Continental Football League

The Continental Football League (COFL) was a professional American football league that operated in North America from 1965 through 1969. It was established following the collapse of the original United Football League, and hoped to become the major force in professional football outside the National Football League (NFL) and the American Football League (AFL). It owed its name, at least in part, to the Continental League, a proposed third Major League Baseball organization that influenced MLB significantly, despite the fact they never played a game.

Continental Football League
SportAmerican football
Founded1965
Ceased1969
No. of teams22
CountriesUnited States
Canada
Mexico
Last
champion(s)		Indianapolis Capitols
Most titlesOrlando Panthers (2)

Four Continental Football League contributors are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the most of any league not considered a major league: coach Bill Walsh, quarterback Ken Stabler, Doak Walker and Steve Van Buren (the last two of whom were inducted as players but were coaches in this league). Sam Wyche, Bob Kuechenberg, Garo Yepremian and Otis Sistrunk were among the other players and coaches who would later gain fame in the NFL, while a few others, such as Don Jonas and Tom Wilkinson, would emerge as stars in the Canadian Football League.

History

1965 season
Main article: 1965 Continental Football League season

The formation of the Continental Football League (COFL) was announced on February 6, 1965. The league was primarily formed by minor-league teams that had played in the United Football League and Atlantic Coast Football League.[1]

A. B. "Happy" Chandler, former Kentucky governor, U.S. senator, and retired Major League Baseball commissioner, was named COFL commissioner on March 17, 1965.[2]

The league originally adopted a "professional" appearance. Teams were sorted into two divisions and each team had a 36-man roster with a five-man "taxi" squad. The rules were primarily those of the NFL except that a "sudden death" overtime period was employed to break ties, which was not part of the NFL during the regular season at that time.

To reinforce an image of league autonomy, teams were restricted from loaning players to, or receiving optioned players from, the NFL or AFL.

The first COFL season opened with three games played on August 14, 1965. Before the season began, the Springfield, Massachusetts, franchise moved to Norfolk, Virginia. The Norfolk club went on to become the most successful team in the league at the box office and held several minor league attendance records throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

1966 season

In 1966, the league began abandoning the "league autonomy" posture by striving to establish working relationships with NFL and AFL clubs. Commissioner Chandler, charging that the league was altering the terms under which he had accepted the position, resigned on January 20, 1966. He was replaced by COFL Secretary Sol Rosen, owner of the Newark Bears. Rosen sold the Bears to Tom Granatell, who promptly moved the team to Orlando.

The league engaged in some unsuccessful preseason negotiations with the Empire Sports Network to obtain a television broadcasting agreement. However, it was able to get ABC to broadcast the championship game on the Wide World of Sports; ABC paid the league $500 for the rights to the game.[3]

The Brooklyn Dodgers, although under the general managership of baseball Dodgers player Jackie Robinson,[4] failed to attract at the gate. Part of the problem was that they were playing nowhere near Brooklyn: their home games were at Downing Stadium on Randall's Island.

Evidently, the Dodgers had trouble securing home dates at Downing; a season-ticket application showed only five home games[5] in a fourteen-game schedule. In any event, small crowds (only 29,500 combined for four games, including 12,000 for an exhibition contest) caused the franchise to become a league-operated "road club" in October; one home game against Hartford was moved to Connecticut, and their final "home" contest was shifted to Memorial Stadium in Mount Vernon, New York.[6]

Charleston's Coy Bacon, 1966 COFL All-Star end, went on to play for the NFL's Los Angeles Rams, San Diego Chargers, Cincinnati Bengals and Washington Redskins.

The league also established farm team relationships with semi-pro clubs (for instance, the Dodgers affiliated with the Liberty Football Conference's Long Island Jets in 1966).[7]

1967 season

EASTERN DIVISION

WESTERN DIVISION

The COFL added a Western Division for the 1967 season. The division comprised established minor-league teams in British Columbia, California, Oregon and Washington. But four small western franchises, in Eugene, Oregon, Long Beach and San Jose, California and Victoria, B.C., left the league after the season. The Toronto Rifles actually folded midseason, under unusual circumstances: the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League raided the Rifles roster and signed away the Rifles head coach, starting quarterback and starting running back, leaving the team unable to continue.

