New Super Bowl? 1983 USFL Championship

In nineteen eighty three, a young, upstart league that would challenge the NFL and eventually sue them for acting as a monopoly, held their very first championship when the United States Football League, better known as the USFL, held their championship in Denver, Colorado, where the Philadelphia Stars took on the Michigan Panthers and their attempt to upstage the Super Bowl. Learn all about it today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to sports history every day, and today's trivia question to listen out for is who was the MVP of nineteen eighty three USFL Championship game. Now, the USFL is a very unique league and there's a great story about it done by thirty for thirty called Small Potatoes. If you want to dive into a whole league, and we will do an episode in the future about the whole league. We're just going to focus on the nineteen eighty three season and specifically the first championship game. Now, the league started around the idea from David Dixon, who was a huge supporter of the New Orleans Saints and helped get them to New Orleans and build the super Dome, and his love for the game grew even more as he noticed that fans wanted even more football and there was a huge time in the spring where there was nothing football related going on. The draft wasn't what it was today, free agency wasn't around, and so that time between was a football wasteland where players were training, practicing, But we didn't see that as fans. We all wanted more football. And he had noticed that other leagues that had attempted to challenge the NFL while they played in fall as well, such as the American Football League and the World Football League, but both failed as they went head to head with the NFL. Now, the American Football League was able to merge and keep some teams, but the World Football League crumbled. Now there were many challenges. One of the biggest challenges is finding money to start the league, and they announced they were going to have the league, and luckily they were able to get some TV contracts to help boost the revenue going into that first season. They signed a thirteen million dollar deal with ABC and ESPN in for nineteen eighty three, and this would have nationally televised games, which was a huge boost and one of the biggest challenges to growing the league is having those games on TV, especially back then before the internet and what was on TV you had to watch because that was all we had. We didn't have anything on demand. Now. There were many challenges as owners of these teams that were started. As there was twelve teams, some of them dropped out or got involved in other things and had challenges finding stadiums and being able to support a team because it did cost a lot of money. And they were really going in on challenging the NFL putting money into it because the more money they put in, the better players they would have, and having better players meant a better product on the field, and that was their main thing. They need to make sure they had as good a product as the NFL. And they made that seement clear when they signed the Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker, who was a junior at the time, in a three time All American, to a three year, five million dollar contract. To put that into context, John Elway that year got a five million dollar five year contract. Now, they did have some different rules compared to the NFL to kind of help to stand out from the NFL, making it their own game. And one of the biggest ones was they had a two point conversion after a touchdown, which we all know today, but it wasn't a thing in the NFL till nineteen ninety four. And they also allowed the option to use a kicking tee for extra points and field goals, and the clock would stop on first downs within the last two minutes of each half, something again that was adopted by the NFL. And they also included intentional and unintentional passing interference, and they used a ball that was three eight inch shorter than the NFL ball, which allowed for better grip by quarterbacks and receivers and running backs. And one thing they really pioneered was they actually had an eighteen game schedule, opposed to the NFL, who at the time only had sixteen and as of this recording in twenty twenty four, the NFL is trying to get to eighteen that the USFL did. So they went into the season with twelve teams in three divisions. They had the Atlantic Division, which featured the Philadelphia Stars, Boston Breakers, New Jersey Generals, and the Washington Federals. In the Central Division, they had the Michigan Panthers, the Chicago Blitz, the Tampa Bay Bandits, and the Birmingham Stallions. And in the Pacific Division they had the Oakland Invaders, the Los Angeles Express, the Denver gold and the Arizona Wranglers. And the way the playoffs worked for this was that the division leaders would get an automatic bid into the playoffs, and then one wild card would make it into the playoffs from either division. So the Philadelphia Stars won the Atlantic Division, the Michigan Panthers won the Central Division, and the Oakland Invaders won the Pacific Division, with the Chicago Blitz winning the wild card, setting up the first USFL playoff, where the Philadelphia Stars took on the Chicago Blitz in a game that went into overtime on July ninth, nineteen eighty three, where the Philadelphia Stars won forty four to thirty eight, and the following day, on July tenth, the Michigan Panthers put a beating on the Oakland Invaders, winning thirty seven to twenty one, setting up a championship at Mile High Stadium in Denver, Colorado on July seventeenth, nineteen eighty three. Now the Philadelphia Stars were finished the season fifteen to three and were led by Chuck Fushina from Penn State, who has actually got a chance to get the job when his college coach, Joe Perterno called Jim Mora, the coach of the Philadelphia Stars, who was made famous when he later coached the Indianapolis Colts. You may remember his rant playoffs playoffs, but they also had MVP of the league that year, Kelvin Bryant, who had fourteen hundred yards and sixteen touchdowns. That's more touchdowns than even their quarterback through that year at fifteen, and they came into the game as the number one team in the entire league as they won a great offensive team, but their defense was dynamite, being led by future Hall of Famer Sam Mills at linebacker. And they would face off against the Michigan Panthers, who were coached by Jim Staley, who had been a position coach with the Atlanta Falcons previously, and they were led by their quarterback Bobby Hebert out of Northwestern State