On March 6, 1983, football fans in the Tampa Bay area were officially introduced to a new product. The Tampa Bay Bandits of the USFL were brash, exciting, and advertised as “All the Fun the Law Allows.”
In their first regular season game, the Bandits defeated the Boston Breakers 21-17 in front of a crowd of 42,437 at Tampa Stadium. The era of “Banditball” had begun. Just slightly over two years later, this enjoyable era of spring football was about to come to a premature end.
As the 1985 season drew to a close, the Bandits were a franchise in a state of disarray. Its managing general partner, John Bassett, had been waging a losing battle against inoperable brain tumors and no longer had day-to-day involvement with the franchise. In fact, Bassett had no intention of owning the team beyond the 1985 season.
Even the Bandits -- a model franchise on and off the field -- were not immune to the financial difficulties facing the troubled USFL. On June 12, Bandit management had to call in letters of credit from its limited partners for $200,000 each. Still, the team was better off financially than any other team in the league. As general manager Ralph Campbell described them, they were the best of the worst.
No one was quite sure, however, what would happen to the team after the season. Numerous options were on the table for the franchise. The team could be sold and moved to another market, merged with an existing team, or remain in Tampa under new ownership and play again in the fall of 1986. Due to Bassett’s failing health, his idea to form a new spring league was simply no longer on the table.
On the field, the Bandits had once owned a league-leading 9-3 record and seemed to be the class of the USFL. After a franchise-worst four-game losing streak, however, a trip to the playoffs was no longer even a foregone conclusion.
Injuries and locker room disruptions also played a part in the team’s sudden demise.
The Bandits, never a dominant team on defense, could not overcome injuries to key defensive players such as Fred Nordgren and Kelly Kirchbaum.
On the other side of the ball, Eric Truvillion, the team’s all-time leading receiver, became the star of an ongoing drama between himself and head coach Steve Spurrier. It finally came to a head on June 13 when the Bandits deactivated Truvillion from the roster, effectively ending his career in Tampa Bay.
“If you feel like you have a player who is disruptive,” Spurrier said, “you remove him, and that’s what has happened. Something that had been going on for a long time finally came to a head.”
Remarkably, the Bandits could still lose their two remaining games, and with one loss by the Jacksonville Bulls, sneak into the playoffs. Even more remarkably, the Bandits were still in a position to host a playoff game based on the USFL’s prerogative to award home-field advantage based on attendance. The Bandits ranked second in the entire league, trailing only Jacksonville.
The Birmingham Stallions, with a league-best 12-4 mark, came riding into Tampa for the last regular season game – and potentially final ever Bandits game -- at Tampa Stadium on June 15, 1985.
On “Fan Appreciation Night,” the Bandits gave the roughly 24,000 who showed up some positives lasting images to remember, although the team struggled to put up any points for most of the first half.
An 11-play, 92 yard drive culminated in a three-yard touchdown toss from Birmingham’s Cliff Stoudt to Jim Smith midway through the first quarter. This accounted for the only scoring until the final minute of a half which had featured an assortment of turnovers, missed field goals, punts, and stalled drives.
Trailing 7-0 with 1:51 left, Bandit quarterback John Reaves engineered a perfect two-minute drill, taking his team seven plays for a game-tying touchdown. Reaves found receiver Spencer Jackson in the end zone from five yards out to send the Bandits into the locker tied 7-7 at the half.
In the third quarter, the Bandits intercepted Stoudt three times, and were able to convert the second pick into go-ahead points. A 34-yard field goal by Zenon Andrusyshyn at 7:18 of the third quarter gave Tampa Bay a 10-7 lead.
Stoudt’s third interception – and second of the game by Dwayne Anderson – led to a 12-yard rushing touchdown by Gary Anderson at the 1:09 mark of the third quarter. Heading into the final quarter of USFL football at Tampa Stadium, the Bandits held a 17-7 lead.
The defense, which had given up 132 points during the team’s four-game losing streak, had somehow held Birmingham to just seven points despite losing battles in time of possession, total yardage, and first downs. Turnovers proved the difference, as Tampa Bay produced five interceptions and made other critical stops to snuff out Birmingham drives. The Stallions would not get on the board again until the waning seconds of the game, an ultimately meaningless touchdown pass that narrowed the final score to 17-14.
