second major league before disappearing prior to the AFL’s creation.

It was a short but interesting ride.

Birmingham advertising executive Virgil Pierson, representing an organization called Sports Promotion Enterprises, conducted a meeting in Chicago attended by 17 sports-minded businessmen. Discussed was the formation of a minor football league with franchises in Atlanta, Miami, Houston, New Orleans, Buffalo, Louisville, and Columbus, Ohio, in an Eastern Conference and Denver, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas, Memphis, Oklahoma City and St. Louis in the Western Conference of what was tentatively called the East-West Professional Football League.

Pierson said the people involved with the league wanted working agreements with National Football League clubs and serve a similar role that minor league baseball had with the big leagues.

“The league would provide a training ground for collegiate stars not ready to step in with the top pros,” Pierson told United Press International.

Pierson added that the league would be a place for players and coaches who had left the NFL to continue their careers, but it had no intention of competing with the big dogs. In fact, there was talk of playing a spring or summer schedule to avoid conflicts with both the NFL and college ball.

Former New York Giants and Auburn standout Travis Tidwell was helping coordinate the effort.

“The new pro football league could definitely go and give fans the type of football they’d pay to see,” Tidwell said in an interview with UPI.

But just over a month later, what was now known as the Mid-American Professional Football League had much bigger plans.

Tidwell was named president, and UPI reported that delegations representing potential franchises were told the MAPFL would be on the same level as the NFL after just two years of play. Even Pierson admitted he had undersold the league when he first referred to it as “minor.”

On February 14 Tidwell said 23 cities were being considered for the 12 flagship franchises: Atlanta, Miami, St. Petersburg, Charlotte, Shreveport, Louisville, Buffalo, Columbus, Brooklyn, Dallas, Mobile, New Orleans, Denver, Kansas City, Memphis, St Louis, Indianapolis, Phoenix, El Paso, San Antonio, Tulsa, Houston and Minneapolis.

(Kinda weird that Pierson – a guy from Birmingham – was spearheading this league and Birmingham wasn’t considered for a franchise, but whatever).

A meeting was set for February 15 in Memphis and the main order of business would be the awarding of franchises. However, bad weather prevented the gathering from taking place as scheduled so it was postponed.

By late July the Mid-American Professional Football League had morphed into the Trans-America Football Conference, with Tidwell still serving as prez and still planning on a 1960 launch with a minimum of 10 teams. He told UPI the league had changed its name because it “… has mushroomed beyond that now and is truly national in scope.”

But on July 1, NFL commissioner Bert Bell announced that three new football circuits were in the works – the Trans-America, International, and American. Bell said he knew very little about the first two leagues. However, he was aware that Hunt was pushing the American loop. That one, he thought, had the best chance to succeed if it could overcome several major obstacles.

“They’d have to make television arrangements, draw up contracts, draft players, secure stadium rights, arrange publicity, get their franchises and many other details,” Bell told AP.

Turns out, the American Football League did just that, with Hunt announcing that teams in Dallas, Houston, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Denver, New York, Los Angeles and possibly two other cities would be ready to play in 1960 and vowing it would be a second major league.

As for the International Football League – and East-West Professional Football League/ Mid-American Professional Football League/Trans-America Football Conference – their dreams died with the birth of the AFL.

The IFL was the brainchild of Jack Corbett, who continued to push for a 1961 launch – playing a summer schedule – but it never got off the ground.

Nor did the league proposed by Pierson and Tidwell, who apparently dropped their plans after realizing the AFL had beaten them to the starting line and had all of Hunt’s money behind it.

Perhaps had they gotten an audience with Bell earlier and stuck to the original idea as a farm system, the entire infrastructure of professional football would’ve been dramatically altered thanks to the Mid-American Professional Football League.

Today challenging the National Football League would be a fool’s errand. The NFL is a multi-billion dollar money maker that could (and would) crush any competition. But in 1953 it was a 12-team league still looking to find its way, and J. Curtis Sanford thought he might have a way to take it on.

How?

Location, location, location.

Sanford was a major mover and shaker who was the originator of the Cotton Bowl as well as an investor in the Dallas Texans, the ill-fated club that played one NFL season in 1952. With Dallas no longer part of the league, pro football had no teams in the South or Southwest, and that gave Sanford an idea: why not form a small league located entirely in that region of the continent?

So on January 24, 1953, he unveiled plans for the six-team Southern Football League, which would have franchises in Atlanta, Birmingham, Dallas, Houston, Mexico City and New Orleans. The idea came 15 years after another Texas promoter, Bennie Strickland, proposed a similar league in many of the same locales.

“I don’t think the new league would have any trouble getting players,” Sanford told United Press International. “And I think the league will go over, with the proper promotion. We will have a strong promotion program here, you can bet. The Texans would’ve gone over last year with better promotion.

“Mexico City is a fine spot for professional football and will strengthen the league. Mexico City has the finest stadium in the world and just last month a (soccer) game there drew 122,000 paid admissions.”

But Sanford suggested climate and lifestyle would be the big draw for top-quality players.

“Money isn’t everything to a football player,” he said. “The players now take into consideration such things as weather conditions, living conditions and a lot of little things that go toward a happy, satisfied life.

“Here in the south we can offer the best of all these things and my talks with some professional football players bear this out. The response from those I’ve talked to has been terrifically enthusiastic, especially the idea of having Mexico City as a member of the circuit.”

