The Wide World of American Football: 1956-57 Edition
MATCH FIXING SCANDAL ROCKS PAFC
As the rift between the AFL and PAFC continues to grow, one of the most glaring differences that have emerged has been player pay. If you were riding the bench from team to team, then the pay was almost as much as a semi-pro player. But if you played for a team like Chicago or Indianapolis that had the money and competed for titles year in and year out, then you’d be paid comparably to a player in the AFL. This massive disparity in pay left a majority of PAFC players to either test their luck elsewhere or protest the league to increase their wages. President Bradshaw was not keen on increasing the minimum pay for players, as the league’s finances at this point were cutting it close to bankruptcy. Unbeknownst to Bradshaw, a few players reached out to their fellow players in the AFL to unionize, forming a football player’s union to advocate for fair wages. The league looked like it was on even more uneven ground and ready to fold at any point at its current state, and the 1956 season seemed like it would have been its last.
The season went about as expected for PAFC standards, with the Chicago Stars and Indianapolis Flames easily running away from the rest of the pack, though with the Birmingham Steelers and Richmond Patriots in close pursuit. They stood 1-2-3-4 for the entire year, with the remaining 6 teams barely able to keep up. The Stars and Flames locked up their bids to the World Series of Football with two weeks left, and once again the Stars beat the Flames in the championship game for the league title. However, a majority of the eyes looking upon the league were looking at other places, and for all the wrong reasons. The Nashville Volunteers’ final two games against Minneapolis and Milwaukee drew suspicious eyes, with the players involved acting incredibly suspiciously. A Minneapolis player would take the handoff, and Nashville’s defense would stand around and wait until he got to a particular spot before tackling him. A different Nashville player caught a reception, ran a few yards, then darted to the sideline. Another Volunteer caught a wide-open ball, then downed himself instead of running in the touchdown. No normal player would act like these ones, and the PAFC immediately opened an investigation. Nashville was at the center of this, but owner Buck Hopkins refused to cooperate with both the league and the authorities. Hopkins was nearly arrested, but he eventually came clean: he was covering up a match-fixing scheme done by his players. He knew he was unable to pay his players what they wanted, and took a deal with several bookies to fix specific portions of the game to pay out for his players. While he directly participated with his players, some of the Nashville players offered the same pay out to their opponents in the final weeks, hence why some Milwaukee and Minneapolis also seemed off when they played. Bradshaw was having none of it, and banned all 39 players from all three teams that participated in the scheme for life. He went even further, revoking Nashville’s franchise license from the league and taking away both Milwaukee’s and Minneapolis’s league vote for any proposals made during the offseason. The latter punishment was seen as going slightly too far, as the owners for both teams did not directly participate in the match fixing and the media believing that a fine would have sufficed instead of whatever punishment Bradshaw came up with. The AFL was in rare accordance with the PAFC, also banning the players involved in the scandal and barring Hopkins from ever owning a team in the AFL.
After this debacle, the unionized players thought they had their opportunity to make themselves known. The players union began protesting outside of Bradshaw’s office in Chicago for improved pay, near or at the level the AFL was paying its players. Instead of promising better wages, Bradshaw brought in the union busters to disperse the players. After striking the league for several weeks with no budging from Bradshaw, the players all jumped ship, with the AFL and ASPFL seeing the largest exodus of players going into their leagues. One player defecting to the AFL described his experience with the scandal with the Chicago Tribune, stating “We knew we had to get out of there. [Bradshaw] would rather choke on the cloud of dust descending on him than deal with whatever he brought onto himself. At least over there [in the AFL and ASPFL] they treat their employees like actual people instead of his play-things.”
TL;DR:
The PAFC title game between Chicago and Indianapolis went as expected, with the Stars winning their 4th title since the split and 13th overall.
Nashville Volunteers’ final two games between Milwaukee and Minneapolis cause suspicion, with players acting strangely during games.
Volunteers owner Buck Hopkins revealed that he had covered up a match fixing operation to allow his players to get better pay, with some Nashville players lending an olive branch to Milwaukee and Minneapolis to earn extra money.
Bradshaw banned both Nashville, owner Hopkins, and the 39 associated players involved in the scheme. AFL follows suit in rare accordance with PAFC.
Players had been upset about pay, and union forms to protest the pay conditions at league headquarters in Chicago.
