Foots Prints

LSU just secured its eighth baseball national championship. The Bayou Bengals swept Coastal Carolina in the championship series, prevailing 1-0 yesterday and 5-3 today.
I’ll save the details for another post. Right now, I am going to drone on about something in Louisiana sports most under 50 probably don’t know about.
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For a person who is scared to die, even though every human being knows the day must come, I have a curiosity about death.
Something I like to do on most days is check Wikipedia’s page of recent passings. On some days, they’ll be a bunch of names which don’t ring a bell. On others, they will jump out at me.
Twenty minutes before midnight last night, I found a name which took me back over 40 years.
Joseph Canizaro, a fabulously successful New Orleans real estate developer, passed away Friday in the Cresecnt City at age 88.
(John W. Mecom Jr., the original owner of the Saints, is still alive at 86.)
I remember Canizaro from the sporting world and a venture which brought him in close contact with the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.
The United States Football League was hatched in May 1982 by several businessmen who believed sports fans across the United States couldn’t get enough gridiron football (to distinguish the American/Canadian form of football from soccer, which is football everywhere except the USA, Canada and Australia) from the time the Super Bowl was played in late January (at the time) through the kickoff of the new college and NFL seasons around Labor Day.
The idea for a spring football league was another New Orleanian.
David Dixon was a very successful antiques dealer who pushed hard for a professional football team in the Big Easy starting in 1962. His efforts nearly paid off when Lamar Hunt, the owner of the 1962 American Football League champion Dallas Texans, decided he had enough of going head-to-head with the NFL’s Cowboys in his hometown, even though the Cowboys were still years away from becoming a serious contender.
Hunt had his eye on New Orleans, where he hoped to procure use of Tulane Stadium, the 81,000-seat steel and concrete edifice which was home to the Sugar Bowl college football game for 28 years at that time.
Seating at Tulane was racially segregated in 1963, as were nearly all public facilities across the South. Dixon and Hunt quickly prevailed upon New Orleans Mayor Vic Schiro to desegrated stadium seating.
Unfortunately, the deal fell apart when Tulane refused to sell alcohol at pro games (sales of alcohol was banned by the Southeastern Conference, of which Tulane was a member from its formation in 1932 until 1 July 1966). Hunt took the Texans to Kansas City, renamed them the Chiefs, and
Three years later, New Orleans got a new lifeline from two of its most powerful politicians.
U.S. Rep. Hale Boggs and U.S. Senator Russell Long attached an amendment to an anti-inflation bill favored by LBJ which would grant professional football an antitrust exemption, clearing the way for a merger between the NFL and AFL.
The amendment remained in the bill when it arrived on LBJ’s desk. The Texan signed the bill, the merger was on, and NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle showed his gratitude by granting New Orleans the expansion franchise which began play as the Saints in 1967.
One week later, Dixon had more reason to celebrate.
A sales tax to fund the building of a domed stadium in downtown New Orleans was overwhelmingly passed by Louisiana voters, with much politicking by Dixon and Louisiana Governor John McKeithen.
The Saints hoped to move into the Superdome in 1972. Instead, ground was not broken for the massive arena until August 1971, and the NFL team had to wait until 1975 to move in.
With the Superdome opened, Dixon turned his attention back to spring football.
Dixon urged team owners to limit player salaries to $1.5 million in the first year, then raise them to $1.7 million in 1984 and $2.5 million in 1985.
George Allen, the megalomaniacal former coach of the Rams and Redskins, told Dixon to shove it, signing every big name he could for his Chicago Blitz.
The USFL kicked off its first season in March 1983 with 12 teams, mostly in NFL cities and playing in NFL stadiums.
The only non-NFL city that first season was Birmingham, where the Stallions played at Legion Field, home to many of Bear Bryant’s greatest victories during his 25 seasons as Alabama coach. Coincidentally, Bryant died 28 days after coaching his last game and 40 days before the Stallions played their first game, a 9-7 loss at home to the Michigan Panthers.
Meanwhile, the Boston Breakers were relegated to playing at the woefully inadequate Nickerson Field (capacity 21,000) at Boston University after the USFL team was denied use of Sullivan (former Schaefer) Stadium in Foxborough, home of the Patriots; Harvard Stadium in Boston (most of the campus is in Cambridge, but the stadium is in Boston proper); and Boston College’s Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill.
Ironically, Nickerson was the first home of the Patriots. After three seasons at the facility formerly known as Braves Field (the National League franchise played there from 1903-52 before moving to Milwaukee and eventually Atlanta), the Pats moved to Fenway Park for six seasons, then had one-year stops at BC and Harvard before moving south on US 1 when their bare-bones facility opened one year after breaking ground.
