Tombstone
Born: 1975 – WFL expansion franchise
Folded: September 2, 1975
First Game: August 2, 1975 (L 10-0 @ Birmingham Vulcans)
Last Game: August 30, 1975 (L 31-7 @ Memphis Southmen)
World Bowl Championships: None
Stadium
Soldier Field
Opened: 1924
Marketing
Team Colors: Green & White
Television: WGN (Channel 9 – two games reportedly broadcast on 8/9 and 8/30/75)
Television Broadcasters: Jim West (play-by-play) & Bill Berg (color)
Ownership
Owner: Eugene Pullano, et al.
Attendance
The Winds played only one regular season home game at Soldier Field on August 16th, 1975 before going out of business. The Winds also hosted one preseason game at Soldier Field (not included in our chart below) on July 12th, 1975 that drew 2,627 fans.
Tap (mobile) or mouse over chart for figures. Tilting your mobile device may offer better viewing.
Source: Kenn.com Attendance Project
Wind Gear
Chicago Winds
Graphic T-Shirt
Dateline: August 16, 1975
The Second City’s second World Football League franchise infamously plays its one and only regular season home game at Soldier Field before folding.
This eye-catching graphic tee design is also available as a crewneck or hooded sweatshirt at Old School Shirts!
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Background
Program (below) for the one-and-only regular season home game staged by the doomed Chicago Winds of the World Football League (1974-1975). The Winds were the WFL’s second attempt in Chicago. During the league’s inaugural season in the summer/fall of 1974, the Chicago Fire played at Soldier Field and drew reasonably well (27,000 per game) going head-to-head with the NFL’s Chicago Bears. But owner Tom Origer lost a pile of money and folded the team in late 1974.
Gunning For Namath
The WFL, which lost a reported $20 million along with most of its original franchises in 1974, re-organized for the 1975 season and granted a new Chicago franchise to a group led by insurance man Eugene Pullano. In the spring of 1975, Pullano made a very public bid to sign NFL free agent quarterback Joe Namath, offering the Jets star a four-year $4 million deal. As negotiations continued with Namath’s agent, Pullano began to furnish his new team in a manner that would make Broadway Joe feel at home. Green and white were selected as the Winds’ color scheme. Namath’s former back-up on the Super Bowl III-winning Jets, Babe Parilli, was hired as Head Coach & General Manager.
The negotiations were sufficiently high profile that the WFL’s television partner from 1974, Eddie Einhorn’s TVS syndication network, reportedly informed WFL President Christopher Hemmeter that TVS would not carry the league in 1975 unless it signed Namath. Einhorn was all too familiar with the league’s instability, having witnessed the mid-season relocation of major market franchises in Houston and New York City to the media backwaters of Shreveport, Louisiana and Charlotte, North Carolina during 1974.
Namath and his agent Jimmy Walsh ultimately spurned Pullano’s offer. The Winds went with journeyman Pete Beathard at quarterback. The WFL would not be on national television in 1975, a crushing blow for the league. Chicago’s big name player would be John Gilliam, a former Minnesota Vikings Pro Bowl wide receiver who jumped to the WFL for a bigger contract.
Parilli Out, Gibron In
The Winds made their Chicago debut on July 12, 1975, hosting a preseason exhibition against the Jacksonville Express. Only 2,627 turned out to see Chicago’s newest team lose to the Express 34-23. After a second exhibition loss, Pullano fired Head Coach & GM Babe Parilli and brought in 300-pound former Chicago Bears coach Abe Gibron with just days to go before the start of the regular season.
After two road losses to open the year, the Winds returned to Chicago on August 16, 1975 to play the Portland Thunder. The Winds boasted an 0-2 record and just 2,000 season tickets sold at 55,700-seat Soldier Field. Only 3,470 Chicagoans showed up in the rain. The game was an exciting one and it produced the only victory the Winds would enjoy in their short history. The teams were tied at 18-18 at the end of regulation and WFL rules called for a sudden death overtime period.
Winds linebacker Chuck Kogut turned the momentum Chicago’s way in overtime, picking off Thunder quarterback Don Horn. Pete Beathard then hit Gilliam with a 28-yard scoring strike to give the Winds a 25-18 victory. (Touchdowns were worth seven points in the WFL, followed by an “action point” pass or rush attempt, which wasn’t necessary in sudden death).
The End
The Winds would lose two more on the road to drop to 1-4 by the end of August 1975. At that point, two of Pullano’s investors allegedly withdrew $175,000 that was supposed to be in escrow to cover team expenses. Who these guys were, exactly, was never quite clear. William Oscar Johnson’s amusing 1975 Sports Illustrated eulogy for the World Football League offers one opaque explanation. Johnson quotes Winds Vice President of Football Operations Frank Mariani on the runaway investors:
“It was George and Rich from California. I don’t know their last names, but one’s an Arab and the other’s a Greek.”
The investor pullout dropped the Winds beneath the WFL’s minimum capital requirements. Pullano pleaded for more time to find new investors, but the other ten WFL owners voted unanimously to expel the Winds from the league on September 2, 1975. The team finished with a 1-4 record in the regular season, two additional losses in the pre-season, and a grand total of 6,000 souls who ever saw the team play at Soldier Field.
The lifespan of the Winds was so short that star wide receiver John Gilliam was able to return to the Minnesota Vikings, for whom he was a Pro Bowler in 1974, in time to play the entire 1975 NFL season. His six games with the Winds just became his substitute training camp.
Six weeks after expelling the Winds franchise, the rest of the WFL succumbed to reality as well. The financially troubled league shutdown on October 22, 1975 without managing to complete it second season.
Chicago Winds Shop
In Memoriam
Former Winds Head Coach Abe Gibron died on September 23, 1997 at age 72. New York Times obituary.
Running Back Mark Kellar, who played for both the Fire and the Winds, passed away on November 23, 2023. Kellar advanced to the NFL and played three seasons for the Minnesota Vikings from 1976 to 1978. He was 71 years old when he passed.
Downloads
8-16-1975 Winds vs. Portland Thunder Roster
8-16-1975 Chicago Winds vs. Portland Thunder Roster
1975 World Football League Standard Player Contract
Links
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