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Wood, WFL made history 50 years ago

When asked what was most notable about the 1975 World Football League (aside from its collapse after 12 weeks of the regular season), many people will tell you it was the debut of Super Bowl champions Larry Csonka, Paul Warfield and Jim Kiick with the Memphis Southmen.

Fair enough.

**Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Bluesky @scottadamson1960.bsky.social**

But if you’re looking for the most historically significant moment for the WFL – as well as professional football – it was the elevation of Willie Wood to head coach of the Philadelphia Bell.

When Wood was named to the post on July 29, 1975, it marked the first time an African-American had been head coach of a professional football team since Fritz Pollard in the early days of the NFL.

Pollard coached the Akron Pros in 1921 and his last stint was with the Chicago Black Hawks traveling team in 1928, meaning Woods knocked down a wall that had stood for 47 years.

“My original idea was to play (the race angle) down,” Wood told the Associated Press. “But obviously, the mere fact that I’m black means I feel I have to do a good job. If I can put forth all the energy I feel I have in store, if we can develop a winning team here, maybe somewhere down the road they’ll think of the Philadelphia Bell as a winning team and not me as a black coach.”

Wood was no stranger to breaking barriers.

As quarterback for the Southern California Trojans, he was the first black quarterback to play in what was then the Pacific 8 Conference. He went undrafted, but Green Bay coach Vince Lombardi signed him as a free agent and converted him to safety. In 12 seasons with the Packers, the future Pro Football Hall of Famer was part of five NFL championship teams, earning All-NFL honors six times and making eight Pro Bowl appearances.

But his first shot at being a head coach was unexpected.

Wood, 39, was hired as the Bell’s defensive coordinator for the 1975 season. However, head coach Ron Waller abruptly resigned on July 23. Wood was named Waller’s replacement just four days before Philadelphia opened the regular season against The Hawaiians.

“There are others in line for the job, but virtually everybody – from the players through the front office – thinks Willie is the best qualified man for the job,” Bell assistant publicity director John Waldeyer said.

With such a short turnaround, Wood realized the opener would be a challenge.

“Whenever you have a change of administrations, there are problems,” he said. “I do anticipate problems, but of what kind and degree I don’t know. We have the finest bunch of players I know, and I don’t anticipate any problems with them.”

Although the 1975 WFL was actually a different entity than its 1974 predecessor, the Bell and Hawaiians had many of the same players from the year before when both teams finished with 9-11 regular season records.

When they met again on August 2, 1975 – before a grand total of 3,266 fans at Franklin Field – Philadelphia escaped with a 21-15 victory, making Wood a winner in his debut.

“Frankly, I haven’t been able to answer all the calls, letters and telegrams I’ve received,” Wood told the Philadelphia Daily News for an August 6, 1975, story. “I’ve been asked over and over what it all means, so I attach a sense of importance to it. I don’t know exactly how to answer.

“It’d be erroneous to say it means nothing, but it’d also be wrong to say it’s the most important thing. It’s most important to have the job.”

Yet, while Wood had a happy beginning to his coaching career, there was no happy ending. Philadelphia was 4-7 when the WFL folded on October 22, 1975.

Wood became the first black head coach in Canadian Football League history when he was hired by the Toronto Argonauts in 1980, but they finished 6-10 that year (the franchise’s seventh consecutive losing season) and he was fired in 1981 after an 0-10 start.

As for the rest of professional football, the drought for black head coaches continued until Art Shell was hired by the NFL Los Angeles Raiders in 1989.

Wood’s Hall of Fame achievements came as a player, and he’ll forever be known as one of the all-time great Packers. But even though his coaching career was brief and there were far more losses than wins, he made an indelible mark 50 years ago today.

Remembering Ryno

When you reach my age, you start to realize that you’re much closer to the finish line than you are the starting block. And sadly, that means people you know – and some you wish you’d known – finish the race before you want it to end.

That’s what happened on Monday when the great Ryne Sandberg died.

Prostate cancer took the Baseball Hall of Famer at age 65, and I feel like I lost a friend … a friend who was just a year older than me.

Dammit.

See, Sandberg is responsible for me morphing from a mostly casual baseball fan into a baseball fanatic.

