50 Years Ago Today: The WFL Played Its First Games

Good morning Uni Watchers, and a Happy Humpday to one and all.

I have a very special and fun lede for you today, as we celebrate a very special anniversary — on July 10, 1974, exactly 50 years ago to the day — the World Football League (WFL) played the new league’s very first games. And Uni Watch contributor/pal/stalwart Jimmy Corcoran was there to witness the first game in person. Jimmy undoubtedly knows more about the history and uniforms of the WFL better than anyone. Jimmy has shared some really fun stories with us previously.

I’m sure most readers are familiar with Jimmy — his dad, “King” Corcoran played quarterback for the Philadelphia Bell, one of the teams to open the inaugural (and as it turned out, penultimate) season of the new upstart league. He’ll be regaling us with his memories from that day 50 years ago momentarily.

From the excellent World Football League website, here’s how they described the anticipation of the debut games for the WFL:

July 10, 1974

WFL openers attract thousands; Davidson claims, “WFL Is Here To Stay”

The World Football League kicked off its inaugural season on July 10, 1974 in five cities across the United States. The response was incredible. The following night in Jacksonville, Florida over 59,000 fans packed into the Gator Bowl, surprising even WFL Commissioner Gary Davidson who was in attendance. Davidson had attended the Americans-Sun game in Birmingham, Alabama, the night before. The WFL drew over 250,000 fans to its games and Davidson was quoted as telling reporters, “I’m really awed… the crowds have been better than I expected.” Despite the numbers, a few troubling headlines were reported. In Philadelphia, a monumental traffic jam occurred when 55,000 Bell fans and 32,000 Phillies fans tried to get home after the game. In Jacksonville and Memphis power failures delayed play, and in Chicago and Philadelphia officials questioned the reported “paid” attendance, while newspapers in Orlando, Florida reported the lack of attendance. Despite the few miscues the WFL had arrived with a welcoming that was fit for a king.

And here’s how the media of the day described the Philadelphia Bell game:

Bell Routs Storm 33-8 Before 55,000 at JFK

“King” Corcoran leads team with two touchdowns

philadelphia, pa; The Bell scored four 7-point touchdowns and crushed the Portland Storm 33-8 before 55,534 fans. The Bell were sparked by quarterback Jim “King” Corcoran who completed 21 of 38 passes for 227 yards and two touchdowns. In the first quarter, Philadelphia broke a scoreless tie with a 28-yard field goal by Richie Szaro and then opened up the offense to lead 25-0 by halftime as Corcoran executed three touchdown drives, capping two with scoring passes. WFL officials were impressed with the turnout- the Bell outdrew the Philadelphia Phillies on the same night. (Claude Watts, pictured above). This game was televised by HBO Sports.

Let me now turn the rest of this over to Jimmy as he brings you…

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The Uni Watch Time Machine: July 10, 1974 — Let’s Go Back to the WFL
by Jimmy Corcoran

Has it been fifty years already? Phil and I discussed a couple of different ways to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the WFL today and this is what we came up with. There are a lot of Uni Watch readers who weren’t even born when the WFL was around, so today I am going to take you back to July 10, 1974, and you will go through the whole day and game of the Philadelphia Bell vs the Portland Storm. I even brought out the heavy guns for this article, my mother. At first, she wanted nothing to do with a King Corcoran story, but when she found out it was for Uni Watch she agreed because she said “Phil is a straight shooter” and she loves the nickname “The Jimmer!” So, I have added stories from her to this article.

We drove up to Philadelpha that morning and would be staying there for a couple of days. If the Bell lost, we would be going back to Maryland the next morning because my father would sulk for two days after a loss and mom didn’t want to be in a hotel room with him in that mood. About halfway there we stopped for food, and he was on the cover of all the newspapers at the newsstand at the rest stop. My mother said, “This sure isn’t Pottstown tonight, I hope he is ready.”

We got to the Warwick Hotel in the afternoon, a lot of the Bell players lived there and so did my father. He really was treated like a King in that place, room service would call him in the morning and ask him if he is ready for his scrambled eggs.

When we got to my father’s room, he was studying the plays with Frank Dimaggio (his backup). Frank would give him a down and yardage situation and my father would say what plays were available and what formations they could run the play out of. The Philadelphia Bell had the most sophisticated offense in the WFL and my father would be calling his own plays this night, so he needed Frank to test him.

I didn’t notice anything different about my father, he always seemed ultra cool to me, but my mother had known him since he was seventeen years old, and asked him what was wrong. He said nothing. She said “You look nervous,” and he said “The King doesn’t get nervous.” He got up to go to the bathroom and my mother asked “Dimag” (as my father would call him) “Is he nervous?” And Frank said, “No, the King will eat them up tonight.”

I didn’t like the vibe my mother was giving off and said “Why are you saying he is nervous?” She said “Did you see how the flair pen was shaking in his hands; he never does that.” When my father came out of the bathroom she asked him again what was wrong, and he said “I haven’t played in front of a crowd like this since I was at Maryland, I don’t have any game film of the Portland Storm, I just want to give the fans a good show tonight.”

Frank Dimaggio tried to calm him down by saying, “Their defense will be very basic, and you can read a blitz with your eyes shut.” He said “You’re right Dimag, plus I have a few tricks up my sleeve for them tonight.” What he meant by that was, the Bell had a whole playbook of plays that they didn’t use in the scrimmages, so the Storm would have a hard time defending, since they wouldn’t recognize the formations and multiple shifts the Bell would use.