The remnants of the Brooklyn Dodgers were sold to Frank Hurn, who moved the team to Akron, Ohio as the Akron Vulcans. Hurn used only $2,000 of his own money and $50,000 of Chicago Outfit funding to buy the team and swindled numerous businessmen into providing lavish benefits for his team for which he would never pay. Under Hurn, the team lost $100,000 after just three weeks of play, forcing his big-budget head coaches, Doak Walker and Lou Rymkus, to front their own money to keep the team afloat; Hurn never paid the either the coaches or players for their services, and the Wheeling Ironmen ended up paying the Vulcans' salaries for what would be the Vulcans' fourth and final game in order to avoid a strike. Hurn would later amass a long track record of criminal activity after his time in Akron.[8]

Such instability marked the season for the COFL, particularly because the league could not improve upon its overall "semi-pro" public image. Inability to establish working relationships with NFL and AFL teams was a contributing factor. The league's breakthrough television contract with the upstart United Network was another: the network ended up folding prior to the 1967 season it was supposed to broadcast, leaving the COFL without a television partner yet again.[3][9][10]

The San Jose Apaches in 1967 were coached by Bill Walsh, who later achieved great success as the three-time Super Bowl-winning coach of the NFL's San Francisco 49ers.

1968 season

In February 1968, the COFL merged with the Professional Football League of America (PFLA), in order to expand into the midwestern United States.[11] The Quad Cities franchise moved to Las Vegas midway through the 1968 season.

Danny Hill succeeded Rosen as COFL commissioner. Hill established a weekly payroll ceiling of $200 per player and $5,000 per team.

Ken Stabler played two games for the Spokane Shockers in 1968. Stabler later became the Continental league's first Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee as a player through his work with the Oakland Raiders of the NFL.

The Michigan Arrows began their season with a soccer-style kicker named Garo Yepremian, who had played the previous season with the Detroit Lions but had found himself out of work because of military service. Yepremian later found Super Bowl fame in the NFL as a member of the Miami Dolphins.

On September 8, 1968, Glen Hepburn, a two-way player for the Omaha Mustangs, suffered an in-game injury from which he died four days later; it would be the only fatality in the league's history.

The Orange County Ramblers were featured in the 1968 film Skidoo, in a credited role as stand-ins for a nude Green Bay Packers team. The Ramblers offense is seen, from behind, wearing nothing but helmets, during a scene in which a security guard is hallucinating due to the effects of LSD.

1969 season
Main article: 1969 Continental Football League season

Jim Dunn replaced Hill as league commissioner for the 1969 season.

The league expanded into Texas by absorbing the Texas Football League, which also brought the first and, to date, only team from Mexico to play in a professional American football league, the Mexico Golden Aztecs (whose owner, Red McCombs, would later buy the NFL's Minnesota Vikings). Midway through the season, the Hawaii franchise moved to Portland, Oregon.

The COFL entered the 1969 season with high hopes. That optimism was exemplified by the Orlando Panthers' bidding for the services of the 1968 Heisman Trophy winner, halfback O.J. Simpson of the University of Southern California (USC). The Panthers made an offer of $400,000 (nearly double the entire team's salary) for Simpson to play for the Panthers if his negotiations with the Buffalo Bills fell through; they did not, and Simpson signed with Buffalo for the 1969 season.[12]

But COFL attendance averaged approximately 5,700 spectators per game (the top attended team, Norfolk, had 13,000), insufficient to offset the lack of a TV contract. These economics contributed to the ultimate demise of the league after the 1969 season. Plans for an interleague exhibition between the COFL champion Capitols and the Canadian Football League champion Ottawa Rough Riders had been laid, but the Rough Riders backed out.

