Category: Alternative Football

No one yet knows if the relationship between the Canadian Football League and XFL 3.0 will be of the casual, friends with benefits, or marriage variety. Meantime, here’s a historical tidbit for you – technically, this isn’t their first dance.

In 1999, the World Wrestling Federation (now known as World Wrestling Entertainment) wanted to buy the CFL. And when I say the WWF wanted to buy the Canadian Football League what I mean is WWF owner Vince McMahon wanted to buy it.

Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl

“The (CFL Board of Directors) decided it wasn’t something we wanted to pursue and we dropped it,” CFL President Jeff Giles told the Toronto Sun on February 1, 2000.

Giles said McMahon wanted to incorporate the existing CFL franchises into a North American league with separate divisions for Canadian and United States teams. The power brokers of the established association weren’t interested, so the rasslin’ mogul teamed up with Dick Ebersol and NBC Sports and started the XFL from scratch.

“We were concerned we would lose control of the Canadian game,” Giles added. “We would lose the CFL as we knew it.”

Jump to September 1, 2000. The Canadian Press reported that the CFL had approached the fledgling spring league about allowing its players to also play for the XFL. Giles said he had contacted XFL director of football operations Mike Keller concerning a possible arrangement.

“The XFL has issued a statement that any players that play with them in the 2001 season would be free after that season to play with another league,” Giles said. “Really, they have thrown it open. Now, it’s up to us to figure out what we’re going to do with that.”

Dan Ferrone, president of the CFL Players’ Association, admitted to CP he had informally discussed such a scenario with Giles. CFL players earned an average of $47,000 in Canadian dollars in 2000, so a side hustle would’ve provided a nice financial boost.

“Without question we would thoroughly enjoy something like that,” Ferrone said. “It’s a situation you have to love if you are a person with a football skill because your places of employment have really increased the last few years.”

As for what Canadian fans thought of a possible alliance between the leagues, a TSN poll found that 45 percent didn’t want it, 33 percent “might give it some thought,” and 22 percent were in favor.

By December of 2000 the “crossover event” had already begun – at least in the coaching ranks. Montreal Alouettes defensive line coach Don Wnek announced he’d be joining the XFL’s Birmingham Thunderbolts as an assistant – with the blessing of Als officials.

“My understanding from talking to (Montreal general manager Jim Popp) and (Montreal head coach Rod Rust) is that’s they’re fine with it,” Wnek told the Montreal Gazette. “It depends on your level of seniority. If you were a head coach or coordinator, it wouldn’t work. But with position coaches it works out.

“This is a wonderful opportunity professionally. I can expand my horizons while doing some scouting (for his CFL team). And I’ll make some extra money.”

However, by the time the XFL season approached in February, 2001, its officials were already looking down on their neighbors up north.

“Our worst team would beat the hell out of a CFL team,” Keller told the Leader-Post newspaper. “And our worst team could beat the best college team.”

Added Las Vegas Outlaws general manager Bobby Ackles – who once held the same post with the British Columbia Lions – “I don’t mean to demean the CFL, but you take the best 38 players here and 38 best there, this team would win.”

Of course, no one will ever know. While the XFL did OK at the gate (the eight teams averaged 23,410 fans per game) it was a ratings disaster on NBC, TNN and UPN, causing McMahon to pull the plug after just one season.

He rebooted the XFL in 2020 but the COVOD-19 global pandemic put that version out of business midway through its only campaign, possibly curing McMahon of his desire to fund a professional football league.

And now Dany Garcia, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and RedBird Capital Partners own the XFL. They made a splash by announcing last month a possible collaboration with the CFL, causing many people to jump to the conclusion that a merger was imminent. Honestly, I thought that was a longshot, figuring it would be more of a resource sharing-type deal.

But the fact that the XFL originally planned to make a third try at spring football starting in 2022 – and then put that time frame on hold pending the outcome of CFL talks – certainly lends credence to the possibility of a combined league. If not a merger, then some sort of shared infrastructure seems to be in the serious discussion stage.

