USFL – Memphis Flyer

This being a week for giving thanks, we should count our blessings for the bounty of big-time sports raising the Memphis smile index to record levels. In the ever-fluctuating world of athletes and coaches — injuries (we’ll get to those) and firings around the next corner — it’s rare to find so much optimism, even confidence, throughout a single city. Count the win totals as they climb and consider: the Memphis Showboats are back.

The University of Memphis football program secured a ninth consecutive bowl berth last Saturday with a win over North Alabama. Now 6-5 with a single regular-season game left to play (this Saturday at SMU), coach Ryan Silverfield’s squad endured an ugly four-game losing streak, the kind of skid that typically kills a season. Yet it appears Memphis will play a 13th game after all.

On the hardwood, coach Penny Hardaway has somehow built a Tiger roster that could exceed its preseason hype. A trio of veteran transfers led by Kendric Davis lends a “grown-up” feel to a Memphis team already stocked with a pair of “seasoned” leaders in Alex Lomax and DeAndre Williams. Davis outscored the entire VCU team in the first half of Sunday’s win at FedExForum. He’s a legitimate All-America candidate.

And, of course, we have the Grizzlies. After Sunday’s loss at Brooklyn, the Griz are 10-7, good for sixth in the Western Conference. This despite playing 17 games (all of them) without once suiting up every member of their big-three: Ja Morant, Desmond Bane, and Jaren Jackson Jr. As Jackson plays his way toward full strength, and with Bane’s presumed return in a couple of weeks, it’s hard to find a team in the entire NBA, let alone the Western Conference, capable of slowing the Grizzlies’ rise. Until, that is, we watch Morant helped off the court with another lower-body (this time, his left ankle) injury.

The NBA season is a slog, friends. Even if Morant misses a month, he’ll have more than three to play before the postseason begins. The defending champion Golden State Warriors are under .500 (8-9). The longtime face of the league (LeBron James) takes the floor for a 5-10 L.A. Lakers outfit. Optimism? If the Grizzlies can reach the playoffs at full strength, another second-round exit in 2023 would be a disappointment.

And then we have the Showboats! Those of us who remember the brief (1984-85) stint of the original ’Boats know USFL action at the Liberty Bowl was about as much fun as a fan could have with his clothes on. I attended a sold-out battle with the Birmingham Stallions in June 1984 during a visit to see my grandmother. It remains one of the most exciting sporting events of my life. The new operation is going with new colors and a new logo, but I’ll be the first in line if the Showboats sell retro gear on game days. Will Memphis have an appetite for spring football? During a Grizzlies playoff run and the start of baseball season? It’s hard to tell. But there’s something to be said for a positive vibe in sports. And the Memphis Showboats’ vibe has long outlived their presence in this town. Again with the optimism.

In addition to the Tigers and Mustangs on the gridiron, the holiday weekend will feature three Tiger basketball games (Penny’s squad will play at the ESPN Events Invitational in Orlando), and a pair of Grizzly contests (New Orleans at home Friday, then at New York Sunday). Thanksgiving sports is more, in fact, than the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys. Relish every moment, and pass the gravy.

“If the 1980s was the era of blissful, colorful, dynamic excess, the USFL was the football league of blissful, colorful, dynamic excess.”

Minor-league sports get a bad rap. And Memphis has been a part of some ugly marriages with “professional” football: the WFL, the CFL, and the XFL to name three. But the United States Football League — home to the Memphis Showboats for two buzz-worthy seasons in the 1980s — was an exception. And Jeff Pearlman has brought the magic to life with his book, Football for a Buck (released earlier this month by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). There was a time when football teams called themselves Gamblers, Invaders, Gunslingers, and yes, Showboats. When two-point conversions and end zone celebrations were encouraged. When Burt f*****g Reynolds rode to midfield as part of the Tampa Bay Bandits ownership group. This was the USFL.

Pearlman’s book is part history lesson, capturing the brilliantly mad idea of a spring football league that placed teams not just in NFL cities, but had them play in the very stadiums NFL teams called home. The league’s first champion — the 1983 Michigan Panthers — played better football in the Pontiac Silverdome than did the Detroit Lions. But the enterprise seemed to survive on duct tape and barbed wire. One team hired a blind equipment manager. One hired 24-hour security for a coach whose life had been threatened by a player he chose to cut. During the league’s first offseason, the Chicago and Arizona franchises were traded for each other. (Yes, 50 players in two USFL cities — and their families — moved to the other city for the 1984 season.)

But the USFL grabbed those who paid close attention. Herschel Walker was the first big name to take a lavish contract and snub the NFL, but Steve Young and Jim Kelly followed, pumping up TV ratings (somewhat) and giving the new league glitz beyond its scantily clad cheerleaders. Who cared about baseball in April when the reigning Heisman Trophy winner was cutting his professional teeth in the Big Apple?

“The Showboats were a model USFL franchise.”

Memphis was among six cities that gained expansion franchises for the 1984 season. Under owner Billy Dunavant, general manager Steve Ehrhart (since 1994, the executive director of the AutoZone Liberty Bowl), and wacky coach Pepper Rodgers, the Showboats got much of minor-league football right, in part by treating their Memphis fan base like they were big-league. Star players — most notably Hall of Fame-bound defensive lineman Reggie White — made public appearances, shook hands, and provided moments of connection long before selfies were a thing. And it showed on game day. More than 50,000 fans packed the Liberty Bowl for a sweltering June 1984 game against the Birmingham Stallions. (My dad and I were among them.) Memphis lost the game, but there was nothing minor-league about the experience. We left the stadium that day feeling like we’d witnessed the birth of a new regional rivalry, and that the ’Boats would be back.

The zany behavior — often blended with outstanding football — fuels Pearlman’s storytelling. But there’s a shadow figure throughout the tale. The USFL died a quick death in large part because a direct challenge to the NFL crashed mightily. The man leading the attempt to (1) move the USFL to a fall schedule and (2) merge certain franchises with the established league? One Donald J. Trump. (In a coincidence best appreciated by Robert Mueller, Pearlman’s book was released on the same day Bob Woodward’s Fear: Trump in the White House hit shelves nationwide.)

The upstart league actually won an antitrust lawsuit filed against the NFL, but was rewarded precisely one dollar in damages. As the future president might have put it, “So much winning.” The NFL’s commissioner at the time, Pete Rozelle, as quoted in the book: “Mr. Trump, as long as I or my heirs are involved in the NFL, you will never be a franchise owner in the league.”

Pearlman has written books on more mainstream football subjects: Walter Payton, Brett Favre, the 1990s Dallas Cowboys. But Football for a Buck is a unique time capsule on as distinctive a three-year life as any minor-league American sports entity has seen. And that’s the catch: The USFL may have been a minor league, but it was operated with major-league balls. Did it fail? When measured for posterity, it did indeed. But in generating memories for those of us who witnessed the colorful stumbles? The stories live on. And we finally have the book to prove it.