The Alabama Hawks played a pre-season game against the NFL's Atlanta Falcons rookies, losing 55–0.

The Indianapolis Capitols featured a rookie quarterback named Johnnie Walton during the 1969 season. Walton would become a regular in second-tier professional football; after several failed attempts to get onto an NFL roster in the early 1970s, Walton got his break in the World Football League, starting for the San Antonio Wings in 1975. Walton would spend the 1976–79 seasons as an NFL backup, then came out of retirement in 1983 to lead the Boston Breakers of the United States Football League.

COFL's alum Don Jonas did not reach the NFL, but instead chose to play in Canada after the 1969 season. As Orlando Panthers quarterback, he played four seasons before joining the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League (CFL). Jonas led Orlando to the 1967 and 1968 COFL championships, and was named the league's Most Valuable Player for each season. He also paced the Panthers to the 1966 championship game, which they lost to Philadelphia in overtime; and to the COFL semifinal game in 1969. Don was inducted into the American Football Association's Semi Pro Hall of Fame in 1983.

Obert "Butch" Logan, a receiver, defensive back and player-coach, played his penultimate season in professional football with the Continental league's San Antonio Toros. Logan is notable for being the last professional football player to wear the singular jersey number zero (two others, Ken Burrough and Jim Otto, would wear a double zero, 00, into the 1970s).

The end of the COFL

A number of franchises folded or defected during and after the conclusion of the 1969 season, making the end of the COFL all but inevitable.

  • September 21, 1969: The Mexico Golden Aztecs ceased operations and forfeited the remainder of their 1969 schedule.[13]
  • December 15, 1969: The COFL revoked the franchises of the Chicago Owls, Ohio Valley Ironmen, and Omaha Mustangs for failure to meet the league's financial obligations.[14]
  • February 18, 1970: The Jersey Jays moved to the Atlantic Coast Football League (ACFL).[15]
  • February 22, 1970: The defending champion Orlando Panthers announced their departure from the league and the establishment of the "Sunshine League," a Florida-based loop.[16] The Sunshine League never materialized.
  • March 6, 1970: At the annual COFL owners meeting in Chicago, the defending champion Indianapolis Capitols and the Norfolk Neptunes announced their withdrawal from the league [17]
  • March 10, 1970, COFL commissioner James Dunn announced his resignation effective the end of that month.[18] No replacement was ever found, and there was never any announcement of the league's cessation.
  • March 11, 1970: The San Antonio Toros announced the formation of the Trans-American Football League, taking with them the Fort Worth Braves and Dallas Rockets. The TAFL initially planned to be a nationwide league with teams in various major markets;[19] by the time it began play in fall 1970, this was not the case, and the Omaha Mustangs (the only TAFL team to play outside Texas) and Texarkana Titans had joined the league.
  • March 27, 1970: The Arkansas Diamonds folded.[20]
  • April 4, 1970: The Indianapolis Capitols, Norfolk Neptunes and Orlando Panthers (now under new ownership) were accepted for membership by the ACFL for 1970.[21]
  • May 2, 1970: The ACFL held a dispersal draft of players from the Las Vegas Cowboys, Ohio Valley Ironmen, Arkansas Diamonds, Chicago Owls, Tri-City Apollos, and Alabama Hawks.[22]
  • July 2, 1970: The Sacramento Capitols folded after selling less than half of the 3,000 season tickets needed to remain viable.[23] By this point, only Spokane, Portland and Seattle remained in the league. Spokane was, according to secondhand reports, ready to play, but there would not be enough teams to do so; Portland's failure to answer phone calls marked the effective end of the league.[24]

Championship games
Season Date Winning Team Score Losing Team MVP Venue Attendance
1965 November 28, 1965 Charleston Rockets 24–7 Toronto Rifles n/a Laidley Field 7,100
1966 December 4, 1966 Philadelphia Bulldogs 10–3 (OT) Orlando Panthers n/a Temple Stadium 5,226
1967 December 10, 1967 Orlando Panthers 38-14 Orange County Ramblers n/a Anaheim Stadium 8,730
1968 November 30, 1968 Orlando Panthers 51–10 Orange County Ramblers n/a Tangerine Bowl 10,134
1969 December 13, 1969 Indianapolis Capitols 44-38 (OT) San Antonio Toros n/a Bush Stadium 7,019