By way of background, it’s important to note that I’m not a lifelong baseball fan. When I was a young kid, all I cared about was football. Then I discovered basketball. And before I was 10, soccer entered the picture.

My only memory of baseball then was seeing my dad sit in front of the ol’ RCA Victor, watching Curt Gowdy and Joe Garagiola call the NBC Game of the Week on Saturday afternoons.

But by the time I reached my tweens, I figured it was past time that I gave a little attention to the National Pastime.

Pop had been a Yankees fan until the Braves moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta in 1966, but I liked to pretend I was a New Yorker, so they were my favorite American League team.

In the National League, however, I cast my lot with the Chicago Cubs. There was a book in my grammar school library called Mr. Cub by Jim Enright, and the story of Ernie Banks compelled me to cheer on his team.

Before long, I was soaking up every bit of knowledge I could about the game, with baseball’s Mr. Sunshine serving as my guiding light.

Now, let’s jump to the 1980s.

Most of the Braves’ games were on WTBS and the Cubs were a staple of WGN, and one of my favorite things was to watch a Cubs-Braves series with my dad. He’d root for guys like Dale Murphy, Bob Horner and Chris Chambliss, and I was rocking a blue cap with a baby bear on it and supporting Leon Durham, Jody Davis – and especially No. 23.

It was a friendly competition between us – as well as quality time – so no matter which team lost, I always felt like I won.

And while I usually cringe when I hear the words “athlete” and “hero” lumped together in the same sentence, Ryno seemed heroic to me. He was a great player, certainly – a magnet-gloved second baseman who always seemed destined for Cooperstown.

Beyond that, though, he seemed like a really good dude. He wasn’t just one of the best in baseball, he was the best of us.

Once when we were watching together, Pop turned to me and said, “I don’t care who your team is – you gotta like Ryne Sandberg.”

Even though I never played organized baseball a day in my life, Ryno made me wish I had.

Yet, as much as I enjoyed watching him ply his trade at Wrigley Field, it was old Fulton County Stadium where I got to see him play in person.

I still remember it.

The first time came on August 31, 1984, when the Cubs and Braves met on a Friday night in Atlanta. The Braves won, 3-2, with Murphy (another one of my favorite players) driving in the game-winning run with a one-out single in the ninth.

But I got my money’s worth in the top of the first inning.

After Bob Dernier flied out to open the game, Sandberg stepped up to the plate against Tony Brizzolara and blasted his 18^th home run of the season, a dinger to deep left field that sent my voice soaring and my beer splashing.

I had long wanted to be in the stands for a Sandberg game, and the fact that I got to witness him knock one out of the park made the evening perfect – even if the Cubs were on the short end of the scoreboard.

When he was done that year, the man who ultimately claimed National League MVP honors had a .314 batting average with 19 homers, 36 doubles, 19 triples, 84 RBI and 32 stolen bases.

Over the years, I was on hand for several other visits Sandberg made to Atlanta. I saw more crucial hits, more good fielding plays – more of the best he had to offer.

And his best was better than most.

His last year as a player was 1997, and by then I was already 10 years into my newspaper career. At that point, most of the baseball games I saw were through the lens of a writer instead of a fan.

Sandberg hit .285 with 282 home runs, 1,061 runs batted in and 344 steals in 15 seasons with Chicago.

He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2005, and at the time held the record for most Gold Glove Awards by a second baseman (nine), most consecutive errorless games by a second sacker (123), and the most home runs hit from that position (277 of his 282 homers came while playing second).

Despite being a sports writer who strived to be objective, I never stopped being a fan of Ryne Sandberg, both as a player and as a person.

I never got to know him personally, but I miss him as though I did.

We should all be so lucky to leave that kind of legacy.

Remembering the APSPL

The Athletes Unlimited Softball League is winding down its inaugural season this weekend, with the Bandits taking on the Talons in a best-of-three championship series in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

While the four AUSL teams (the Blaze and Volts are the other two) competed in a touring format this year, the league will move to a city-based model in 2026 and expand to six clubs.

By all indications, the women’s professional game is trending in the right direction.

Think of men’s softball, however, and you might envision teams stocked with big-gutted sluggers who are less concerned with the game’s final out than the outing for beer and pizza that comes afterwards.