Despite the terrible stadium and a largely no-name roster led by quarterback Johnnie Walton, an over-the-hill backup who was so inadequate the Philadelphia Eagles were forced to trade much draft capital to the Rams for Ron Jaworski (who had been made expendable by the rise of USC legend Pat Haden), the Breakers went 11-7 and barely missed the playoffs. Two of Walton’s Eagle teammates, running back Louie Giammona and receiver Charlie Smith, were also Breakers in 1983.
If the franchise could move into a suitable facility, thereby generating more revenue from tickets, concessions and parking, a championship in 1984 wasn’t too far-fetched.
However, year two for the Boston Breakers wasn’t to be.
Breakers owner George Matthews failed to secure a lease at Harvard in 1984. He was able to reach an agreement with the Patriots, but the Sullivan family would have forced Matthews to pay steep rent and fees.
Given a choice between another season at Nickerson and a new city, Matthews chose the latter.
It first appeared the Breakers would move far down I-95 to Jacksonville. However, when prospective owner Fred Bullard wanted to fire Breakers coach Dick Coury, the 1983 USFL Coach of the Year, Matthews balked. (Bullard later got into the USFL as owner of the expansion Jacksonville Bulls.)
In October 1983, Matthews settled on New Orleans, where the state of Louisiana was only too happy to have a second football tenant and nine guaranteed home games. Joseph Canizaro at first purchased 31 percent of the Breakers, but later became sole owner.
Canizaro was to be one of many new owners in the USFL for 1984. In addition to the Jacksonville and five other expansion teams (Houston, Memphis, Oklahoma, Pittsburgh, San Antonio), several other 1983 clubs would have new leadership:
–The owner of the Chicago Blitz took his entire roster and coaching staff to Arizona, where they became the new Wranglers. The Blitz would reform with many of the old Wrangler players, but with a new coaching staff and front office.
–The Los Angeles Express were bought by a supposed billionaire, J. William Oldenburg.
–The New Jersey Generals were sold by Oklahoma oil baron J. Walter Duncan to a New York real estate tycoon. His name: DONALD J. TRUMP.
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By time the Breakers’ move to New Orleans became official, the Saints were in the midst of their 17th season.
In their first 16 campaigns, the Saints’ best record was 8-8 in 1979. They went 1-15 in 1980, 2-12 in 1975, 2-11-1 in 1970, and recorded four or fewer wins in 1967, ’68, ’71, ’76, ’77, and ’81. The 1982 Saints went 4-5 a strike-shortened season and nearly made the playoffs, but lost a tiebreaker for the last NFC spot to the Lions.
New Orleans came very close to its first winning season and playoff berth in 1983, but lost their season finale 26-24 at home to the Rams despite allowing fewer than 150 yards and no touchdowns. While 8-8 tied for the Saints’ best record to date, the franchise’s foundation was subsiding.
Despite record television deals with CBS, NBC and ABC, Mecom was having financial difficulty. Oil prices plummeted from the record highs of the late 70s and early 80s and would go even lower.
Mecom felt upstaged by Canizaro and the new league. The Breakers played their first game representing New Orleans on 26 February, defeating the host San Antonio Gunslingers 13-10.
Six days after the win in Texas, Canizaro and New Orleans Mayor Ernest (Dutch) Morial welcomed their newest star.
Marcus Dupree, a man-child who played 16 games for the Oklahoma Sooners before coach Barry Switzer kicked him off the team for repeated rule violations and poor work habits.
While he was a Sooner, Dupree rushed for 239 yards in a Fiesta Bowl loss vs. Arizona State, a game in which Switzer believed Dupree could have rushed for 400 had he been in shape.
Dupree attempted to transfer to Southern Miss,125 miles south of his hometown of Philadelphia (not Pennsylvania), but the NCAA ruled he would be ineligible to play the 1984 collegiate season due to transfer rules. (Where was the portal when Dupree needed it?)
(Dupree really screwed up to be kicked off a Barry Swizter-coached team. Switzer was infamous for running a very loose ship in Norman, and it caught up to him by 1989, when he was forced to resign after four OU players were convicted of rape AND the Sooners were hammered with severe probation by the NCAA for repeatedly thumbing its nose at the organization.)
Although the USFL was determined not to sign players who were not yet eligible for the NFL Draft, that cat was let out of the bag the year before when Herschel Walker, the 1982 Heisman Trophy winner and all-world running back for the Georgia Bulldogs, left Athens after his junior season to sign with the Generals.
Dupree made his Breakers debut in the home opener, a win vs. the Showboats.
It turned out New Orleans’ leading rusher would not be Dupree, but Louisiana native Buford Jordan, a product of small school power McNeese State. Jordan finished the 1984 season fourth in the USFL with nearly 1,300 yards, a performance which helped him live out his dream of playing in the NFL–for the Saints.