This game marked the only time in team history that the Bandits won at Tampa Stadium by scoring fewer than 19 points.
“It was the first time in three years we beat a good team and really didn’t play well on offense,” Spurrier said after the game. “Obviously the name ‘Banditball’ turned into defense tonight.”
With a playoff berth assured through victory and a Jacksonville loss, the Bandits closed out the regular season the following weekend with a disheartening loss on the road to the Baltimore Stars. Turnovers on their first four possessions – and six overall – doomed the Bandits to a 38-10 defeat.
Tampa Bay finished the season with a 10-8 mark, the worst of any qualifying playoff team. Despite their stellar home attendance marks, the league sent the Bandits to the west coast for their first-round playoff game against the Oakland Invaders.
A crowd of just under 20,000 fans watched the Bandits play valiantly, but ultimately fall to the top-ranked Invaders, 30-27.
Out of the playoffs and with an ultimately doomed future, the curtain had finally come down on the memorable three-year run of “Banditball.”
Showing posts with label John Bassett. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Bassett. Show all posts
Monday, June 14, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Grudge Match at Tampa Stadium, 5/26/85
Due to the brief history of the league, few rivalries were truly able to take hold in the USFL. Between expansion, relocation, and owners swapping franchises, the familiarity between teams that breeds contempt was hard to find.
There were two teams, however, who were exceptions to the rule: the Tampa Bay Bandits and the New Jersey Generals.
New Jersey running back Herschel Walker explained it as such: “There is no love lost between these two teams. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because they’re from the South, and we’re from the North. Plus, the owners don’t like each other.”
In 1983, the Bandits won the first USFL game played at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, a 32-9 victory over the Generals. The Bandits were able to hold Walker to 39 yards on 19 carries. A year later Tampa Bay again defeated New Jersey, this time 40-14 in a laugher at Tampa Stadium.
Tampa Bay nearly pulled out a third win in their first of two meetings in 1985. Although quarterback John Reaves passed for 410 yards, the Bandits blew a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter and lost to the Generals, 28-24, behind a rushing touchdown by Walker with 24 seconds left.
"Of all the games we have lost in three yeas," head coach Steve Spurrier said, "that hurt the most because we gave it away."
By the time of the rematch on May 26, 1985, the Bandits had won two lopsided contests and suffered one heartbreaking defeat to the Generals. If the competition felt heated on the field, by this point some serious competition had already taken place off the field between New Jersey owner Donald Trump and Tampa Bay owner John Bassett.
It is well known that Trump garnered the most headlines and attracted the most attention during his two seasons as owner of the Generals. He led the charge among USFL owners to move from the spring to the fall and compete head-to-head against the NFL.
Standing in direct opposition to him was Bassett, who believed that the USFL could only succeed as a spring alternative to the NFL. When USFL owners decided on April 29 to officially move to the fall, Bassett announced his intention to break away from the USFL and form his own spring league.
The two clearly had major philosophical differences on the future of the USFL, and while many fans and media members might have liked to view the game as a grudge match between Bassett and Trump, in actuality neither owner even planned on attending in person. While Trump watched the game from his weekend home in Connecticut, Bassett recuperated in his Toronto-area home from radiation treatments for his brain tumors.
On the field, the Bandits would have their hands plenty full containing Herschel Walker without also having the weight of league matters on their shoulders. Walker came into the game having rushed for over 100 yards in seven consecutive games. If the Bandits could control Walker -- who happened to be both New Jersey's leading rusher and receiver -- they could force quarterback Doug Flutie to beat them, and Flutie had yet to become anything more than a deft scrambler and mediocre passer in his rookie season.
Without the services of star nose guard Fred Nordgren, who had been lost for the season due to a broken leg, the task of stopping Walker may have been too much to expect.
Still, anyone hoping to see a good game did not leave Tampa Stadium disappointed. In fact, the estimated crowd of 35,000 may have witnessed one of the most exciting games in Bandit history.
A first half duel between Walker, and Tampa Bay's own rushing star Gary Anderson, set the tone for the game.
Walker started the scoring late in the first quarter with a 12-yard rushing touchdown to give New Jersey a 7-0 lead. Anderson answered back less than three minutes later on an 8-yard pass from John Reaves to nod the game 7-7.
