Continental Football League (1967-1969)
Tombstone
Born: 1967 – The Seattle Ramblers re-brand as the Seattle Rangers
Folded: Postseason 1969
First Game: August 26, 1967 (W 37-13 @ Long Beach Admirals)
Last Game: November 18, 1969 (W 12-6 @ Las Vegas Cowboys)
Continental Football League Championships: None
Stadium
Memorial Stadium (14,200)
Opened: 1947
Marketing
Team Colors: Brown & Gold
Ownership
Owner: Lafa Lane
Our Favorite Stuff
Continental Football League
Logo T-Shirt
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.
Our friends at Old School Shirts make the only Continental League shirt we’ve found and like all of their retro Americana tees, it’s soft and fits great!
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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. He 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
In 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. Lane planned to change the name of his club to the “Seattle Jets” for entry into the Continental League, but he was quickly threatened with legal action by the New York Jets of the American Football League. Lane dropped the idea and settled on “Seattle Rangers” – 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. Players like Joe Peyton out of Puget Sound. Peyton 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).
The Rangers were competitive and consistent during their three years of play. They won 7 games each season and always finished just over .500. In December 1968 Lafa Lane made a $8 million bid to buy the AFL’s Boston Patriots and move the club to Seattle. 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. 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
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
9-13-1969 Seattle Rangers vs. Portland Loggers Roster
Links
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