(Editor’s note: Jim Crow laws were still in effect in the Deep South so African-American players would strongly disagree with the “happy, satisfied life” assessment. The 1952 Texans featured two Black players, Buddy Young and George Taliaferro, but Dallas was a segregated city along with the rest of the American southern cities considered for the league).

Sanford also said he had learned valuable lessons from the Texans debacle, and that knowledge would help make the SFL a success.

“Football is a big business and to succeed it has to be operated as such,” Sanford said. “The Dallas Texans’ brief fling in the pro league provided us with a lot of examples of things not to do. But there have been many other examples of unsound business practices involving even the long-established clubs.

“We hope to profit by these mistakes and minimize our chances of making any fatal errors.”

Another advantage for the SFL would be that it wouldn’t have to battle with the NFL for stadiums or fan support since it was going into mostly new markets.

“We would not be competing for attendance at the gate, for choice dates or use of the same stadiums, factors which struck heavy financial blows at everyone concerned,” Sanford said. “We’re going to do it right or not do it all.”

Sanford didn’t name any propspective team owners, but said he had been in touch with several interested parties and promised to line up heavy hitters for all the franchises. He even hoped to lure some former Texans to the new league.

“The Texans never released the players,” he told Associated Press. “Of course, we can’t make the players play for us, but I’ve talked to some of the players from last year’s team and their reaction to the Southern League, with its international flavor, is terrific.”

In February an exhibition game was played between the Politecnico All-Stars and American All-Stars in Mexico City, which was seen as something of a test run for a SFL team there.

It did not go well.

Although the home Politecnico team defeated the American contingent, 31-6, in front of 30,000 fans, many of the patrons spent the afternoon booing the players. They also threw trash on the field and – according to a UPI news report – set fires in the grandstands.

Whether that changed Sanford’s plans or not no one knows for sure, but nothing else was heard from the entreprenuer concerning the formation of the Southern Football League.

By the time the 1953 NFL season began the Texans assets had been turned over to the new Baltimore Colts franchise, and the NFL didn’t face head-to-head competition until 1960 when the American Football League hit the field.

Ironically, it was the new Dallas Texans of the AFL – as well as the Houston Oilers – that gave professional football a southern presence it has maintained ever since.

Since tackle football is, at its core, an American game, it stands to reason that any pro league would look to American players to fill its rosters. But two years before the World League of American Football did just that, a Texas businessman hoped to flip the script.

Carroll Huntress, a member of the Dallas City Council who had previously coached both college and professional football, announced the formation of the International League of American Football in November, 1989.

“We want to bring a little of American pro football to Europe.” Huntress told the Associated Press. “And we want this to be true nationals, not Americans who might be living in Italy. Our goal is to have no Americans and we think that is an attainable goal in seven to eight years.”

While the World League – set to begin play in 1991 – was designed to serve as a developmental league for the NFL, Huntress said that would not be the case with the ILAF.

The plan was to start with all-American coaching staffs to teach the game, and fill skill positions (two quarterbacks, two running backs, three wide receivers, two linebackers and three defensive backs) with 12 American players per team. Over time, as the European players advanced and tackle football became more common, the United States-based coaches and athletes would be phased out.

“We are not interested in television in the United States,” Huntress said. “Our seats are going to be sold here – not in America. We are negotiating for European TV rights and hope to have a league-wide package, but if we can’t get what we are seeking that way we would negotiate individually in each city. We hope to televise every game.”

The league targeted an April, 1990, start with franchises in Rome, Milan, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Helsinki, Munich, London and Birmingham, England.

Huntress expected to average 15,000 fans per game and even predicted the circuit would turn a profit by its third year (theoretically a realistic goal considering American players would make no more than $500 per game and the European players less than that).

“Europeans are used to fast-moving games and penalty flags can slow down football,” Huntress said. “Our basic premise which we will tell the officials is like the old saying in basketball, ‘No harm, no foul.’”

By December the ILAF was signing players and front office personnel, and in January, 1990, London hired Jack Elway as head coach and Helsinki inked a deal with former New York Jets and New Jersey Generals coach Walt Michaels. Huntress had worked as a Jets assistant under Michaels for five seasons.

The organization seemed to be gaining momentum as its launch date approached, but then things started falling apart – and they fell apart quickly.

In February the teams in Rome and Milan dropped out because of stadium conflicts related to World Cup matches, and on March 1 the ILAF decided to cancel the 1990 season due to issues with work permits for American players. However, league spokesman Steve Gerrish said it would be ready to begin play in 1991.

Unfortunately, it breathed its last before it had a chance to do much breathing at all. On May 2, the International League of American Football folded after it was reported that American financial backers had withdrawn their support.

“This is absolutely shameful,” ILAF general manager Tor Westerberg told AP. “This will really damage the reputation of American businessmen and American sports in Europe.”

The WLAF filled the European tackle football void in London, Barcelona and Frankfurt in 1991, and by the time the league had rebooted as NFL Europe in 1995 it had an all-international lineup of franchises.

As for Huntress’ dream of a mostly European-stocked circuit, that currently exists with the 12-team European League of Football. The ELF mandates that no team can have more than four “A-Players” (American, Canadian, Japanese or Mexican) players on its roster, and a maximum of eight additional foreign athletes.