The National Professional Soccer League (NPSL) was, along with the United Soccer Association (USA), the U.S. and Canada’s first foray into top-level outdoor soccer, After one season, the two merged to form the North American Soccer League (NASL).
The New England Colonials entered the Atlantic Coast Football League for the minor league circuit’s final season of 1973. The Colonials shared Schaefer Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts with the New England Patriots and had strong ties to the NFL club. The expansion club won the ACFL title in their debut season of 1973, but the league folded not long afterwards.
The Baltimore Elite Giants got their start in Nashville, before moving to Columbus, Ohio for one year, then to Washington, D.C. They moved down the road in Baltimore in 1938 and played there until 1950, before spending their final season back in Tennessee.
The original Winnipeg Jets were charter members of the WHA in 1972. They moved to the NHL in 1979, along with three other WHA squads. In 1995, they were sold and moved to Phoenix for the 1996-97 hockey season. The name was revived when the Atlanta Thrashers moved to Manitoba in 2011 and assumed the Jets name but not their history.
The Atlantic City Surf were one of the six original franchises in the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball. The Atlantic League was (and remains) the most ambitious league to arise out of the independent baseball boom of the 1990’s. The Surf played at the Sandcastle, a 5,900-seat ballpark built on the grounds of Atlantic City’s municipal airport, Bader Field. The stadium was built with $11.5 million in Casino Reinvestment Development Authority funds and $3 million in taxpayer bonds.
For a remarkable three-year period between 2004 and 2006 this amateur women’s soccer club that played in a 1,500-seat community college field in the Trenton suburbs managed to sign up a jaw-dropping roster of top players from all over the world. The Wildcats ran roughshod over the USL’s W-League during these years with only one North American women’s club – the Vancouver Whitecaps – able to stay on the field with them.
A small market mainstay in the Arena Football League for over a decade, the Grand Rapids Rampage were owned by heirs to the Amway fortune. The team’s finest hour came in 2001, when the Rampage won Arena Bowl XV in front of a sell-out crowd at Van Andel Arena and a national broadcast television audience on ABC.
The American Basketball Association (ABA) was formed in 1967 as a competitor to the established National Basketball Association (NBA). It started with 11 teams, and within a few years was angling for a merger with the older league. In 1976, the NBA took in four ABA teams, while three other surviving teams disbanded.
The San Antonio Texans were a One-Year Wonder in the Canadian Football League, playing a single season at the Alamodome in the autumn of 1995. The franchise had a twisty backstory, dating back to the formation of the NFL-backed World League of American Football (WLAF) in 1990.
Fun While it Lasted presents the Jersey of the Week, brought to you by Royal Retros. Each week, we feature a historic uniform. Click to learn more about the team that wore this classic gear.
