The Chicago Winds was the
World Football League
The World Football League (WFL) was an American football league that played one full season in 1974 and most of its second in 1975. Although the league's proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a worldwide stage, the farthest t ...
's ill-fated 1975 successor to the
Chicago Fire. The team was so named because
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
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, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
was nicknamed "The Windy City." The Winds played at
Soldier Field
Soldier Field is a multi-purpose stadium on the Near South Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Opened in 1924 and reconstructed in 2003, the stadium has served as the home of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League (NFL) since 1 ...
and the team was assigned to the WFL's Western Division for
1975
It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe.
Events
January
* January 1 - Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...
(the league having shrunk from 12 franchises to 11, and from three divisions to two).
Pursuit of Joe Namath
Prior to the 1975 season opener, Winds owner Eugene Pullano attempted to sign
New York Jets
The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The J ...
star quarterback
Joe Namath
Joseph William Namath (; ; born May 31, 1943) is a former American football quarterback who played in the American Football League (AFL) and National Football League (NFL) for 13 seasons, primarily with the New York Jets. He played college foot ...
to a contract. Namath, who had helped establish the credibility of the Jets and the old
American Football League
The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. ...
, was wavering about re-signing with New York after the 1974 season. Reports had him retiring, being traded to another NFL team — or jumping to the WFL, perhaps as a player/coach/co-owner. Namath's agent Jimmy Walsh asked the Winds for a $500,000 signing bonus, a three-year contract worth $600,000 a year, a $2 million annuity ($100,000 per year for 20 years) and terms for Namath's eventual ownership of a WFL franchise in New York. The Winds even dropped
red
Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...
from their team colors and went with just
green
Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 Nanometre, nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by ...
and
white
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
to allow Namath to continue marketing his number 12 jersey in Jets colors.
When
Eddie Einhorn Eddie Einhorn (January 3, 1936 – February 24, 2016) was minority owner and vice chairman of the Chicago White Sox.
Biography
Einhorn grew up in a Jewish family in Paterson, New Jersey, the son of Mae (née Lippman) and Harold B. Einhorn and resi ...
, head of the WFL's television partner,
TVS Television Network
The TVS Television Network, or TVS for short, was a syndicator of American sports programming. It was one of the several "occasional" national television networks that sprang up in the early-to-mid-1960s to take advantage of the establishment ...
, got word that the upstart league was going after Namath, he bluntly told league president
Chris Hemmeter that the WFL was literally betting its existence on getting Namath. Nearly all of TVS' affiliates refused to commit to air any WFL games in 1975 until Namath's signing was confirmed. According to Mark Kreigel's biography, ''Namath'', Chicago apparently accepted the terms of the contract — until Walsh also demanded 15 percent of the WFL's total TV package. The Winds, perhaps somewhat counterintuitively (as 85% of television revenue for the league would have been better than having no TV revenue at all), rejected the deal. The Winds had all but promised that Namath would come to Chicago, and their failure to sign him made them and the league look foolish. Namath stayed with the Jets, and TVS dropped its coverage of the WFL, leaving the league without national television coverage in what proved to be its final season.
The team hired former
Charlotte Hornets
The Charlotte Hornets are an American professional basketball team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Hornets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division, and pla ...
coach
Babe Parilli
Vito "Babe" Parilli (May 7, 1930 – July 15, 2017) was an American football quarterback and coach who played professionally for 18 seasons. Parilli spent five seasons in the National Football League (NFL), three in the Canadian Football League ( ...
(who coincidentally was Namath's backup with the Jets) as its new head coach and general manager. A number of old Fire players returned as well, including running backs
Mark Kellar
Mark Peter Kellar (born July 17, 1952) is a former American football running back who played three seasons with the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League (NFL). He was drafted by the Vikings in the sixth round of the 1974 NFL Draft. H ...
and Cyril Pinder, center Guy Murdock (the Fire's MVP), and receivers Steve Wright and Chuck Kogut. With Namath out of the picture, the Winds acquired veteran quarterback
from the Portland Storm, while wide receiver
John Gilliam
John Rally Gilliam (born August 7, 1945) is an American former professional football player who was a wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL). He has owned a number of businesses, and for two years he worked for a radio station in ...
, who originally signed with
The Hawaiians
Hawaiians are the indigenous people of the Hawaiian Islands.
Hawaiians or The Hawaiians may also refer to:
* The Hawaiians (WFL), a football team in the World Football League from 1974 to 1975
* The Hawaiians (film), ''The Hawaiians'' (film), a 1 ...
, also came to Chicago.
Margene Adkins
Margene Adkins (born April 30, 1947) is a former professional American football wide receiver in the National Football League for the Dallas Cowboys, New Orleans Saints and New York Jets. He also was a member of the Ottawa Rough Riders in the Can ...
, a former Canadian Football League teenage star who at 28 was beginning to wear down from injury, was also a contributor to the Winds' offense; the Winds would be Adkins' last team before he retired from professional football.