So although the leagues already have a history, past isn’t necessarily prologue. The circumstances have changed dramatically for both over two decades. The question now is whether or not they’ll have a shared history going forward.

OK, maybe there’s someone out there who can help me – unless, of course, I’m dealing with a false memory.

Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl

When I was a kid – somewhere between the ages of 7 and 9 – I was watching television before heading out to school. And if you were a kid growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, and watching weekday morning TV in the late 1960s, chances are it was something called “The Tom York Morning Show.” Hosted by (spoiler alert!) Tom York, it had news, sports, weather, talk and a bit of this to go with a little of that. And one daily segment featured human interest-type stories with in-studio guests.

Now, here’s where I need assistance.

I could almost swear that one guest was the coach of a semi-pro football team called the Birmingham Moonshiners. I was wildly excited because football was something I had only recently discovered and I didn’t realize Birmingham even had a team. Also, I didn’t know what moonshine was but I was already a big werewolf fan so I was hoping it had something to do with the moon shining on a man-beast. (Only later did I learn it was an adult beverage you drink that can cause you to think you see werewolves).

Anyway, I remember the coach narrating over some grainy, black and white 8mm film featuring one of the Moonshiners’ games. (I think they wore dark jerseys and dark helmets, although I have no idea what the colors were because, you know, black and white film).

I headed off to school hoping to learn more, and I must’ve talked about the Moonshiners with other kids who had seen the segment.

I guess I got distracted, though, because by the time the weekend came I’d turned my attention to the “Batman/Superman Hour of Adventure” and “Banana Splits.”

Since then, however, I’ll occasionally think about the Moonshiners and once I started getting serious about sports research a few years ago I decided I’d find out all I could about this team.

Only problem is, I’ve found out absolutely nothing.

When I narrow my search down to the 1960s, the only semi-pro teams I come across from the era are the Birmingham Vulcans (not to be confused with the 1975 World Football League franchise) and Birmingham All-Stars. The Continental Football League had a franchise called the Alabama Hawks that played mostly in Huntsville before making a brief stop in Birmingham until folding in 1969, but the COFL was a “major” minor league.

When you look for “Birmingham Moonshiners” in any newspaper during the 1960s you’ll discover a few unrelated stories. For example, a German Shepherd named “King” was used to sniff out moonshine stills in Birmingham in 1961, and in 1968 100 stills around Birmingham were destroyed and 60 moonshiners arrested as part of “Operation Dryup.”

Do a search for “Moonshiners football” and you learn there was a Fall Rivers, Massachusetts, soccer team called the Moonshiners that played in the early 1900s, and that moonshiners in Oregon had turned football lockers into distilleries in 1926.

Interesting, but not the information I needed.

So, was there even a football team called the Birmingham Moonshiners, or is it something I remember because I want it to be true?

According to the American Psychological Association, a false memory is “… a distorted recollection of an event or, most severely, recollection of an event that never actually happened. False memories are errors of commission, because details, facts, or events come to mind, often vividly, but the remembrances fail to correspond to prior events.”

Maybe that’s it.

Or perhaps – and this is my main theory – the Moonshiners were simply a team with so brief a history they never warranted any media coverage other than a plug on “The Tom York Morning Show.” You can’t swing a chinstrap without hitting a semi-pro football team, and that was as true in the 1960s as it is today.

But if you ever coached them, played for them or think you heard of them, please let me know. It doesn’t rank as one of the world’s big mysteries, but it’s still one I’d like to see solved.

When you think of a world championship game, images of a glitzy trophy presentation, confetti raining down on players, and an elaborate fireworks display might come to mind.

Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl

When you think back to the World Bowl – the one and only championship of the World Football League – none of the above applies.

In fact, the game played on December 5, 1974, started with two teams who hadn’t been paid in months and ended with the winners having their uniforms and equipment taken away by sheriff’s deputies.

Glamorous, it was not.

