Category: Alternative Football

Before Tuesday Birmingham had been home to eight professional football teams – the Americans (1974), Vulcans (1975), Stallions (1983-85), Fire (1991-92), Barracudas (1995), Steeldogs (2000-07), Thunderbolts (2001) and Iron (2019).

Now, it’s home to eight clubs all at once.

On January 25, 2022, the Magic City officially became the hub of the fledgling United States Football League, with all of the league’s regular season games, playoffs and championship slated for either Protective Stadium in the Uptown District or Legion Field on Graymont Avenue this season.

“Welcome home to the USFL,” Birmingham mayor Randall Woodfin said during a news conference at Protective Stadium. “Birmingham has a deep history as a sports town and its connection to the USFL. This is what regional cooperation really looks like. I look forward to cheering on the Stallions here and at Legion Field.”

While the new Birmingham Stallions will be the only team to actually compete in their home stadium, the Houston Gamblers, Michigan Panthers, New Jersey Generals, New Orleans Breakers, Philadelphia Stars, Pittsburgh Maulers and Tampa Bay Bandits will play all their games here as well.

“I honestly feel like this is real for the first time,” Eric Shanks, CEO and executive producer of Fox Sports, said. “And we just couldn’t be more excited to be here today to start a new piece of football history. At FOX Sports, our entire business is built around football. We were literally born in football back in 1994 and when this opportunity came to start the USFL, especially when we started talking to the folks here in Birmingham, we know that you share our passion to celebrate football as much as we did. You know what it means to the players that get the opportunity to play this great game. You know what it means to be able to bring more people to this community, to its businesses, and now to the entire country.

“And that’s why we’re all here today, to officially make the USFL headquarters here in Birmingham, Alabama.”

There will be 43 games in all with 12 broadcast on FOX, 10 on FS1, eight on NBC, nine on the USA Network and four on Peacock.

Following a player selection meeting Feb. 22-23, USFL training camps are scheduled to open on March 21, giving teams just over three weeks to prepare for opening day on April 16.

Team rosters will be set at 38 active players with a seven-man practice squad.

“To have eight teams in Birmingham for 10 weeks is going to be awesome,” Stallions coach Skip Holtz said. “But selfishly, to me it’s about the Stallions and the history of the USFL and the team and its record, which was 36-18, and we want to add to that.”

Although the branding of the league and its teams are the same as those of the original USFL (1983-85), this organization is vastly different from its namesake.

The USFL of the 1980s signed established National Football League stars and top college talent, luring three consecutive Heisman Trophy winners to the spring circuit. Its freewheeling spending not only positioned it as a threat to the power structure of the NFL, but ultimately helped pave the way to huge salaries in professional football.

The new USFL will be a developmental league designed to help players get a shot at the NFL. Instead of Steve Youngs, rosters will be full of young Steves.

“When I first had the opportunity to sit down and talk to (director of football operations) Brian Woods, I was excited,” Holtz said. “And the more I met with him and the more I met with the FOX people the more impressed I became. I think it has the backing to be successful. I don’t think this is a two-legged chair, this is on a solid foundation.”

Aside from Holtz, other coaches are Kevin Sumlin, Gamblers; Mike Riley, Generals; Todd Haley, Bandits; Bart Andrus, Stars; Kirby Wilson, Maulers; Jeff Fisher, Panthers; and Larry Fedora, Breakers.

Combined, the men manning the sidelines have experience ranging from the NFL to the Canadian Football League to the college ranks, while two are alternative football veterans. Riley coached in the World League of American Football and the Alliance of American Football and Andrus has experience in NFL Europe, the United Football League and The Spring League.

Following the annoucement I asked Woods about potential rule innovations for the USFL.

“Ninety percent of our rules will be NFL game rules, but there’ll be a few deviations we’re incorporating into the USFL game to make it a little more exciting for the fans and increase the pace of play,” he said. “I think it’s something fans will really enjoy in terms of the minor deviations we’ll have. We’ll be announcing the new rules here in a few weeks.”