1975 season
The Winds did not have much success on the field or at the box office. They lost both pre-season games, to Jacksonville (in front of only 2,627 at
Soldier Field
Soldier Field is a multi-purpose stadium on the Near South Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Opened in 1924 and reconstructed in 2003, the stadium has served as the home of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League (NFL) since 1 ...
) and Charlotte (Parilli's old team). Unlike the defunct Chicago Fire, which sold 15,000 season tickets in 1974, the Winds managed only 1,600. In late July, the league took swift action by forcing Pulliano to fire Parilli. His replacement was
Abe Gibron
Abraham "Abe" Gibron (September 22, 1925 – September 23, 1997) was a professional American football player and coach. Gibron played 11 seasons as a guard in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and National Football League (NFL) in the 1 ...
, who had been fired as head coach of the
Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) North division. The Bears have won nine NF ...
after the 1974 season. (An amusing typo in an article in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' indicated Gibron had become coach of the "Chicago ''
Wino
Wino may refer to:
* WINO (band), a Japanese rock band
* WINO (FM), a radio station (91.9 FM) licensed to serve Wakins Glen, New York, United States
* WRFI (FM), a radio station (89.7 FM) licensed to serve Odessa, New York, which held the call ...
s''".)
Leo Cahill
Leo Cahill (July 30, 1928 – February 15, 2018) was an American head coach and general manager in the Canadian Football League, much of it spent with the Toronto Argonauts.
Early life
Cahill was born on July 30, 1928 in Utica, Illinois and lat ...
left a (relatively) comfortable position as
Memphis Southmen
The Memphis Southmen, also known as the Memphis Grizzlies, were an American football team based in Memphis, Tennessee. They played in the World Football League (WFL), which operated in 1974 and 1975. They played their home games at Liberty Bowl M ...
GM to the precarious situation with the wobbling Winds. Gibron was given only 48 hours or so to learn about his new team.
The Winds lost their first two regular-season contests, 10-0 in Birmingham and 38-18 in Shreveport, before beating the
Portland Thunder
The Portland Steel were a professional arena football team based in Portland, Oregon and members of the Arena Football League (AFL). The team started as the Portland Thunder, joining the AFL in 2014 as an expansion team along with the Los Ange ...
, 25-18 in overtime; just 3,501 fans attended the contest, their last at Soldier Field. After two more road losses (at Hawaii and Memphis), the team was 1-4 and swimming in red ink.
Unlike the Fire games from the year before, Winds games were not broadcast on TV or radio. The public address announcer for the two games in Chicago was Les Grobstein, who also worked with Eddie Ryan during Fire games.
Results
Source:
The end
Due to a dispute over partnership arrangements, two major investors withdrew $175,000 that they'd deposited with the league. (In a ''
Sports Illustrated
''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...
'' story on the death of the WFL, a Winds official referred to the investors as "Bob and Rich from California. I don't know their last names, but one's an Arab and the other's a Greek.")
[
The investors' withdrawal dropped the Winds below league capitalization requirements. Puliano asked for time to find more investors. However, on September 2, the league's owners voted 10-1 to expel Chicago from the league, with only the Winds themselves voting to continue. The owners were still reeling from the experience of the previous season, which saw many of the teams so badly underfinanced that they couldn't meet basic expenses. For this reason (and the fact that the other owners were no doubt ticked-off at the Winds' inability to sign Namath and indirectly costing them their national TV contract), they were not willing to give the Winds a second chance.
A team folding in mid-season was not unusual for the WFL (the ]Jacksonville Sharks
The Jacksonville Sharks are a professional indoor football team based in Jacksonville, Florida, playing their home games at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena. Beginning in 2017, the Sharks began play as charter members of the National Arena Leag ...
and Detroit Wheels
The Detroit Wheels were an American football team, a charter member of the defunct World Football League.
Founding
Soon after Gary Davidson announced the WFL's formation in October 1973, he was approached by a man named Bud Hucul about putting ...
had died 14 games into a 20-game regular season in 1974), so the league was prepared. The Winds' game against the Southern California Sun
The Southern California Sun were an American football team based in Anaheim, California that played in the World Football League in 1974 and 1975. Their records were 13-7 in 1974 and 7-5 in 1975. Their home stadium was Anaheim Stadium. They wer ...
was canceled. Since there were 11 teams, one had a bye each week; with Chicago out, the bye team simply took the Winds' place in the schedule. John Gilliam was selected by the Philadelphia Bell
The Philadelphia Bell was a franchise in the World Football League, which operated in 1974 and a portion of a season in 1975. The Bell played their home games in 1974 at JFK Stadium in South Philadelphia. The team logo was a representation of th ...
in a dispersal draft, but returned to the NFL Minnesota Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. Founded in 1960 as an expansion ...
instead, much to the WFL's chagrin. Even this arrangement didn't last long. Due in part to the loss of national television revenue, the entire WFL only survived the Winds by a month, folding on October 22.
External links
Chicago Winds on FunWhileItLasted.net
References
{{WFL
Defunct American football teams
Winds
Wind is the natural movement of air or other gases relative to a planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting a few hou ...
Soldier Field
American football teams in Illinois