But I didn’t come here to bury the memory of the clash between the Birmingham Americans and Florida Blazers, but to praise it. What these players endured – and ultimately delivered – showed true championship mettle. And all the participants deserve to be remembered fondly.

For the record, Birmingham (17-5) claimed the crown with a 22-21 victory over Florida (16-7) in front of 32,376 chilly fans at Legion Field.

Joe Profit and Art Cantrelle scored first half rushing touchdowns for the winners and quarterback Matthew Reed added the “action point” conversion following the second TD. In the third quarter, George Mira hit Bob Brown on a 26-yard scoring strike to give the Americans a 22-0 advantage.

(Florida fans might recall Tommy Reamon scoring an apparent 5-yard touchdown on the game’s opening drive, only to have officials rule he fumbled before crossing the goal line. Replays show he still had possession when he reached the end zone but there were no booth reviews in 1974 so Reamon and his team got hosed).

The Blazers rallied for 21 fourth quarter points. QB Bob Davis connected with Reamon on 39-yard scoring strike to put his team on the board, and later hit Greg Latta for a 40-yard passing TD to make it a one score game.

Rod Foster added a 76-yard punt return for a touchdown in a showdown that saw the teams combine for 626 yards of total offense. Still, it’s what happened off the field that made this contest so remarkable.

The WFL was already in freefall – $20 million in debt and its credibility shot due to two franchises folding (Detroit and Jacksonville) and two others relocating (New York to Charlotte and Houston to Shreveport) in-season.

As for the last two teams standing in the postseason, Florida players hadn’t gotten a paycheck in 14 weeks and members of the Birmingham contingent had played without compensation for almost two months.

“Before the (semi-final playoff game against Memphis), the guys just came down to the point where we realized we weren’t going to get paid,” Davis told Florida Today. “We said, ‘Let’s win this one and go on to the World Bowl.’ We’ve been screwed by the league, by our owners, by the officials, by everyone. The only thing left was our desire to give ourselves something.”

In an interview with the Associated Press Blazers backup quarterback Buddy Palazzo said, “We’re supposed to be playing for a living and not getting paid. That knocks down the theory about spoiled, high-salaried athletes.”

Americans players walked out of practice the Monday before the World Bowl and demanded to be paid, but on Tuesday decided they’d take the field no matter what.

“We’re not playing for back pay,” Birmingham running back Charlie Harraway told the Associated Press. “We’re playing for a championship.”

As for a big championship game payday, that didn’t happen.

Because of the financial straits of the Americans, 30 percent of the gate would go to federal, state and local tax officials. The remaining 70 percent would be divided up among the teams.

As it turned out, Birmingham got $1,400 per player as part of the winners’ share while Florida received $1,000 per man.

“Ask these guys which would be more important to them – all their back pay or this moment,” Birmingham tackle Paul Costa said to an Associated Press reporter after the game. “It wouldn’t be a contest. This is a super feeling.”

The locker room celebration was tempered by the fact that Birmingham’s gear was confiscated immediately in order to pay off a $30,000 debt owed to the team’s equipment supplier. It was as though the party was interrupted by a raid.

“So what?” Americans owner Bill Putnam told AP. “The IRS and everybody else has liens against us, so what’s the big deal about losing our uniforms?”

However, at least one Blazer put a positive spin on it all.

“These have been the best and fondest memories of my 10-year career in football,” Florida defensive Rickie Harris told Florida Today after the WFL postmortem. “You only meet guys like this once in your lifetime. Despite all the adversity, despite everything we’ve been through, the players hung together and they played for each other.”

It’s easy to view the World Bowl as a tragicomic performance staged by a ragtag group of players in a bush league trying to disguise itself as a big league.

Easy, but wrong.

After spending so many weeks playing for nothing, on this one night simply playing the game of football meant everything to the Birmingham Americans and Florida Blazers.

And for that, they’ll always have my respect – and admiration.

I take a much deeper dive into the Americans and the WFL in my book “The Home Team” My Bromance With Off-Brand Football” available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and IndieBound.