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:
“There can be no two opinions as to what a highbrow is. He is the man or woman of thoroughbred intelligence who rides his mind at a gallop across country in pursuit of an idea.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“To higher or lower ends, they [the majority of mankind] move too often with something of a sad countenance, with hurried and ignoble gait, becoming, unconsciously, something like thorns, in their anxiety to bear grapes; it being possible for people, in the pursuit of even great ends, to become themselves thin and impoverished in spirit and temper, thus diminishing the sum of perfection in the world, at its very sources.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“While we were thus engaged in the twilight, we heard faintly, from far down the stream, what sounded like two strokes of a woodchopper’s axe, echoing dully through the grim solitude.... When we told Joe of this, he exclaimed, “By George, I’ll bet that was a moose! They make a noise like that.” These sounds affected us strangely, and by their very resemblance to a familiar one, where they probably had so different an origin, enhanced the impression of solitude and wildness.”
—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)