As for player compensation, Woods was tight-lipped.

“Right now we’re in a talent procurement process,” Woods said. “We’ll be out signing players over the next several weeks and as we sign players and issue contracts the information about what they’re being paid will get out in the public domain pretty quickly.

“There’s always been an abundance of really good professional football talent out there in the open market, but what makes this year a little different is more players are coming out of the ranks of the NCAA that have been given a draft rate by the NFL. That surplus number is somewhere between 750 and 1,500. So we’re hoping to sign some players from this year’s draft class.”

The Stallions and Generals will have the honor of inaugurating the new league when they meet at 6:30 p.m. on April 16 at Protective Stadium, a matchup that will be simulcast by FOX and NBC. It will mark the first appearance of a Birmingham professional football team since the Birmingham Iron topped the Atlanta Legends, 17-9, at Legion Field on March 31, 2019, in the final weekend of the ill-fated Alliance of American Football.

While the AAF ran out of money and folded after eight weeks, FOX has pledged $150 million over three years to keep the USFL up and running.

Tickets for 2022 USFL games start at $10 and children age 15 and under will be admitted at no charge.

Welcome to the Birmingham chapter of the Alternative Football Coaches Club, Skip Holtz. It’s been three years since the last meeting has been called to order.

The new United States Football League – which is unrelated to the 1983-85 USFL – has unveiled six of its coaches for 2022, and Holtz was named head coach of the Birmingham Stallions on Thursday. The circuit begins play in April at Protective Stadium and Legion Field.

“I’m thrilled to be coaching in the USFL and I can’t wait to get started,” Holtz said via a USFL press release. “The opportunity to build a new league from scratch, with the support we have, is unique. I’m also really excited about having the chance to build something in Birmingham, a city that I know will embrace the USFL and the Stallions.”

Other league coaches are Kevin Sumlin, Houston Gamblers; Mike Riley, New Jersey Generals; Todd Haley, Tampa Bay Bandits; Bart Andrus, Philadelphia Stars; and Kirby Wilson, Pittsburgh Maulers. The New Orleans Breakers and Michigan Panthers have yet to name their on-field bosses.

If you’re an alternative football history buff (and I’m one of the buffiest) you might know that Holtz will be the 12th head coach to lead a Birmingham-branded professional football team (I’m confining the list to the modern era and excluding the numerous outdoor/indoor semi-pro teams that have come and gone).

Jack Gotta started it all when he was tapped to guide the World Football League Birmingham Americans in 1974.

In 1975, Marvin Bass was in charge of the WFL Birmingham Vulcans.

Harry Lander owned and coached the American Football Association Alabama Vulcans in 1979.

Steve Patton coached the AFA Alabama Magic in 1982.

Rollie Dotsch was in charge of the original USFL’s Birmingham Stallions from 1983-85.

Next up was the World League of American Football’s Birmingham Fire, who spent 1991-92 under the tutelage of Chan Gailey.

Jack Pardee was the big fish for the Canadian Football League’s Birmingham Barracudas in 1995.

The Birmingham (later Alabama) Steeldogs of the Arena Football League feeder system, af2, were coached by Bobby Humphrey from 2000-2005 and Ron Selesky in 2006 and 2007.

Gerry DiNardo held the reins of the XFL Birmingham Bolts in 2001.

And before Holtz, Tim Lewis was the most recent Magic City pro coach, leading the Alliance of American Football’s Birmingham Iron in 2019.

So what does Holtz bring to the table?

The son of Hall of Famer Lou Holtz and Notre Dame graduate has spent his entire coaching career at the college level, logging a 152-121 overall record at UConn, East Carolina, South Florida and Louisiana Tech and going 8-4 in bowl games. He spent the past nine seasons heading up the Bulldogs of Conference USA, where he compiled a 64-50 record, won two league titles and was named CUSA Coach of the Year in 2016.

