In the 1980s, Birmingham was still in pursuit of an NFL team, but it had a powerful opponent. 'A lot of people want pro football in Birmingham. I’m not one of them,' Bear Bryant said at the time. Part 3 in a series from CregStephenson on Birmingham:
Jul. 27, 2023, 8:38 a.m.Alabama football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant, shown here during the 1970 Iron Bowl at Legion Field, was staunchly opposed to Birmingham getting an NFL franchise. EDITOR’S NOTE: The second iteration of the Birmingham Stallions won the championship of the United States Football League on July 1. The new USFL is the latest in a long line of upstart football leagues to call the Magic City home in the last five decades. None has lasted longer than three seasons.
Culverhouse went on to note that the NFL planned to expand again by 1985, and that Birmingham was on the short list of possible franchisees, along with Phoenix, Los Angeles, Memphis and Jacksonville. He added that if Birmingham was serious about getting an NFL team, “the city fathers, businessmen, everybody should unite and go work for one.”
in the winter of 1969-70, and by the early 1980s had dozens of former assistant coaches and players making careers in the pro game. “The story goes that Bryant called Shug and said ‘we need to do something. Like in Atlanta, the pro team is on the front page, and we’ll be on Page 6. We need to stay on Page 1,’” former Birmingham News sportswriter Wayne Martin said with a chuckle. “And said ‘what do you mean ‘we’? You’re the one that’s on Page 1. Auburn never is on Page 1.”
Auburn coach Ralph "Shug" Jordan, left, is shown with Alabama's Paul "Bear" Bryant during the 1970 Iron Bowl at Legion Field. Both worried that professional football in Birmingham might draw media attention away from their teams and others in the state. However well-founded Bryant’s worries might or might not have been, they hit Birmingham’s pro football boosters like a gut punch.
Still, Bryant had enormous influence among Birmingham power brokers and generally got what he wanted. Bryant died in January 1983, and by that time Birmingham had secured a franchise, the Stallions, in the original United States Football League. That outfit would play its games in the spring, however, and thus wasn’t a direct competitor to either Alabama football in particular or college football in general.
The USFL had a regional draft, and Birmingham focused on bringing in talent with SEC and in-state ties. Former Auburn center Tom Banks joined the Stallions after several years with the NFL’s St. Louis Cardinals, as did wide receiver Joey Jones after finishing his Alabama career in 1983.in 2018. “It was run extremely well. Coach Dotsch was as good a coach as I’ve ever been around -- real tough on you, but a great coach. The administration, starting with Jerry Sklar, they were just top-notch.
The USFL expanded from 12 to 18 teams, including putting a team in Memphis, the Showboats. Some of the league’s owners — most notably Donald Trump, who had bought the Generals in 1984 after unsuccessfully attempting to purchase the NFL’s Baltimore Colts — were no longer satisfied with being a “spring alternative” to the more-established league and began making rumblings about moving to the fall.
“We filled up Legion Field when we played Herschel Walker and the Generals,” Sklar said. “So there was no question that if the National Football League had come in here, they would have been very popular.” Nevertheless, the Stallions continued to win. Buoyed by strong performances from Stoudt and Cribbs and a pro football record 16 interceptions from Chuck Clanton, Birmingham finished the regular season 13-5.
Don Newton, shown here in 1973, headed up Birmingham's efforts to land an NFL team in the 1980s while he was president of the city's Chamber of Commerce. “I spoke with the owner over in Atlanta, Rankin Smith ,” Sklar said. “And when our league went down, he came over and we spent a day and a night talking about every player on our team and what happened. And they were genuinely interested in some of the USFL franchises.”
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