McEnroe Plays at Bayfront, 1/20/84

In the days leading up to Super Bowl XVIII twenty-five years ago, some of the biggest names in sports came to the Tampa Bay area. One athlete in particular had nothing to do with football, but was more well-known than game participants Joe Theismann, John Riggins, or Marcus Allen combined.

Known just as much for his on-court temper tantrums as his serve-and-volley prowess, John McEnroe had no equal in all of tennis in terms of star power. McEnroe brought his larger-than-life personality to the Bayfront Center in St. Petersburg as part of the “Tennis over America” tour for a match against Guillermo Villas on the evening of January 20, 1984.

Although he only captured six singles titles in 1983 -- including one Grand Slam (Wimbledon) -- McEnroe stormed into 1984 with a major victory over one of his biggest rivals. Earlier in the week, McEnroe officially claimed the No. 1 ranking in men’s tennis with a 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 victory over Ivan Lendl in the final of the Volvo Masters championship at Madison Square Garden.

Vilas, in the meantime, spent the days prior to the event appealing his suspension by the Men’s International Professional Tennis Council. The first South American male to win a Grand Slam title (the 1977 French Open), Vilas was charged with accepting an illegal $60,000 guarantee to play a tournament in the Netherlands. The council slapped Vilas with a $20,000 fine and a one-year suspension from the tour.

Vilas lost his appeal as the council review board found him guilty of soliciting and accepting guarantee money to play in the tournament, a violation of rules which only allowed players to compete for prize money. The council lifted his suspension, however, citing a career of “exemplary” conduct as part of their decision.

The words “exemplary” and “conduct” were two words rarely used together in any sentence written about McEnroe. As he neared his 25th birthday, the star sometimes known as the “Super Brat” hoped to shed his rambunctious reputation.

“My 1984 resolution is to get away from that (controversy) a little bit,” McEnroe said. “I have a hot temper and I know it. It’s really pretty difficult to turn it off and on at will, but I’m trying.”

McEnroe seemed to try pretty hard to control his temper and concentrate on his tennis during the match against Vilas. The two players had participated in the on-and-off traveling show together since 1981 and had faced off in over 40 such events. The evening, after all, was just as much about putting on a show for the crowd nearly 5,500-strong than anything else. To that end, disco lights and a fog machine provided the special effects as McEnroe and Vilas took the court to the song “Eye of the Tiger.”

Perhaps in a relaxed mood early on in the match, McEnroe played to the crowd throughout the first set. Ever the showman, he mixed an assortment of pantomimes and facial expressions with feigned outrage at line calls that went against him.

After jumping out to an early 3-1 lead, Vilas rallied to take five of the next six games to capture the first set. As if realizing he needed to shift to another gear, McEnroe broke Vilas’s serve twice in the second set en route to winning the set 6-2.

The third set proved to be a repeat as McEnroe held serve and again broke a worn-down Vilas twice to capture the set and win the match 4-6, 6-2, 6-2.

The evening continued with a special celebrity doubles match with Tom Cousineau of the Cleveland Browns and, a slightly lesser known celebrity in Phil Scott, the manager of the Bayfront Center. Scott filled in at the last minute for Hugh Green of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

In the end, the crowd enjoyed the exhibition, got three quality sets from two of tennis’s best players, and saw McEnroe receive a wristwatch for winning the match.

After leaving St. Petersburg, McEnroe went on to have the most successful year of his career, compiling an 82-3 record. McEnroe won a career-high 13 singles titles in 1984, including Wimbledon and U.S. Open championships.

Towards the end of the year at a tournament in Stockholm, Sweden, McEnroe uttered the now infamous line directed at the chair umpire, “Answer my question, jerk!” before dramatically slamming his racket into a courtside juice cart. Despite an unprecedented run of success in 1984, alas, McEnroe could not keep his New Year’s resolution to shy away from controversy.

Suncoast Suns Burn Out, 12/19/73

In 1992, the Tampa Bay Lightning began their inaugural season of play in the National Hockey League. One might naturally assume that the Lightning were the pioneers of ice hockey in the Tampa Bay area. Incredibly, professional hockey was being played in St. Petersburg a full two decades earlier.

