Twenty years later, USFL still brings fond memories

When the first phone call came 20 years ago, Steve Ehrhart and other executives of the United States Football League were ecstatic.

A jury had ruled for the USFL in its antitrust suit against the NFL, improving the vital signs of the struggling upstart league.

But for the USFL, good fortune always seemed to have a short shelf life.

Another call came about 20 minutes later. The jury had awarded the USFL $1 in damages, which under law was trebled to a whopping $3, or about $1.5 billion less than the league was seeking.

"Dumbfounded," is how Ehrhart, who served as a league executive and later ran the Memphis Showboats franchise, describes his feeling at the time.

A hefty damage award by the jury might have allowed the USFL to survive or forced the NFL to eventually absorb some USFL teams. But the $1 award was a mortal blow, and the USFL folded after three seasons (1983-85), done in by greed, poor decisions and the power of the NFL.

Twenty years later, USFL veterans speak of the league wistfully, like a first love. Most were young, idealistic and passionate about trying to make it in pro football. The USFL gave them a path devoid of the usual roadblocks of politics and money inherent in professional sports.

Many players were like Kit Lathrop, guys who had bounced around the NFL and were looking for a legitimate chance to prove themselves.

"For me, it was new life," said Lathrop, who played for Chicago and Arizona in the USFL.

Lathrop had played with Denver and Green Bay in the NFL and watched as lesser talented players leaped over him on the depth chart only because they were drafted higher or made more money.

The USFL was different.

"Just the purity of it," Lathrop said. "You had all-comers."

That first year, players were paid $5 a day in training camp, Lathrop said. He remembers sitting in a team meeting with the Chicago Blitz and listening to several of his teammates complain about the low pay.

Lathrop, who played at Arizona State and now lives in Ahwautukee, Ariz., is quiet by nature but he had heard enough. He stood up and said, "Listen guys, I didn't come here for the training camp money. I came to make my salary."

That was about $30,000. The other players listened and the complaints stopped.

That unselfish attitude was pervasive around the league.

"It was a little bit like a college atmosphere," said Vince Tobin, an assistant with the USFL's Philadelphia Stars and later head coach of the Arizona Cardinals. "The players just wanted to play. They didn't have a lot of egos."

There were characters, too, like former NFL and Hall of Fame coach George Allen, who coached the Blitz and the Arizona Wranglers.

He sometimes held press conferences at 6 a.m., and once lectured a waitress about how the lack of raisins in his oatmeal would adversely affect the team.

Steve Des Georges, the Wranglers' director of communications, said Allen had just told reporters that everyone in the organization played a part in winning.

"He goes into this tirade about how the raisin guy is not going his job, negatively impacting you, me and everybody around this table who has to listen to this," Des Georges said.

At least Allen won. His predecessor with the Wranglers, Doug Shively, went 4-14 his first year.

"Sometimes," he said after one game that year, "we look like a lost ball in tall grass."

Overall, the quality of football wasn't bad. Some teams, like the Michigan Panthers and the Philadelphia Stars, had impressive starting lineups that were comparable to some NFL teams.

USFL teams weren't as deep as their NFL counterparts, but the new league had star power with players such as defensive end Reggie White, linebacker Sam Mills, running back Herschel Walker and quarterbacks Jim Kelly and Steve Young.

Front offices were filled with up-and-comers, too.

Carl Peterson put together two USFL championship teams as general manager of the Stars. Peterson, now the general manager of the Kansas City Chiefs, hired Jim Mora as his head coach, and two of Mora's assistants, Tobin and Dom Capers, later became NFL head coaches.

Indianapolis Colts President Bill Polian was personnel director of the Blitz. Former New York Jets general manager Terry Bradway worked in the Stars' personnel depart. Rod Graves, now the Cardinals vice president of football operations, was in his early 20s when he got his start in pro football as a scout for the Stars.

"We only had about three scouts and we did everything," Graves said. "We lined fields. We made airport runs. We scouted all across the country."

Whenever the staff gathered for draft meetings, Graves shared a hotel room with Bradway and other scouts. "I can remember rotating between the floor, the bed and the sofa," Graves said. "We were all just excited to be a part of the game, to have a job and be working in pro football."

It's hard to find a veteran of the USFL who regrets his experience, even though times often were tumultuous. Teams folded. They moved. They even traded cities, with the Blitz and Wranglers swapping players, coaches and staffs.

"You just never knew what was going to happen," said Doug Kelly, who worked as the USFL's director of communications. "It was the most exhilarating job I've ever had."

The league could have worked, too, say many insiders, if it would have just followed its original business plan to play in the spring and to control salaries.

But new owners such as Donald Trump, who bought the New Jersey Generals, entered the league. They began to spend big money on players and push for a move to the fall, where they hoped to challenge the NFL. The real goal was to force the NFL to absorb a handful of USFL teams.

"It's always been amazing to me," said Tobin, "that so many people with so much money could make decisions that they hadn't researched very well. It was a shame. It was a fun league."

The league debuted in 1983 with 12 teams and television contracts with ABC and a fledgling cable outfit, ESPN.

Jim Stanley coached Michigan to the league title that first year and thought the league had found a niche. Americans loved football and the USFL was helping to give it to them year round.

"I thought playing at that time of year, it had a real chance," said Stanley, now a pro scout with the Cardinals. "I think they got greedy too quick."

Trump joined the league after the first season, and it wasn't long before he was lobbying for a move to the fall. In 1984, owners approved the move, beginning with the 1986 season.

"I think it was a big mistake," said Dr. Ted Diethrich, a Phoenix cardiovascular surgeon who owned the Blitz, who later became the Wranglers. "When that decision was made, the course for this was charted, and it was going to be a wreck."

Not everyone agrees. Ehrhart thinks the league could have survived if owners would have persevered after the verdict in the lawsuit.

"We were the only ones on cable television, and cable television was just emerging," said Ehrhart, now the executive director of the AutoZone Liberty Bowl in Memphis. "We were in good markets that would have supported football."

Owners, however, voted to suspend the 1986 season and the USFL, deep in debt, ultimately folded without playing another game. The league appealed the jury's verdict, but it was upheld. In 1990, the USFL received a check from the NFL for $3.76. The 76 cents was interest.

The check has never been cashed. For years, Ehrhart kept it in his desk, but after its existence was publicized, he moved it to a safe deposit box. There is a substantial market for USFL memorabilia, and Ehrhart has been offered a considerable amount of money for the check.

He would rather donate it to the Pro Football Hall of Fame one day as perhaps part of a respectful exhibit of the USFL.

It's not the only check the USFL received from the NFL. As part of the court judgment, the NFL paid the USFL about $6 million in attorneys' fees.

"Of course, I cashed that check," Ehrhart said.