Frank and my father went downstairs, as they had to go to a meeting that would take about forty-five minutes. When we all got to the lobby, there was a news camera crew there who wanted to do a piece on him for the news that night — if there was one thing the King loved, it was a camera crew. He told them to wait, he would be back soon, and he left. The camera guy asked my mother did she want to go down the street and walk in the park with us and do an interview, she said “Sure.” We walked by my mother as she walked around the park and told what it was like being married to the King. I never said anything, at ten years old, most of the stories I told in those NFL Films movies hadn’t happened yet. The interview went so well that they said we have enough footage and left. We never even saw it on the news that night because we were at a team party.

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We waited for my father in the lobby and when he got back, he said “Where is my camera crew?” My mother said “They left. They interviewed me and said they had enough.” He went crazy! “What do you mean they left, how can they leave without the King? You’re stealing my thunder Marylou.” As we got in the elevator, he mumbled to himself, “How can you do a King story without the King?”

He took a short nap and then we all went to the stadium, we got there early and there was no crowd there yet. My Mother and sister went to the seats, there were a lot of my parents’ friends from Maryland there to hang out with. I went to the locker room with my father. At the time, I lived in Maryland and had been to the scrimmages, but the season had yet to start, and I didn’t know everybody yet as well as I would when I started to hang out there. I knew Claude Watts, John Land, Ron Holiday, and Brian Marshall from the Pottstown Firebirds but that was about it at this point. A lot of the guys I met earlier in the summer didn’t make the team. I was so new to the WFL I didn’t know that the home team wore white jerseys at home! The first thing I saw was the white jerseys hanging in the lockers and was disappointed that they would not be wearing the blue jerseys.

I walked over to the equipment room; I didn’t have access to it yet like I would when I did work for Bob Colonna. I looked in and saw all the blue Bell game jerseys hanging on a rack, I asked my father, “Aren’t you wearing the blue jerseys at home.” He replied, “I don’t know Jimbo, don’t bother me with that shit now”.

I had been in the Pottstown Firebirds locker room with him but was too young to notice his demeanor. In 1972 I had been in the Chambersburg Cardinals locker room, and he was loose and telling King stories as he got dressed, but tonight he was a serious as a heart attack. I looked at his jersey hanging up and it was a size medium, I also noticed Frank Dimaggio’s jersey was a size medium, they looked really small to me, my father was a weightlifter and Dimaggio was bigger than my father. I guess I asked another dumb question when I asked him why his jersey was only a medium, he said “Jimbo what did I just tell you about this?”

We went outside for the warm ups, people were taking pictures of him and Bell players were coming up to him and saying have a good game King, and he was now back to his old self and joking around again, just a few minutes earlier he was pretty tense getting dressed. There was a large group of Storm players with their hands on their hips watching my father throw. I asked my father why are all those Storm players watching you? He said “They want to see if the King’s arm is as good as advertised Jimbo, I am going to light these fuckers up tonight”.

My father did ask me what I thought of the Portland Storm uniforms. I said I didn’t like them, he said I wasn’t digging them either. I have seen the Storm uniforms described as neon green on the internet, but they weren’t, they were more of a dull green and as it became night outside you couldn’t see the numbers very well.

We went back into the locker room and I went over to John Land and wished him good luck. I had known him since I was five years old and he gave me a hug. I then had to stand outside with some other kids because Ron Waller’s speech was full of F bombs. The game had finally started, and guess who caught my father’s first pass in the WFL, Mr. Invincible himself Vince Papale, I don’t know the yardage, but it was a short pass in the middle.

Since the crowd was so loud and there was a full stadium, I couldn’t hear the players on the field like I could when the crowd was almost empty later in the season, but I could see the Portland DB’s arguing with each other over who was supposed to cover the wide-open Bell WR’s. Since I didn’t have any ball boy duties, this first game and a kid can’t really see things from the sidelines so well, I went up to the stands and hung out with my mother and sister. My Mother asked how Dad was doing, I said, “I don’t know he won’t talk to me during the game.”

He ended up throwing two TD’s in the game and they won 33-8.

After the game, the locker room was like a party, with the King leading the way. He was the very last guy to take off his uniform, he stood on the long bench in front of his locker and pumped his fist as he led the players with “33-8, 33-8!” chants. He literally gave an interview to every reporter in that locker room, and as I said in a previous story, I went outside and told my mother he was still in his uniform, and she said “Tell him to get dressed or we’re leaving.”

We drove back to the hotel and there was a team party in the restaurant in the hotel. We went up to the room and he put on one of his wild outfits with his blue sunglasses. We went downstairs and when we went into the party he got a standing ovation, and let me tell you, nobody liked applause like the King, he just ate it up. One of the owners was John Kelly, the brother of Grace Kelly and he had some old movie star friends there who wanted to meet my father. That is another thing the King loved, Hollywood and movie stars, I don’t think I ever saw him in such a good mood.

The next day we were at Dewy’s, a restaurant across the street, he had his own booth there that had a “Reserved for King Corcoran” sign on it. While the King had his usual rare burger and black and white shake, there was a color picture of him on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer, people were asking him to sign it for them and he was eating it up. We all drove back to Maryland the next day and my poor mother had to listen to every play he called against the Storm.

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Well, I would like to thank the Uni Watch readers for taking this journey with me today and going back to that day and reliving that first game in the WFL 50 years ago today.

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Thanks, Jimmy! And thanks for regaling us with a really fun story of what it was like to be so close to the action on the day the WFL started.