|
1
9 8 3 |
| March
13 - The Wranglers win their first game over the
Chicago Blitz, 30-29, on a Jim Asmus field goal
with :01 remaining. |
| . |
| May
1 - The Wranglers lose to the Oakland Invaders,
34-20. Though at 4-5-0 the team is tied
for the Pacific Division lead - but the Invader
loss is the first of ten consecutive defeats to
close out the team's inaugural season. |
| . |
| September
30 - Jim Joseph sells the Wranglers to former
Chicago Blitz owner Dr. Ted Diethrich as part of
a "trade" of franchises - the 1983
Wranglers in essence become the 1984 Blitz,
while the 1983 Chicago Blitz become the
"new" Arizona Wranglers. The
teams also switch their order in the 1984 USFL
draft. |
| . |
|
1
9 8 4 |
| January
4 - With the 5th overall pick in the USFL draft
(acquired from the expansion Houston Gamblers),
the Wranglers select DE Keith Millar of
Washington State. With its regular
selection at #16, the Wranglers select UCLA
Defensive Back Lupe Sanchez. |
| . |
|
To
see more of the
Wranglers timeline, visit the
USFL.INFO
Timeline of the USFL |
|
Enter
Dr. Ted Diethrich, the Phoenix cardiovascular
surgeon and founder of the Arizona Heart
Institute, who had a year earlier been awarded the
Chicago franchise. Like Joseph, Diethrich's
Chicago Blitz werent' faring well at the gate
despite the presence of head coach George Allen
and players such as former NFL'er Greg Landry and
rookies like running back Tim Spencer and wide
receiver Trumaine Johnson. The Blitz average
attendance was just over 18,000 in 1983, bad news
for a team that had made the USFL's playoffs.
Diethrich hadn't given up on the concept of spring
football however, and when he learned that Joseph
was planning to sell the Wranglers, the thought of
the doctor owning his hometown team held immediate
appeal. Diethrich's idea was unusual - a
franchise "trade" where the 1983 Chicago
Blitz would move, lock, stock and barrel, to
Phoenix while the 1983 Arizona Wranglers would
become the "new" Chicago Blitz.
The only problem was Diethrich's finding someone
to buy the Blitz, but eventually he found his man
in the form of a colleague, Milwaukee
cardiovascular surgeon Dr. James Hoffman.
Diethrich sold the Blitz to Hoffman on September
29, and the following day it was announced that
Joseph had sold the Wranglers to Diethrich and
that the massive "trade" had taken
place.
The 1984 Blitz, ehr, Wranglers head coach George
Allen brought along a team that had fell just an
overtime touchdown short of advancing to the
USFL's title game the year before. The
"new" Wranglers of 1984 finished 10-8-0,
tied with the L.A. Express for the Pacific
Divison's best record. Though the Express
won the Pacific Division title on tiebreakers, the
Wranglers made the playoffs as a wild-card, where
they would face the expansion (but Central
Division champion) Houston Gamblers in the first
round of the playoffs.
In the playoffs, the Wranglers made a run that was
reminiscent of the Cleveland Browns "Cardiac
Kids" team of 1980. Down 16-3 to the
Gamblers with seven minutes left, the Wranglers
scored a pair of touchdowns to capture victory and
advance to the Western Conference championship
game. There, it took an even more Herculean
effort to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat,
scoring 21 points in the game's fourth quarter to
overcome the L.A. Express and their rookie
quarterback, Steve Young, 35-23. USFL fans
in Phoenix, who just a year earlier were lamenting
a 4-14-0 squad, were going to see their team in
the league's championship game.
Unfortunately for the Wranglers, Cinderella's
slipper didn't fit in Tampa. The
Philadelphia Stars, who had lost the 1983
championship to the Michigan Panthers, promptly
dismantled the Wranglers to win the 1984 USFL
Championship. The final score was 23-3, but
it could just as easily have been 41-3: the
Stars turned the ball over three times, including
twice in Arizona's "red zone."
Stars kicker David Trout had also missed both a
field goal and an extra point.
Wranglers owner Ted Diethrich was shown on ABC's
telecast pacing the sidelines of Tampa Stadium
like a nervous cat, and one could surmise that the
game's outcome wasn't the only thing he was happy
about losing. As in Chicago, Diethrich lost
millions with the Wranglers. Attendance
figures from 1983 to 1984 were virtually
unchanged, despite a much improved, more
competitive team. As with Jim Joseph before
him, Dr. Ted Diethrich had had enough of the
Arizona Wranglers.
As would the business transaction that brought
Diethrich into his ownership of the Arizona
Wranglers, the deal that took him out of the
ownership picture was an unusual one, and one
that, strangely, involved an owner that had
originally intended to place his USFL team in San
Diego. William Tatham had been awarded a
USFL expansion team for San Diego, to begin play
in 1984. As with the Harmon/Daniels tandem
before him, he was ultimately denied access to
Jack Murphy Stadium by the City of San Diego and
was forced to relocate his team elsewhere,
settling on Tulsa, where he set up shop as the
Oklahoma Outlaws. After just a year there
Tatham was looking for a new home for the club.
After discussions between Tatham and Oakland
Invaders owner Tad Taube regarding a potential
merger between the Outlaws and Invaders fell
apart, Ted Diethrich began negotiations that led
to Tatham acquiring the assets of the Wranglers
and relocating the Outlaws there for 1985.
While widely reported as a merger of the two clubs
(and in some senses it was, as the Outlaws held
Wrangler player contracts), it was technically an
"acquisition of assets." The
Arizona Wranglers, born in Oakland, moved to Los
Angeles as an infant and then again to Phoenix to
grow up, were now dead. |
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