Long before the Lightning's founding father, Phil Esposito, ever imagined bringing hockey to Tampa Bay, the minor-league Suncoast Suns patrolled the ice of the Bayfront Center in downtown St. Pete. Founded in 1971, the Suns played in the Eastern Hockey League during the 1971-72 and 1972-73 seasons. The Bayfront Center, with its intimate environment and clubby post-game atmosphere, was the place to be seen, and even actor James Garner got involved in the action by purchasing a small share of the club.

In February 1973, the Suns, along with teams based in North Carolina and Virginia, voted to leave the EHL and form a new league, the Southern Hockey League. Neither the EHL nor the new Southern Hockey League would be considered anyone's idea of world-class hockey -- imagine the Paul Newman film "Slap Shot" to appreciate the "rough and tumble" product on the ice.

The team hoped to benefit from playing in the new league in several ways. Travel expenses, for one, would be reduced considerably without trips to the northeast. The league would also form a relationship with the burgeoning World Hockey Association, which would supply the SHL with some of their minor leaguers.

Ed Rood, a prominent Tampa attorney as well as the Suns secretary and treasurer, felt this arrangement would bolster the league's reputation.

"We're pleased about being able to join a league such as this," Rood said. "It will only help to make hockey more popular in the South, and here in the Bay area."

The Suns, with a sluggish 9-22 mark on the ice, were just two months into the 1973-74 campaign when things started to unravel for the franchise off the ice. Rood and other Tampa-based investors in the team, who hoped to lure the New Jersey Knights of the WHA to Tampa, began pulling their financial backing for the team. Hemorrhaging money, the team's remaining owners, led by Steve Kirby and Chuck Mackey, were forced to find someone willing to buy the franchise.

As the Suns prepared to host Roanoke for a two-game series, the deal that would have transferred ownership of the team fell through. On December 18, Suns general manager Paul Caron announced in a news conference that the Suns needed an economic bailout -- $30,000 by 9 p.m. the next night -- or would face having to cease operations.

"Raising $30,000 will allow us to sustain our operation an additional 30 days," Caron said. "This 30 days will allow us the necessary time to locate long-range investors."

The team called on the public to save the team, providing phone numbers for fans in Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco counties willing to lend a hand.

"We're calling our fund 'S.O.S.,' Caron said. "That's 'Save Our Suns.' "

Apparently, a 7-year-old girl even called to donate $2.50. It wasn't enough. The Suns were able to raise a little over $18,000, well short of the amount needed to sustain the franchise.

On December 19, 1973, the SHL announced the dissolution of the Suncoast Suns. T. David Lamm, executive secretary of the SHL, called the announcement "a tragic thing for hockey and for the West Coast of Florida." The SHL had its own financial mess and were in no position to take control of the franchise. The league, therefore, had no choice but to fold the team.

League president Norman Curtis blasted Suns fans, saying in a statement that the team's failure could be attributed "due to the lack of interest by fans in the St. Petersburg area in hockey, at least in a non-contending (hockey) team."

Curtis wasn't entirely wrong in his assessment. Support for the Suns waned considerably during the season. The team struggled to win games, and often looked bad trying. Fans were bitter that crowd favorites from prior seasons, such as Cliff Pennington, Andre Lajeunesse and Marty Desmarais, were not brought back. Attendance at the Bayfront Center dipped below 1,000 for the last eight home games leading up to the team's death knell.

Lamm believed, however, there was plenty of local support given that the team managed to solicit more than $18,000 in a day's time.

"It shows that there is interest in the area," Lamm said. "I'm sorry the Suns couldn't have been a contender. It might have been different."

Tampa Tribune columnist Tom McEwen accurately predicted in his postmortem on the Suns that hockey would someday return to the Bay area - bigger and better than ever.

"The hockey playing Suns were a little before their time in our place," McEwen wrote. "In time, they'll be regarded and recorded as the pioneer hockey team in an area, that when that chronicle is written, will again have its own, prosperous, major league hockey team."

It took almost 20 years for hockey to return, but return the sport did. Now 35 years since the demise of the Suns, the area can claim its own prosperous - though presently victory-challenged - NHL team in the Tampa Bay Lightning.