| The
Los Angeles Express were organized with the idea that
the team would be a keynote franchise in the United
States Football League. Two and a half years and
nearly $30 million later, and the team had become a
laughingstock even by the USFL's rapidly deteriorating
standards. Being
taken over by the league prior to the 1985 season after
owner J. William Oldenburg gave up the ghost, the 1985
Express were for all intent and purpose operated by
Commissioner Harry Usher. Usher, who rarely
attended his own league's games, grew tired of seeing
the Express draw miniscule crowds to the cavernous Los
Angeles Coliseum, and at the end of the season he
decided to experiment - by placing a game at the home
field of tiny Pierce College in Woodland Hills,
California. If nothing else, Harry Usher would be
the first to bring pro football to California's San
Fernando Valley.
The facility was so small that it didn't even have a
name - to this day its simply referred to as
"the football field." The Express took
on the Arizona Outlaws before an announced crowd of
5,500 - and promptly lost, 21-10. A week later,
the Express would play their final game, another loss,
on the road in Portland.
|
|
|
|
PIERCE
COLLEGE |
|
Woodland
Hills, California |
|
|