While the Breakers started 5-0, Mecom was shopping the Saints to cities desperate to land an NFL franchise, no matter how rotten it was.
The Breakers’ hot start didn’t last. They lost nine of their last 10 to finish 8-10. The only win in that wretched stretch was a 10-3 home decision on Mother’s Day over the 1983 champion Michigan Panthers, led by quarterback Bobby Hebert.
Hebert, a native of the bayou town of Cut Off who led South Lafourche High to the 1977 Louisiana Class AAAA (top division) high school state championship, would soon be playing much more football in the Big Easy.
The Breakers’ season ended on the lowest possible note. They lost 20-17 to the Washington Federals, a team called “a bunch of untrained gerbils” by their owner, Berl Bernhard, following a 53-14 loss in the season opener at Jacksonville.
One month before the 1984 season ended, the Federals, who were drawing less than 6,000 for games at RFK Stadium, announced they would relocate to Miami in 1985. (The artists formerly known as the Federals never played in Miami, instead becoming the Orlando Renegades for 1985.)
The Philadelphia Stars, who lost 24-22 to Michigan in the 1983 USFL championship game, crushed the Arizona Wranglers, coached by the paranoid and overbearing George Allen, 23-3 for the 1984 championship.
The Stars, whom many believed could defeat the Eagles, were coached by Jim Mora, who would one day become a New Orleans legend. Three of the Stars’ defensive starters, linebackers Vaughan Johnson and Sam Mills and cornerback Reggie Sutton, would follow Mora to the Big Easy.
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On 22 August 1984, the USFL announced it would play the 1985 spring season, then switch to the fall in 1986.
The move to the fall was the idea of one Donald J. Trump, who believed spring football was for losers and repeatedly said “if God wanted football in the spring, he wouldn’t have invented baseball”.
Trump didn’t give two shits about the USFL. All he wanted was a cheap way into the NFL. He had been rejected as a potential buyer of the Baltimore Colts in 1981, although some in Maryland may have wished Trump could have, considering Robert Irsay packed up the Mayflower vans one night in March 1984 and moved the team to Indianapolis.
It’s not clear if Trump made an offer to buy the Eagles from the bankrupt Leonard Tose (the Eagles nearly moved to Arizona in late 1984 before Norman Braman stepped up to buy the franchise). It’s also very unlikely he made contact with Mecom, who officially announced the Saints were for sale on 26 November 1984.
Trump wanted to move the Generals to Shea Stadium–which had been abandoned by the Jets after the 1983 season–then build an 80,000-seat stadium in Manhattan. To do this, he believed, the USFL had to play in the fall.
Canizaro saw the writing on the wall.
He knew the Breakers had no chance to go head-to-head with the Saints. Add in Tulane playing its home games in the Superdome, along with concerts and conventions, and it was clear the USFL was crowded out.
One year after Canizaro bought the Breakers and moved them to his hometown, the franchise packed up again and headed west.
Portland, home to the NBA’s Trail Blazers and little else–Oregon and Oregon State are both well south on I-5–became the Breakers’ third home in as many years.
The Breakers, who lost over $4 million in New Orleans, continued to hemorrhage money in Oregon. Combined with the rainy weather of the Pacific Northwest, the lousy stadium (Civic Stadium seated 25,000) and a lousy team (the Breakers fell to 6-12 in 1985, with Dupree blowing out his knee in the season opener), and things became desperate for the Breakers.
Players were paid for only 14 of the 18 games. The team ran out of money in early June.
Shortly after the season ended, the entire Breakers roster was placed on waivers.
With more than $17 million in accrued losses over three seasons, the Breakers folded.
Trump filed an antitrust suit vs. the NFL in October 1984, seeking over $1 billion in damages. The case went to trial in May 1986 and lasted over two months.
The six-person jury ruled the NFL was a monopoly, but the USFL did itself in with outlandish contracts
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Mecom sold the Saints to Tom Benson in April 1985. In January 1986, Benson hired Jim Finks as president and general manager. Finks then hired Mora to replace Bum Phillips as head coach.
Mora, the stern Marine taskmaster, ran off many players who were used to Phillips’ easy-going ways, but those who stuck it out formed the nucleus of a team which went 12-3 in 1987 and reached the playoffs for the first time.
The nucleus of that team included Hebert, Johnson, Mills, Sutton, a few Phillips holdovers (Morten Andersen, Rickey Jackson, Bruce Clark, Eric Martin, Joel Hilgenberg) and shrewd draft picks by Finks (Reuben Mayes, Jim Dombrowski, Pat Swilling).
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That’s all. Thank you for reading another War and Peace-length post.