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I watched both football games on Sunday, even though I’m still smarting over how the Titans absolutely threw away their chance to host the AFC Championship. I now know who I will be rooting for in the Super Bowl – the Rams. The week between the Titans and the Chiefs games, the Bengals fans and players did nothing but talk trash about the Titans. The players said that the Titans were scared of them even before kickoff. I guess that would explain how the Titans sacked Joe Burrow nine times, because they were so scared. Titans QB Ryan Tannehill? He may have been scared, based on how he played. But Bengal fans were so obnoxious that following week, I decided to pull for whoever they played for the remainder of the playoffs.

For those like me that love football, along with racing; you probably know that there will be yet another spring football league to make its debut for those that can’t get enough. There is a racing connection here, so stay with me.

What is different about this latest version of spring football is that it is a reboot of the United States Football League (USFL) – arguably, the most successful spring football league and undoubtedly the most successful aimed at competing against the NFL.

For whatever this is worth, I consider myself quite the authority of the original USFL, which played from 1983 through 1985. That and ten dollars will buy me a tenderloin at IMS this May. My immediate post-college years were spent in Memphis and I was all in, when the Memphis Showboats began play in 1984. I had already immersed myself in the league that was outbidding the NFL for top players and had lured Herschel Walker to leave school early, which was never done in those days. For whatever reason, most of this very obscure and totally useless information has stuck with me.

The USFL was no joke, when it came to players. For three years in a row, Heisman Trophy winners Herschel Walker (New Jersey Generals), Mike Rozier (Pittsburgh Maulers) and Doug Flutie (New Jersey Generals) all chose to play in the USFL, instead of the established NFL. Reggie White began his pro football career as a Memphis Showboat. Outstanding running back, Marcus Dupree, left Oklahoma early to become a member of the New Orleans Breakers. Anthony Carter began his career as a Michigan Panther. Steve Young signed an unheard-of $40 million contract to play for the Los Angeles Express. Jim Kelly played for the Houston Gamblers in the first known version of the run & shoot offense. Terry Bradshaw’s successor, Cliff Stoudt, decided to leave Bradshaw’s long shadow in Pittsburgh and chose to play for the Birmingham Stallions.

Future NFL Hall of Famers were not the only ones that made their name in the USFL. Several coaches did as well. Before he became a legendary coach for the Florida Gators, Steve Spurrier was the head coach of the Tampa Bay Bandits. Future Houston Oilers coach Jack Pardee, was the coach of the Houston Gamblers. Jim Mora coached the Philadelphia/Baltimore Stars in all three USFL Championship games, winning the final two. He would later coach the New Orleans Saints to their first-ever winning record and playoff appearance, before moving on to coach the Indianapolis Colts (playoffs??).

While the USFL had plenty of talented players and coaches, what they lacked was solid ownership. Some owners were very financially strong, such as the Showboat’s Billy Dunavant, Tampa Bay’s John Bassett and New Jersey’s Donald Trump (no political discussions, please). But there were more fly-by night owners that caused teams like the Breakers to move each year from Boston, to New Orleans and then to Portland. The Washington Federals ended up becoming the Orlando Renegades. After one year, the Chicago Blitz and Arizona Wranglers swapped franchises, before the new Blitz folded in Year Two. Then the Wranglers merged with the Oklahoma Outlaws to become the Arizona Outlaws.

It all became too much. The few strong teams voted to suspend play in spring of 1986, with an eye on playing in the fall, going head-to-head with the NFL. The real goal, for the Showboats anyway, was to have a few strong teams absorbed into the NFL in a merger – much like the AFL in the sixties. What messed up that plan was the USFL filing a $1.7 billion anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL. The trial lasted over a month, and the USFL was victorious. However, they were awarded only one dollar, which was trebled to three dollars under anti-trust laws. That spelled the immediate end of the USFL.

Why the history lesson on a failed sports league from almost forty years ago? Because there are a lot of interesting (to me, anyway) parallels between the formation of a spring football league and the early start-up days of the Indy Racing League. I say this as a point of interest, and not to start a debate over The Split.

While I seemingly ruffled a few feathers last week with what was perceived as a pro-IRL and anti-Champ Car post, I was solidly against the formation of the IRL, and I very much sided with CART in those early days. I really appreciated where CART was in the mid-nineties, and saw no reason for a start-up league.