Both Walker and Anderson added second quarter rushing touchdowns and the teams headed into the locker room tied 14-14.
Midway through the third quarter, Reaves found tight end Marvin Harvey on a 21-yard strike to give the Bandits a seven-point lead. Walker and the Generals would not go away, however, and the running back notched his third rushing touchdown of the day early in the fourth quarter to once again even up the contest.
With the score tied and time winding down, the Bandits marched 63 yards on 11 plays to set up a potential game-winning field goal by Zenon Andrusyshyn with 1:36 left in the game. The kicker known as "Z" to his teammates nailed a 29-yarder to give Tampa Bay a 24-21 lead. Still, the fireworks in this game were just getting started.
A hallmark of his collegiate and 21-year professional career, staging late comebacks was simply Doug Flutie's specialty. Despite only pedestrian statistics to that point (5 completions for 68 yards), Flutie would go on to produce the finest comeback of his rookie season.
Working with no timeouts and the Bandits running a prevent defense, Flutie completed five passes for 44 yards while driving the Generals 51 yards in 1:32 to set up a game-tying field goal. With just four seconds left in regulation, Roger Ruzek split the uprights from 40 yards out to send the game into overtime.
Tampa Bay punted after their first possession of overtimes, setting the stage for Flutie to cap the comeback. It didn't take long, as he connected on a much-disputed 49-yard strike to receiver Clarence Collins.
One referee ruled offensive pass interference on the play, which would have nullified the catch. He then changed his mind, calling defensive pass interference on corner Warren Hanna. Safety Marcus Quinn disputed that Collins even made a catch, saying that the ball hit the ground. A second referee ruled the pass a catch, but said that he did not see any interference on the play.
"It was a real mess," Quinn said after the game.
The "catch" and declined pass interference call set New Jersey up at the Tampa Bay 18-yard line, almost certainly guaranteeing a Ruzek field goal attempt to win the game.
With 11:07 remaining in overtime, the Generals lined up for the game-winning kick. Punter Rick Patridge, on for the hold, fumbled the snap. Instead of dropping on the ball -- which because the play came on second down would have given New Jersey another chance to kick -- Patridge scooped up the football and made a break for the end zone. Diving towards the pylon, Patridge became the unlikeliest of heroes as his nine-yard rushing touchdown delivered New Jersey to victory.
It was a stunning end to another late-game collapse against New Jersey. The defeat cost the Bandits a chance to clinch a berth in the playoffs. The defense, which had kept Tampa Bay in the game despite a three-touchdown, 166 yard rushing performance by Walker, simply could not stop Flutie when it mattered most.
Defensive end Mike Clark called the game a "tough loss."
"It's going to be kind of tough to get over this one for the whole team."
Indeed, if the next few games were any indication, it may have been a loss from which the franchise never truly recovered.
There were two teams, however, who were exceptions to the rule: the Tampa Bay Bandits and the New Jersey Generals.
New Jersey running back Herschel Walker explained it as such: “There is no love lost between these two teams. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because they’re from the South, and we’re from the North. Plus, the owners don’t like each other.”
In 1983, the Bandits won the first USFL game played at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, a 32-9 victory over the Generals. The Bandits were able to hold Walker to 39 yards on 19 carries. A year later Tampa Bay again defeated New Jersey, this time 40-14 in a laugher at Tampa Stadium.
Tampa Bay nearly pulled out a third win in their first of two meetings in 1985. Although quarterback John Reaves passed for 410 yards, the Bandits blew a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter and lost to the Generals, 28-24, behind a rushing touchdown by Walker with 24 seconds left.
"Of all the games we have lost in three yeas," head coach Steve Spurrier said, "that hurt the most because we gave it away."
By the time of the rematch on May 26, 1985, the Bandits had won two lopsided contests and suffered one heartbreaking defeat to the Generals. If the competition felt heated on the field, by this point some serious competition had already taken place off the field between New Jersey owner Donald Trump and Tampa Bay owner John Bassett.
It is well known that Trump garnered the most headlines and attracted the most attention during his two seasons as owner of the Generals. He led the charge among USFL owners to move from the spring to the fall and compete head-to-head against the NFL.
