Seattle Rangers

Continental Football League (1967-1969)

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Continental Football League Collection

 Variously described as everything from “semi-pro” football to the “third Major League” behind the NFL and AFL during the late 1960’s, the Continental Football briefly established a sprawling network of pro football clubs that stretched from Florida to Mexico City to British Columbia. The Continental League helped launch the careers of Hall-of-Famers Bill Walsh and Ken Stabler and other NFL stars of the 1970’s including Otis Sistrunk, Bob Kuechenberg and Coy Bacon.

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Semi-Pro Origins

The Seattle Rangers were a three-year entry in the Continental Football League (1965-1969), a sprawling late ’60’s attempt at creating a “triple-A” level of professional football, a cut below the NFL and the AFL.  The Rangers were the highest level of pro football played in the state of Washington until the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks arrived in 1977.

Owner Lafa Lane, who made his money in the mortgage business, dreamed of bringing top-flight professional football to Seattle. The city had been chosen as a location for a charter franchise in the American Football League (AFL) in 1959. However, the University of Washington board of regents rejected the proposal to let the proposed pro team use the school’s stadium.⁴Stadium use held important, AP via The Ellensburg Daily Record, Aug. 18, 1959

Lane, though, started at the bottom, buying a semi-pro franchise in the obscure North Pacific Football League in 1966 called the Seattle Ramblers.  The Ramblers went 10-0 and earned bragging rights as the best semi-pro team on the West Coast by destroying the San Jose Apaches, champions of the Northern California League, by a score of 48-13 in an inter-league championship game.

Promotion to Continental Football League

On March 4, 1967  five of the top semi-pro teams on the West Coast jumped up a level, committing to join the Continental Football League as a Pacific Division.⁵West Coast Teams Ready to Join CFL, The Eugene Register-Guard, Mar. 3, 1967  Lane planned to change the name of his club to the “Seattle Jets” for entry into the CoFL, but he was quickly threatened with legal action by the New York Jets of the AFL.  Lane dropped the idea and settled on “Seattle Rangers”⁶Seattle Grid Name Rangers, AP via The Ellensburg Daily Record, Jun. 10, 1967 – whereupon he was quickly sued by the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League.  This time Lafa stuck to his guns and prevailed.  The Seattle Rangers were born.

The roster was composed largely of local players from U of W, Washington State and the University of Puget Sound.  Joe Peyton, for example, played for the latter before becoming a Ranger. He finished fifth in the Continental League in receiving in 1967, despite being a 31-year old rookie.  Then there was the immortal Dick Hard, a monstrous (for the era) 6′ 4″, 300-pound defensive tackle known as “The Immovable Object”.  (Hard earns a place alongside basketball’s Chubby Cox on the minor league All-Name Team). Overall, the Rangers were competitive and consistent during their three years of play. They won seven games each season and always finished just over .500.

In early December, 1968, Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson, angling for a new stadium in Western New York, came to Seattle as reports swirled that the team was going to move west.⁷Buffalo Owner Is Eyeing Seattle, AP via  The Herald Journal, Dec. 11, 1968 Wilson got his new stadium in Buffalo, though, and the team stayed put.

A few weeks later, Lafa Lane made an $8 million bid to buy the AFL’s Boston Patriots and move that club to Seattle.⁸Seattle Man Wants to But AFL’s Pats, AP via The Eugene Register-Guard,  Dec. 30, 1968 The bid failed and Lane turned his attention back to the Rangers.  But the Rangers were losing money and attendance was modest.  A 2006 retrospective by The West Seattle Herald pegged typical Rangers attendance at 4,000 to 6,000 a game at Seattle’s Memorial Stadium.⁹Remember the Rangers, Westside Seattle, Mar. 31, 2006  A 1969 game against the Spokane Shockers drew a franchise record 11,102 fans.

Demise

During the 1969 season, Lane lost patience with the money losing club. He offered to hand over ownership of the Rangers (and their debts) to his young General Manager Dick Berg, a former Stanford quarterback, and Head Coach Don White. Berg and White wisely declined the offer. Lane promptly resigned rather than remain liable for the club’s debts. Berg then infuriated Lane by suggesting that the Rangers would be unable to play their final two road games due to unpaid bills.  Lane attempted to fire Berg, who sensibly pointed out that Lane had resigned and held no authority over the club.  The Rangers managed to finish out the season and then folded quickly and quietly.

The rest of the Continental League faced similar red ink and front office circus antics.  The entire league folded a few months later.

Trivia

The Rangers were one of the first professional teams to play their games on Astroturf. Memorial Stadium officials installed the synthetic surface in the late 1960’s.

Rangers GM Dick Berg, who was a young man in his twenties at the time he ran the Rangers, went on to a long career in professional sports. He served as an executive with the San Francisco 49ers, General Manager of the Dallas Tornado and San Jose Earthquakes of the North American Soccer League, and consultant for the United States Football League in the 1980’s.

Seattle Rangers Shop

COMING SOON

In Memoriam

Rangers owner Lafa Lane passed away in January 2012 at the age of 95.

Rangers General Manager Dick Berg died on March 2, 2018 at age 74. Seattle Times obituary.

Downloads

9-13-1969 Seattle Rangers Roster

Links

Continental Football League Media Guides

Continental Football League Programs

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Seattle Rangers