University where he was one hundred percent occasion. Now now Cajun, if you don't know, is common in Louisiana, a dialect in an accent that's very hard to understand if you've ever seen the movie Waterboy, in their the character of farmer friend that you can't understand again, who's always like hey, that's kind of Kasian. Now occasion is more understandable, but it's still very hard to understand, almost to the point where they are speaking English, but we can't understand it. But he was a big quarterback with a huge arm, standing six', four could throw the ball across the entire, field and he showed that, off throwing over three thousand yards and twenty seven, touchdowns being named the USFL's Most outstanding, quarterback being the touchdown leader for the entire. League and the running back room was led By Ken lacy who ran for a thousand, yards but their defense was led By John, crocker who had an outstanding season with twenty eight. Attacks just, reference the record in THE nfl is only twenty. Two, now he did have an extra, game but still that's a huge amount of. Sacks. Now the game was held the week after the previous week's playoff games In, Denver. Colorado the reason they Chose denver was it was a more centralized location compared to the other, places as you have The West coast And east coast kind of their location was the only one in the middle of the country was Either chicago Or, colorado so they Chose colorado and they had gotten access To Mile High, stadium so they had a huge capacity for the. Crowd, now at this, time the Super bowl was not the Super bowl like we know it. Today just give you a. Reference the halftime show at the nineteen eighty Three Super bowl was a marching, band so it still hadn't grown to the heights that it was. Today although they still got over forty six million people watching the, game it still hadn't reached the heights of it that we know of the Super bowl that makes it basically a sports holiday. Today but THE usfl really focused on making this a huge, event as they spent the whole week before bringing in as many sports reporters as they. Could they wanted to get the best pr for this entire, week so they literally flew in writers from all different places to help boost the word of mouth and the awareness of, it hosting galas and having parties all week to get as many people excited for this. Event and in some ways it, worked as you, know they had more writers there than they probably would, have but they also overbooked and didn't have the space for all the writers to, come and a little moment happened In denver that kind of took everyone a little bit away from the, game As John elway showed up at training camp With denver for the first time and took over all the headlines for the. Week but that didn't stop them from getting almost sixty thousand fans to show up To Mile High stadium on a gorgeously beautiful day for their championship game On july, seventeenth and they had skydivers land in the stadium before the. Game cheerleaders The denver gold The Michigan, panthers and The Philadelphia stars were performing choreography for teams throughout And Great trumpeter out here to performed The Nash anthem before the, game making it as big as a spectacle as they. Could but the biggest thing they wanted was a good. Game as the Previous Super bowls were bad, games, blowouts and they weren't close at, all people lost engagement of. It but they wanted a great game and that's what they. Got The panthers jumped out to a lead seventeen to three that they kept for three quarters After hebert threw two touchdown passes earlier in the. Game but The stars came back in the second half after missing a couple of field goals and drove off almost the length of the field twice to bring the game seventeen to, fourteen which as the game grew closer to the, end made it more. Exciting the stadium grew. Louder everyone was. Chanting everyone wanted this to, happen and there was only three minutes left in the. Game when The panthers had the ball at the forty eight yard line at a second and, ten running Back kinlacy got injured with only three minutes, left and after that injury, timeout that came out and did a couple of quick slants Where hebert found one of his favorite, Targets Derek, holloway on a quick, slant and he took it over thirty yards for a, touchdown giving them the lead twenty four to, fourteen and the call in the field Was hebert gets it, Away, carter there he. Goes first, down he's, loose he gets some, help he's in the. Corner. Touchdown whoa. Perfectly this was the excitement they all needed and this allowed them to win with the final score of twenty four to twenty, two With hebert winning THE, mvp throwing three. Touchdowns but it wasn't over, yet as, sadly before the game they had a unique experience where The Miller Brewing company sponsored the game and offered free beer ninety minutes before the, kickoff which meant many of the fans there were, drunk and they offered in the stadium beer throughout the entire. Game now they cut beer off after the third quarter in THE, nfl but not for THE usfl. Game and after the, game thousands of fans stormed the field and The denver, police who were the security at the, game were ordered to make sure that no one tore down or did anything to the goalpost or the, field so they acted in retaliation and maced many of the, fans which caused kind of an riot situation for about twenty. Minutes after all was said and, done a few people were, arrested other people needed some medical. Attention luckily no one was severely, injured but it was a kind of a black guy on the game ending in that. Way but overall it was a successful game for THE, usfl but, sadly due to some changes throughout the. Years the league did fold after three, seasons but it had some exciting moments and had some great, players and it was a quality, league AND i really wish it would have stayed. Around but luckily we are getting a new iteration of, it THE usfl and THE xfl combined to THE ufl that we had this year to some positive movements as a spring, league and maybe we'll continue in the. Future but this championship was a unique one in a great moment in sports. History and if you like, this please leave us a review or message us on our Website daily sportshistory dot. Com we'd love to hear from. You and if you have a topic or sport you love us to, cover please let us know we would love to do that for. You and come back tomorrow for More Daily Sports. History and did you catch the answer to today's trivia? Question who is THE mvp of the FIRST Usfl? Championship Bobby, hebert the quarterback for The Michigan panthers who threw three touchdowns in the. Game