Pursuit of Joe Namath
Prior to the 1975 season opener, Winds owner Eugene Pullano attempted to sign New York Jets star quarterback Joe Namath to a contract. Namath, who had helped establish the Jets and the old American Football League, was wavering about re-signing with New York after the 1974 season. Reports had him retiring, being traded to another NFL team — or jumping to the WFL, perhaps as a player/coach/co-owner. Namath's agent Jimmy Walsh asked the Winds for a $500,000 signing bonus, a three-year contract worth $500,000 a year, a two million dollar annuity ($100,000 per year for twenty years) and even terms for Namath's eventual ownership of a WFL franchise in New York. (The Winds even changed their colours to green and white, the same as the Jets.)
When Eddie Einhorn, head of the WFL's television partner, TVS Television Network, got word that the upstart league was going after Namath, he bluntly told league president Chris Hemmeter that the WFL was literally betting its existence on getting Namath. Nearly all of TVS' affiliates refused to commit to air any WFL games in 1975 until Namath's signing was confirmed. According to Mark Kreigel's biography, Namath, Chicago apparently accepted the terms of the contract — until Walsh also demanded 15 percent of the WFL's total TV package. The Winds, perhaps somewhat counterintuitively (as 85% of television revenue for the league would have been better than having no TV revenue at all), rejected the deal. The Winds had all but promised that Namath would come to Chicago, and their failure to sign him made them and the league look foolish. Namath stayed with the Jets, and TVS dropped its coverage of the WFL, leaving the league without national television coverage in its final season.
The team did, however, hire former Charlotte Hornets pilot Babe Parilli as its head coach and general manager. A number of old Fire players returned as well, including running backs Mark Kellar and Cyril Pinder, center Guy Murdock (the Fire's MVP), and receivers Steve Wright and Chuck Kogut. With Namath out of the picture, the Winds acquired veteran quarterback Pete Beathard from the Portland Storm, while wide receiver John Gilliam, originally signed with The Hawaiians, also came to Chicago.
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Famous quotes containing the words pursuit of, pursuit, joe and/or namath:
“Once the pursuit of truth begins to haunt the mind, it becomes an ideal never wholly attained.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“It wounds a man less to confess that he has failed in any pursuit through idleness, neglect, the love of pleasure, etc., etc., which are his own faults, than through incapacity and unfitness, which are the faults of his nature.”
—William Lamb Melbourne, 2nd Viscount (1779–1848)
“We saw a pair of moose-horns on the shore, and I asked Joe if a moose had shed them; but he said there was a head attached to them, and I knew that they did not shed their heads more than once in their lives.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If men could menstruate ... clearly, menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event: Men would brag about how long and how much.... Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. Of course, some men would still pay for the prestige of such commercial brands as Paul Newman Tampons, Muhammed Ali’s Rope-a-Dope Pads, John Wayne Maxi Pads, and Joe Namath Jock Shields—”For Those Light Bachelor Days.””
—Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)