When I look back at the IRL from 1996 to 2000, I still view that time frame as being filled with very dark days – especially at the Indianapolis 500. I still made it a point to watch every CART race on the schedule. I would catch the IRL races if I had nothing else going on. I viewed the IRL as an inferior product, much the same way that football fans viewed the USFL.

The USFL, provided a lot of opportunities to many players and coaches that had been ignored by the NFL. The IRL did the exact same thing for drivers and team owners. Some USFL players and coaches had been passed over by the NFL for one reason or another. Some, like Tampa Bay’s John Reeves and Chicago’s Doug Plank, were simply extending their careers after being considered done by the NFL.

Buddy Lazier was going nowhere in CART. He had a few scattered starts between Hemelgarn, Coyne and Walker Racing. Then he went with Leader Card Racing, a proud name that was now a shadow of its former self, in 1992 – mostly with a Buick engine, which was very ineffective at tracks like Road America. In 1995, Lazier was with Project Indy, Dale Coyne and was in a Menard car at Indianapolis. To say his racing career was going nowhere is an understatement.

With the launch of the IRL in 1996, Buddy Lazier won the 1996 Indianapolis 500 and won the IRL championship in 2000. Lazier was also the only driver that made Juan Montoya break a sweat in the 2000 Indianapolis 500. He had suddenly earned a reputation for being a driver you didn’t want to see in your rear-view mirror.

After winning the IRL championship in 2000, Lazier finished second in 2001, eighth in 2002 and nineteenth in 2003 – his last year at Hemelgarn. Coincidentally, it was 2001 when teams from CART really started migrating over, By 2003, several of the top teams in CART had moved over. It begged the question; were Lazier and Hemelgarn tapering off as happens sometimes, or had they enjoyed being a big fish in a little pond but were they now suddenly facing serious competition that showed where they always belonged in the first place?

Regardless, Buddy Lazier probably would have drifted off into obscurity had it not been for an alternative league, just like the USFL.

While the USFL lured many big stars out of college, there were many unheralded players that flourished in the USFL and ultimately got a decent shot in the NFL. Bobby Hebert comes to mind. I had never heard of Hebert until he was the starting QB for the Michigan Panthers. He ended up playing for twelve NFL seasons with the New Orleans Saints and the Atlanta Falcons. He never went on to Super Bowl glory, but chances are – we would still have never heard from him today, had it not been for the alternative league, just like the IRL.

I could pound out a lot more paragraphs about all of the similarities between the USFL and the IRL, but we all know the one striking difference between the two upstart leagues. The USFL never had a cornerstone event like the Indianapolis 500. That was the difference between surviving and dying, plain and simple.

I will upset many, but in my opinion – the early days of the IRL (pre-2003) showcased an inferior product. The teams, drivers, tracks, cars, engines and sounds were much better in CART than in the IRL. But ultimately, CART did not have the Indianapolis 500 and the IRL did. It was not uncommon for a mid-pack IRL team to fold in the middle of the season, just like some of the low-budget USFL teams. That usually didn’t happen in CART.

CART had Penske, Ganassi, Rahal, Newman/Haas, Unser, Andretti, Moore, Franchitti, Castroneves and Tracy. The IRL had Hemelgarn, Kelly, Panther, PDM, Cheever, Lazier, Dr. Jack Miller and Dennis Vitolo.

With apologies to John Oreovicz and his well-written account in Indy Split, the whole battle came down to one thing – had it not been for the trump card that was the Indianapolis 500, the IRL would’ve been nothing more than a slight annoyance to CART, just like the USFL was to the NFL. But whoever had the Indianapolis 500 in their back pocket, was ultimately going to win the war. That’s exactly what happened.

Is this a stretch? Probably so, but hey – it’s the offseason. So, when the new version of the USFL starts up on April 16, enjoy it for what it is – a slight diversion that will not get in the way of racing. Without stealing the glitz and glamour of the NFL’s Super Bowl, it will hardly show up on anyone’s radar. But perhaps a few players and coaches will get another opportunity that they will make the most of.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on February 2, 2022 at 4:03 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.