Bradshaw brings out union busters to disperse the players, which spurs some players to leave to the AFL or ASPFL for better pay.
TORNADO STRIKES KANSAS CITY
In May of 1957, a series of tornadoes ran through the Kansas City metropolitan area, with a notable F5 touching down just north of Overland Park before ravaging through the southern portion of downtown. The NBL’s Kansas City Hearts were in the middle of a homestand, and had to reschedule their upcoming home games to assess the damage done to City Stadium. Unfortunately for both them and the Cowboys of the PAFC, the stadium was not in any operable state. The only other stadium in the immediate area was the University of Kansas City’s stadium, but that stadium would likely not be ready for the 1957 season. The nearest location they could play at was at Kansas State in Olathe, but even that was not a guarantee. With the team strapped for cash, they would begin negotiations to try and play at Kansas State for at least the year, but the price they will have to pay to play could be a major blow to the team.
BRADSHAW CONTINUES PAFC EXPANSION
After seemingly making the right decision that was handed to him on a silver platter, PAFC president Virgil Bradshaw lost all support he had gained in the fallout of the match-fixing scandal. Outwardly, he rejected the pay increase because he disliked that his players unionized against him. In actuality, he was actually getting close to not being able to pay for anything across the league, and revealed this to the other team owners for their league meetings that spring. The league needed money and they needed it quickly, regardless of how they received it. As their first move for the offseason after the game-fixing scandal, Bradshaw considered revoking Kansas City’s franchise license and operating as an 8 team league, but that would only hold them over for less than a year. Because Bradshaw had run out of ideas, the other owners tried pitching in to save their failing league but did not offer any solutions that would revitalize the league. Julian Bradshaw, who was effectively operating as the Stars’ owner, offered the most outlandish proposal: add owners who could bring in their own cash to save the league. The younger Bradshaw had the right connections to get them the money they needed, which could revitalize both the PAFC and its expansion efforts to overtake the AFL.
Virgil Bradshaw believed that his Southern expansion plan would be a smashing success. After all, the South had a rabid college football fan base and an “all-American style”, as Bradshaw describes people who followed the college game. He believed that they would enjoy both professional and college football, though the trial run in Birmingham and Nashville was less than ideal. Birmingham was a good team and therefore sold tickets well enough, but Nashville was a complete flop. He believed they did not succeed as well as they could have because he didn’t dump enough cash to make them successful. And so, with this argument to the other owners, they agreed on a 6-1 vote to bring in 2 more teams with cash to save the sinking league. Milwaukee and Minneapolis were forced to abstain, and the only “no” vote came from Kansas City, whose owner was already upset with the handling of the league’s financials and treatment toward his team.
Julian Bradshaw brought in Texas oil baron H. Jefferson Kirby into the league, who would both provide direct funding into the league and add his own Houston-based team into the league. Houston briefly had a semi-pro team during the late 30’s named after its baseball team, and the Magnolias had little success in their short history. Kirby would veer directly away from this history, instead naming the team after his oil company. The Indian Oil & Refinery Company of Texas would fund the Houston Indians, bringing the state of Texas its first professional team in nearly two decades. While he had a massive amount of money from his oil businesses, Kirby also stood with Bradshaw as a staunch anti-union man, and would help assist in disbanding the players union. Kirby had another colleague to add to the league, fellow oil baron Rudolph Branthwaite Sr from New Orleans. After seeing how popular the 1956 Syrup Bowl was in town, Branthwaite was convinced that pro football could work in the Big Easy. His son, Syrup Bowl promoter Rudy Branthwaite, tried persuading him to join the AFL instead, seeing that league’s growth compared to the stagnant PAFC. The elder Branthwaite instead chose the PAFC because he would be given greater control over the league’s operations, including furthering its expansion plan. Reluctantly, the younger Branthwaite would join his father in the day-to-day operations of the team, as his father was practically clueless on running a football team. Branthwaite would name the team the Pirates after Jean Lafitte, a French pirate who used New Orleans as a base of operations. Both the Houston Indians and the New Orleans Pirates would begin playing for the 1957 season.