Following a 3-9 season in 2021 (including a 52-38 loss to UAB at Protective Stadium), he was fired at Louisiana Tech.

In terms of coaching success, how does he stack up against his predecessors?

Gotta was already an established coach in the CFL before jumping to the WFL, leading the Ottawa Rough Riders to the Grey Cup in 1973.

He followed that up with a World Bowl title with the Americans, marking the first – and so far, only – time a Birmingham team has won a professional football crown. The Ams were 17-5 that season and undefeated at Legion Field.

Bass was head coach of the Vulcans in 1975, and although the WFL folded midseason, his team had a league-best 9-3 record – including back-to-back victories over the Memphis Southmen (with Paul Warfield, Larry Csonka and Jim Kiick). He had previously skippered William & Mary and South Carolina in the college ranks and the Montreal Beavers of the Continental Football League.

Lander had already led San Antonio and Shreveport to AFA championships and hoped for a three-peat when he came to Birmingham, but the minor league version of the Vulcans wound up 13-6 and lost in the first round of the playoffs.

The AFA returned to Alabama in 1982 with the Magic, and Patton got the job after spending two years as a graduate assistant at Furman. His first head coaching gig ended with a 6-4 record and no postseason.

Dotsch was a longtime NFL assistant before getting his shot with the Stallions. After a .500 season in 1983 Dotsch went on to tally a 36-18 record in the USFL and help mold Birmingham’s entry into one of the league’s best franchises, winning division titles his last two years.

Gailey not only had state college ties before coming to the Birmingham Fire, but a national crown on his resume. He spent two years at Troy (then Troy State University) in 1983-84, and in 1984 he coached the Trojans to a 12-1 workskeet and Division II National Championship. Gailey was 12-7-1 with two playoff appearances in two years with the WLAF franchise.

Barracudas boss Jack Pardee arrived in Birmingham with a head coaching job history that included stints in the NFL, WFL and USFL, but his one-and-done year in the CFL ended with a 10-9 record and loss in the first round of the playoffs.

Humphrey had no coaching experience when he took the Steeldogs job, but managed a 51-50 record over six years. Selesky, on the other hand, had several stops in both the AFL and af2 before coming to Birmingham and logging a 14-19 record over two years.

DiNardo’s hire made a big splash when he came to the XFL, especially considering he had a measure of success at Vanderbilt and was just two years removed from being head coach at LSU.

But the Bolts were far and away the league’s worst team, finishing 2-8.

Finally, there was Lewis of the Iron.

Another coach who had a long, solid career as a defensive coach in the NFL finally got his chance to run the show, and Lewis led Birmingham to a 5-3 record and clinched a playoff berth before the AAF pulled the plug with two weeks remaining in the regular season.

All told, Birmingham pro football has amassed a 175-132-1 record with only Dotsch (three years) and Gailey (two years) having multiple campaigns at the helm of an outdoor franchise.

Now Holtz has the opportunity to provide fans with more wins – and perhaps more seasons – as head coach of the Birmingham Stallions.

For a more comprehensive look at Birmingham’s pro football history, I invite you to read “The Home Team: My Bromance With Off-Brand Football.”

I wasn’t a history major in college, nor did I ever work for the World Football League. But when it comes to the history of the WFL, I’ve always considered myself to have a pretty good working knowledge of its timeline.

Yet when you let research take you in whatever direction it happens to go, you sometimes end up with a surprise.  And thanks to a happy accident, I recently learned something new about the formation of the league.

Namely, a “World Football League” was proposed by Louis P. Roberts in early 1973.

Now, you ask most people who they think conjured the idea of the World Football League and if they have a passing knowledge of it they’ll say Gary Davidson.

Look a little further, though, and you discover that Tony Razzano and Louis S. Goldman planned a global circuit about the same time as Davidson, if not before. Both groups announced their organizations in October, 1973, but Razzano and Goldman had to change the name of theirs to Universal Football League since Davidson beat them to the WFL punch when he held the first press conference among the competing leagues.