Standing in direct opposition to him was Bassett, who believed that the USFL could only succeed as a spring alternative to the NFL. When USFL owners decided on April 29 to officially move to the fall, Bassett announced his intention to break away from the USFL and form his own spring league.
The two clearly had major philosophical differences on the future of the USFL, and while many fans and media members might have liked to view the game as a grudge match between Bassett and Trump, in actuality neither owner even planned on attending in person. While Trump watched the game from his weekend home in Connecticut, Bassett recuperated in his Toronto-area home from radiation treatments for his brain tumors.
On the field, the Bandits would have their hands plenty full containing Herschel Walker without also having the weight of league matters on their shoulders. Walker came into the game having rushed for over 100 yards in seven consecutive games. If the Bandits could control Walker -- who happened to be both New Jersey's leading rusher and receiver -- they could force quarterback Doug Flutie to beat them, and Flutie had yet to become anything more than a deft scrambler and mediocre passer in his rookie season.
Without the services of star nose guard Fred Nordgren, who had been lost for the season due to a broken leg, the task of stopping Walker may have been too much to expect.
Still, anyone hoping to see a good game did not leave Tampa Stadium disappointed. In fact, the estimated crowd of 35,000 may have witnessed one of the most exciting games in Bandit history.
A first half duel between Walker, and Tampa Bay's own rushing star Gary Anderson, set the tone for the game.
Walker started the scoring late in the first quarter with a 12-yard rushing touchdown to give New Jersey a 7-0 lead. Anderson answered back less than three minutes later on an 8-yard pass from John Reaves to nod the game 7-7.
Both Walker and Anderson added second quarter rushing touchdowns and the teams headed into the locker room tied 14-14.
Midway through the third quarter, Reaves found tight end Marvin Harvey on a 21-yard strike to give the Bandits a seven-point lead. Walker and the Generals would not go away, however, and the running back notched his third rushing touchdown of the day early in the fourth quarter to once again even up the contest.
With the score tied and time winding down, the Bandits marched 63 yards on 11 plays to set up a potential game-winning field goal by Zenon Andrusyshyn with 1:36 left in the game. The kicker known as "Z" to his teammates nailed a 29-yarder to give Tampa Bay a 24-21 lead. Still, the fireworks in this game were just getting started.
A hallmark of his collegiate and 21-year professional career, staging late comebacks was simply Doug Flutie's specialty. Despite only pedestrian statistics to that point (5 completions for 68 yards), Flutie would go on to produce the finest comeback of his rookie season.
Working with no timeouts and the Bandits running a prevent defense, Flutie completed five passes for 44 yards while driving the Generals 51 yards in 1:32 to set up a game-tying field goal. With just four seconds left in regulation, Roger Ruzek split the uprights from 40 yards out to send the game into overtime.
Tampa Bay punted after their first possession of overtimes, setting the stage for Flutie to cap the comeback. It didn't take long, as he connected on a much-disputed 49-yard strike to receiver Clarence Collins.
One referee ruled offensive pass interference on the play, which would have nullified the catch. He then changed his mind, calling defensive pass interference on corner Warren Hanna. Safety Marcus Quinn disputed that Collins even made a catch, saying that the ball hit the ground. A second referee ruled the pass a catch, but said that he did not see any interference on the play.
"It was a real mess," Quinn said after the game.
The "catch" and declined pass interference call set New Jersey up at the Tampa Bay 18-yard line, almost certainly guaranteeing a Ruzek field goal attempt to win the game.
With 11:07 remaining in overtime, the Generals lined up for the game-winning kick. Punter Rick Patridge, on for the hold, fumbled the snap. Instead of dropping on the ball -- which because the play came on second down would have given New Jersey another chance to kick -- Patridge scooped up the football and made a break for the end zone. Diving towards the pylon, Patridge became the unlikeliest of heroes as his nine-yard rushing touchdown delivered New Jersey to victory.
It was a stunning end to another late-game collapse against New Jersey. The defeat cost the Bandits a chance to clinch a berth in the playoffs. The defense, which had kept Tampa Bay in the game despite a three-touchdown, 166 yard rushing performance by Walker, simply could not stop Flutie when it mattered most.
Defensive end Mike Clark called the game a "tough loss."
"It's going to be kind of tough to get over this one for the whole team."
Indeed, if the next few games were any indication, it may have been a loss from which the franchise never truly recovered.
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