Yet, there was a time when such weekend warriors played for pay, beginning with the American Professional Slo-Pitch League.

The APSPL was the brainchild of Bill Byrne, founder of the National Scouting Association. The NSA was designed to help match college athletes with pro teams, and after a stint in the World Football League (the 1974 Chicago Fire and 1975 Shreveport Steamer), he turned his attention to softball in 1976.

That year – in May – Byrne announced the formation of the APSPL, which would use a 12-inch ball and begin play on 1977 with four divisions. In mid-June Byrne revealed that the first four franchises would be located in Cleveland, Louisville, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., and he was looking to start play with 16 franchises.

In a news release distributed to various outlets, Byrne said that the season would run from June to September with teams playing one game during the week and up to two on weekends. The season, consisting of 56 games, would conclude with a $100,000 championship series.

“The franchise fee is $25,000,” Byrne said. “In order for our standards to remain high, all franchises must have a park with sufficient lighting for color television, softball diamond of the highest quality, plenty of parking, and ample seating capacity. We are taking the year 1976 for organizational purposes and the establishment of a merchandising division, property rights and license division, film division, television division, marketing division, publicity division and a director of player operations.”

APSPL staff member Tim Koelble said that the time was right for men’s pro softball.

“This is a sport that’s never been tapped at this level,” Koelble said in a United Press International interview in November, 1976. “Surveys show that 26 million people play slo-pitch softball in America. That includes things like church leagues. We figure we can even make it just by drawing crowds from the people who play the game now.”

By August, Byrne’s plans had been scaled back.

“There are 15 or 20 groups we are working with,” Byrne told Associated Press. “When we see they are financially stable and have a suitable playing site available, then we’ll make some decisions. I’d like to have eight to 10 teams the first year – solid franchises like the four we have now.”

Unlike many upstarts, this one actually got off the ground.

The inaugural season featured 12 teams: the Baltimore Monuments, Chicago Storm, Cincinnati Suds, Cleveland Jaybirds, Columbus All-Americans, Detroit Caesars, Kentucky Bourbons, Milwaukee Copper Hearth, Minnesota Goofy’s, New York Clippers, Pittsburgh Hardhats and Trenton Statesmen.

There were a few occasions where the product seemed more like a home run derby; Minnesota and Detroit combined for 78-runs in one contest, and a four-game series between Chicago and Detroit produced 189 runs.

But as the season wore on the games became more competitive. All things considered, year one was a success.

The Caesars claimed the inaugural championship, sweeping Baltimore in four games. The winners featured former Detroit Tigers standouts Norm Cash and Jim Northrup, and several former Major League Baseball players participated in the league.

Chicago’s Benny “The Thumper” Holt led the APSPL in home runs with 89 (he is in the Chicago Softball Hall of Fame).

On July 20, 1977, baseball legend Whitey Ford was named the APSPL’s first commissioner, which gave the circuit some additional positive publicity.

“To say I’m enthusiastic about this new job is a gross understatement,” Ford said in an AP story. “Slo-pitch is going to fill avoid we have long had in our calendar of professional sports.”

And once the season was completed, former New York Yankees All-Star Joe Pepitone decided to switch sports and sign a two-year contract with the Statesmen.

In 1979 the league became a part of television history when – on September 7 – the game between the Milwaukee Schlitz (the club rebranded from Copper Hearth in 1978) and Kentucky Bourbons was the first live event ever televised by ESPN.

The APSPL had a two-year contract with the network.

But, as is the case with many such niche leagues, the APSPL came with an expiration date. It completed four seasons and in 1981 merged with the North American Slo-Pitch League to form the United Professional Softball League, which lasted through the 1982 campaign.

But the novelty was wearing off, teams came and went, and in the summer of 1983 that league quietly folded. Thus, the era of pro men’s slo-pitch came to an end.

No doubt slo-pitch is fun to play, and sometimes fun to watch. Still, the women’s fast-pitch version has helped transform the game into a “major” sport, with college softball a major draw and professional competition taking off.

It’s fun to think back on the days of the high-scoring APSPL – gotta love those 78-run contests – but high-level softball has evolved. And thanks to female athletes, its best days are still ahead.