The UFL decided to step back and regroup for a 1975 spring/summer season (that never happened, with Razzano joining forces with Davidson in 1974 and eventually becoming administrative director for the Jacksonville Sharks).

But Roberts?

I had no clue, and the only reason I found out was when I was researching old newspaper clippings on an unrelated topic and just happened upon a Philadelphia Inquirer article.

The headline – World Football League May Give Boo-Birds a Choice in ‘74 – drew me in, but the date is what really caught my attention. It appeared in the newspaper’s February 27, 1973, edition, which was almost eight months before the historical WFL was introduced to the public.

According to the story, written by Gordon Forbes, Roberts was an insurance executive based in Anniston, Alabama, who was looking to line up some millionaires to invest in a 10-city World Football League. The inaugural franchises in 1974 would be chosen 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.”

Apparently Roberts had placed an advertisement looking for investors sometime in 1972, and gave the newspaper a list of several big money business figures he had either already contacted or hoped to get in touch with.

One of special interest to me was Hugh Morrow III, a wealthy Birmingham banker and politician who had been trying to bring big-time pro football to the Magic City since the 1960s. However, he had no interest in the WFL and said Roberts was trying to pull off what American Football League founder Lamar Hunt had done.

“He’s playing the same game Lamer did,” Morrow told the Inquirer. “But he hasn’t got the muscle Lamar has. Very few of us do. Our particular organization is not interested in his league, just the NFL. We feel that’s where our Birmingham commitment is.

“We know we’re competing with Tampa and Memphis (for an NFL expansion team) but we still think this town is a real hotspot for professional football.”

Zip Viracola, a Dallas businessman who had played for Vince Lombardi at Fordham as well as Washington and Green Bay in the NFL, said he wanted to make sure the WFL would have a national TV contract before making a commitment.

“Starting a football league isn’t that easy,” he said. “If you don’t have a TV contract, you might as well start another Continental League, be another Pottstown.”

Jump to October 23, 1974, and Davidson announces that the World Football League would play in 1974, with Chicago getting the first franchise and New York, Honolulu, Toronto, Boston, Los Angeles and possibly Tokyo expected to join soon.

One man not at the press conference was Roberts.

The WFL started without him – and without any acknowledgment that he had a World Football League in the works.

Ultimately for Roberts, it might’ve been a good thing. By the time the WFL reached the finish line in 1974 it was buried under a mountain of debt. And with franchises folding and/or relocating during the season and some players waiting for paychecks that never came, it was considered one of the greatest sports business debacles in history.

But Roberts was bitter.

Again talking to Forbes for a November 20, 1974, piece in the Inquirer, Roberts said WFL owners Robert Schmertz (New York Stars) and John Bassett (Memphis Southmen) stole his idea.

“They took my concept and three of my people that would’ve been in the league,” Roberts said. “That was enough to put me out of the picture momentarily.”

Roberts said he had met with Schmertz, a representative of Bassett, and two other men on August 10, 1973.

“We didn’t have enough owners to get any progress,” he said. “But that was the night Schmertz and Bassett began to make their move. In one respect, yes, I’m bitter.”

The WFL media guide has August 2, 1973, as the date Davidson began making plans for the WFL, which was more than a week before Roberts held his summit. But there’s no denying that Roberts’ vision of a World Football League was revealed in February, 1973.

“It makes me bitter because everything happened so fast,” Roberts said in the 1974 article. “They quickly signed the articles of incorporation in Santa Ana County. I wiped my eyes when it went down because I had worked three years. I had left no stone unturned. I researched and researched and priced uniforms, contacted people …”

While an interesting cloak and dagger tale, we’ll never know if Roberts’ version would’ve ever gotten off the ground or – if it had – would’ve lasted longer than the WFL’s one and a half year run.

But if he had lined up owners with $5 million or $10 million to spare, it most certainly could’ve made a world of difference.