Now with a massive inflow of money to keep the league afloat, Bradshaw was now able to take care of the two most pressing issues. Regarding the Kansas City problem, he set aside enough of his new funds to allow the Cowboys to go on hiatus for the 1957 season for their stadium to undergo repairs. Kansas City owner Gilbert Feldman tried to persuade Bradshaw to use some of his new money to help renovate Kansas City Stadium, but Bradshaw refused to do more than the minimum to keep the Cowboys in the league. Focusing on the people who actually had the money and the say, Branthwaite Sr. handpicked an owner from Jacksonville that could be ready to field a team within a year. With Julian bringing forth a solid idea, the elder Bradshaw followed his plans to expand out westward, targeting a team in either San Francisco or Oakland to join the league. The younger Bradshaw wanted to slowly expand out west by putting another team in between the Midwest and California, but Virgil Bradshaw did not have such patience, promising a team in the Bay Area to whoever wanted to own a team. He wanted this team to join also in 1958, but the optimism is not as present as the Jacksonville bid. The PAFC’s trajectory made it seem like it would only be a matter of time before it finally went under, but a sudden resurgence and expansion could put them neck-and-neck with the AFL. The ship known as the PAFC was rapidly sinking only a short time beforehand, and it will be seen if the league’s ownership can continue to right that ship.
TL;DR:
Bradshaw was short on cash and the PAFC could have folded if he continued to operate the league the way it was.
To both get themselves more cash and to hasten their expansion plan, Julian Bradshaw suggested bringing in two oil barons, H. Jefferson Kirby from Houston and Rudolph Branthwaite from New Orleans, to help bring in more money into the league.
The PAFC also hastens the creation of two expansion teams for the 1957 season, Kirby’s Houston Indians and Branthwaite’s New Orleans Pirates.
With the influx of cash, the Kansas City Cowboys will go on hiatus for the 1957 season, though Bradshaw only gave the necessary funds to keep them afloat.
The PAFC will also continue their push to 16 teams, beginning with the addition of teams in Jacksonville and San Francisco/Oakland for the 1958 season.
CRISIS IN THE RED RIVER CONFERENCE
The Red River Conference (RRC) in the AACA had already suffered a major blow when Oklahoma left for the Missouri River Valley Conference for the 1954 school year. They would manage to enter back into the spotlight following the 1955 season, when several discontented players from Tryon University in Waco, TX staged a mutiny against their head coach, causing him to be fired after 3 years of disappointing play. That would have been the end of the story, but rumors circulated that the head coach was fired after finding out about a player slush fund. A similar story emerged out of Texas University, where local newspapers alleged that two booster clubs were using their funds to directly pay players. The RRC went in to investigate both cases, where Tryon complied with officials, who prohibited the school from postseason play for two years after finding evidence that a slush fund was set up to indirectly pay college athletes. Texas, on the other hand, refused to allow conference officials to proceed in their investigation. Texas officials stalled for nearly ten weeks, but finally admitted that the coaching staff had known of boosters making unsanctioned payments to players for several years and had cooperated with the boosters by referring to the players to said boosters for financial aid. Texas further complicated things by implicating that in-state rivals Texas State (College Station) and San Jacinto (Houston) also operated similar schemes. With the conference already facing strife in the past decade, having a scandal of this magnitude might be the breaking point that could force this conference to go under.
LANCERS WIN 2ND ASPFL TITLE IN 3 YEARS
The second official season for the ASPFL was a lot closer than its first. In fact for a good majority of the season it seemed like just about any team would be able to take home the title. That pool slowly boiled down to the last week of the year, with New Haven earning the home championship game for the first time in their existence. The Lions have been very mediocre for their entire existence, so Lions fans were ecstatic when RB Glen Stark pushed the offense to its limits and the secondary duo of Benjamin Brooks and Dale Henderson shut down opposing teams’ offenses. Their opponent is a familiar face the past few years, as Long Island won their way in on a last-second win against Newark the week prior. Their offense has been one of the best in recent years, with the combination of QB Salvatore Saab, RB Peter Moss, and WR Craig Burnett forming the best trio the league has seen in years. The championship game would be a back and forth affair, each team trading blows until the game eventually reached a late turning point. Long Island saw themselves down 28-26 with little time to spare, but Saab managed to keep his cool through the jeering New Haven fans. Saab threw a pass to Burnett at the last second for the touchdown, putting the Lancers over top and giving them their second title in three years after not winning a single title in the previous 32 years.
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