Notable people and achievements

League MVP awards
  • 1965: Bob Brodhead (QB, Philadelphia Bulldogs) & Joe Williams (FB, Toronto Rifles)[25]
  • 1968: Don Jonas (QB, Orlando Panthers)
  • 1969: John Walton (QB, Indianapolis Capitols)

Coach of the Year
  • 1969: Ken Carpenter, Indianapolis Capitols
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See also
  • List of leagues of American football

References
  1. "2 Leagues merge for new season". The Chicago Tribune. February 7, 1965. Retrieved August 15, 2017.
  2. "New grid leader named". Eugene Register-Guard. (Oregon). Associated Press. March 18, 1965. p. 1D.
  3. "Booster Club of the Continental Football League". Archived from the original on February 25, 2012. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
  4. "A Roundup Of The Sports Information Of The Week". Sports Illustrated. May 9, 1966. Retrieved January 8, 2011. HIRED: JACKIE ROBINSON, 47, former Brooklyn Dodger baseball star, as general manager of the new Brooklyn Dodger professional football team of the Continental League.
  5. "Booster Club of the Continental Football League". Retrieved December 21, 2014.
  6. "Brooklyn Dodgers football (CFL)". Retrieved December 21, 2014.
  7. "Long Island Jets football". Retrieved December 21, 2014.
  8. Bill Lilley. "A false start". www.ohio.com. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
  9. "The Fourth Steps Forth". Sports Illustrated. August 15, 1966. Retrieved January 8, 2011.
  10. "New TV Chain Gets Continental League". Fresno Bee. Associated Press. November 23, 1966.
  11. "Continental, Professional Leagues Join". Chicago Tribune. United Press International. February 5, 1968. pp. 2–3.
  12. Kentucky New Era https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=qukrAAAAIBAJ&sjid=tgUGAAAAIBAJ&pg=3093,6207410&dq=continental-football-league&hl=en. Retrieved December 21, 2014 – via Google News Archive Search. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  13. Guys, Carl (September 23, 1969). "Inflation Deflates". Del Rio (Texas) News-Herald.
  14. "Ironmen Franchise Revoked by CFL". Beckley Post-Herald. Associated Press. December 16, 1969. p. 2.
  15. "Jersey Jays to Join Atlantic Coast Loop". The Bridgeport Post. Associated Press. February 19, 1970. p. 36.
  16. Sargent, Bill (February 22, 1970). "Panthers Find Ray of Hope in Sunshine". Florida Today.
  17. "Caps Withdraw From CFL", Kokomo (IN) Tribune, March 9, 1970, p13
  18. "COFL Boss Resigns Post". Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Associated Press. March 11, 1970.
  19. The Evening Independent https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=dZxhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QVcDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6451,2825814&dq=trans-american+football+league&hl=en. Retrieved December 21, 2014 – via Google News Archive Search. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  20. "Diamonds Are Defunct". The El Dorado Times. Associated Press. March 27, 1970. p. 8.
  21. "Three COFL Teams Join Atlantic League". The Tipton (Indiana) Daily Tribune. United Press International. April 6, 1970. p. 4.
  22. "Birds Draft 13; Complete Trade". The Pottstown Mercury. May 4, 1970. p. 15.
  23. "Capitols Fold, Lack of Fans". The Fresno Bee. July 3, 1970. p. 15.
  24. "Shockers Bosses Silent". Spokane Daily Chronicle. August 18, 1970. Retrieved December 21, 2014 – via Google News Archive Search.
  25. "Bulldogs Brodhead Given MVP Award". Evening Journal. Associated Press. November 27, 1965.
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