Orange/Newark Tornadoes - The Bears Revived in The ACFL and Continental League

The Bears Revived in The ACFL and Continental League

The Newark Bears would return in 1963, when the Atlantic Coast Football League (a revival of sorts of the AA) revived the Newark Bears for two seasons. This version of the Bears was owned by Sol Rosen. In 1965, the team applied to the American Football League to join that league, but were turned down (as the New York metropolitan area already had both the Jets and NFL's Giants, both of which counted North Jersey as their market and would eventually move to New Jersey in later years), and instead joined the upstart Continental Football League, where it played one season in 1965 before moving to Orlando, Florida, acquiring an existing franchise in the Southern Professional Football League that had been in place since 1962, and becoming the Orlando Panthers. The Panthers played in the ContFL from 1966 to the league's dissolution in 1969. As the Panthers, and led by quarterback Don Jonas, the team won two league titles and played in a third. In 1966, the team lost the championship to the Philadelphia Bulldogs in sudden-death overtime, 20-17. In 1967, the Panthers won the title with a 38-14 win over the Orange County Ramblers. In 1968, they repeated the feat by defeating the Ramblers 30-23, though they had to enter the game by winning a playoff with the Indianapolis Capitols (which Orlando won 28-14). In 1969, however, Orlando and Indianapolis rematched in the semifinals, with the Capitols prevailing 27-7. When the Continental Football League folded, the Bears returned to the ACFL, playing two more seasons in 1970 and 1971. During the 1970 season, the Panthers had on their roster a holder named Patricia Palinkas, the first woman to play on a men's professional football team. Palinkas originally served as holder for her husband, Steve Palinkas, but Steve Palinkas was cut prior to the regular season while Patricia made the team. The Panthers folded in 1971 along with most of the rest of the ACFL.

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, the ACFL moved the former Charleston Rockets franchise to Newark in 1969, becoming the "Jersey Jays." The Jays played from 1969 to 1971.