Continental Basketball Association (1987-1988)
Tombstone
Born: January 2, 1987 – The Jacksonville Jets relocate to Biloxi, MS
Moved: June 24, 1988 (Wichita Falls Texans)
First Game: January 4, 1987 (W 104-101 @ Tampa Bay Thrillers)
Last Game: March 27, 1988 (L 112-99 @ Pensacola Tornados)
CBA Championships: None
Arena
Mississippi Coast Coliseum (11,500)
Opened: 1977
Marketing
Team Colors: Blue, White & Gold
Dance Team: The Jetsetters
Ownership
Owner: Ted Stepien
Attendance
The Jets ranked dead last the 12-team CBA in attendance during their only full season in Biloxi in 1987-88.
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Sources:
- 1991-92 Continental Basketball Association Official Guide (1986-87 & 1987-88 CBA figures)
- CBA Information System as published in The Rapid City Journal, May 25, 1988 (1987-88 Jets figure)
Background
The Mississippi Jets were a particularly screwy, dysfunctional entry in the Continental Basketball Association. The CBA was the NBA’s de facto minor league during the late 1980’s. The Jets were owned by Ted Stepien, the reviled former Cleveland Cavaliers owner notorious for both dunderheaded racial pronouncements and world-beating managerial ineptitude. By 1983, NBA owners were so desperate to rid themselves of Stepien that Commissioner David Stern bribed Richfield Coliseum owner George Gund with four bonus draft picks (to replace the ones Stepien had frittered away) to buy the team.
After getting drummed out of the NBA, Stepien invested in the CBA. He started an expansion franchise known as the Toronto Tornados in 1983. Two years later, Stepien uprooted the Tornados in the middle of the 1985-86 season and moved the team 1,200 miles to Pensacola, Florida. A few months later he moved across Florida to the Jacksonville Coliseum. For the 1986-87 season, the team would be known as the Jacksonville Jets. Or not. After less than a month in Jacksonville, Stepien pulled up stakes again and moved the Jets to the Mississippi Coast Coliseum in Biloxi during the first week of January 1987.
On The Court
What Biloxi got was a pretty good basketball team with some substantial drug issues. Two days after Christmas 1986, the then-Jacksonville Jets traveled to Pensacola, Florida for a road series. In Pensacola, Jets’ leading scorers Billy Goodwin and Bobby Parks were busted for cocaine and marijuana possession. Goodwin and Parks arrived with the rest of the team in Biloxi on January 5th, 1987 with felony drug charges hanging over their heads back in Florida. That night, an announced crowd of 7,427 turned out at the Mississipi Coast Coliseum for the team’s first game in Biloxi. A week later, the Jets cut their top two scorers after Goodwin and Parks refused to submit to follow-up drug testing.
The Jets replaced the lost scoring punch by signing former Houston Rockets shooting guard Mitchell Wiggins. The same week that the Jets parted ways with Goodwin and Parks, the NBA had slapped Wiggins with a two-year ban for cocaine abuse.
In October 1987 the CBA accused Stepien of pressuring former Jets head coach Keith Fowler to throw the final three games of the 1986-87 season in order to manipulate playoff seedings. Stepien allegedly wanted to finish in third place rather than second place to avoid scheduling conflicts at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. The Jets finished third and lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Albany Patroons. The CBA later fined Stepien $50,000.
Move To Texas
Like all of Stepien’s prior sports promotions, the Jets were a box office flop. After that big opening night crowd back in January 1987, Jets attendance flatlined. For the team’s only full season in Biloxi in the winter of 1987-88, the Jets sold a league worst 183 season tickets.
At the end of the 1987-88 season, Stepien finally sold the team. The new owners moved the club to Wichita Falls, Texas.
We are looking for any memorabilia or documents from the Mississippi Jets (photos, programs, etc.). Contact us if you can help.
Trivia
The Mississippi Jets’ dance team was named The Jetsetters.
Mississippi Jets Shop
Life On The Rim: A Year in the Continental Basketball Association
by David Levine
Buy Today at Amazon
Mississippi Jets Video
The Jets on the road against the Savannah Spirits during the 1987-88 season. ESPN broadcast.
In Memoriam
Forward Anthony Frederick (Jets ’87-’88) died of a heart attack at age 38 on May 29, 2003.
Guard Quintin Dailey (Jets ’87) died of hypertensive cardiovascular disease on November 8, 2010 at age 49. New York Times obit.
Former head coach Don Delaney (Jets ’87-’88) passed away on February 16, 2011 at the age of 75.
Guard Bobby Parks (Jets ’87) died of lung cancer on March 13, 2013. Parks was 51.
Links
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One Response
I was Assistant Coach/Director of Player Personnel and Trainer for the Miss Jets in 1987-88. It was a troubling season, always uncertain if the bills would be paid to keep us alive and completing the season. John Treloar, President and GM, was a stabilizing factor, as was Head Coach Tom Schneeman. To note, we held a promotion to break the CBA game attendance record and succeeded in drawing over 11, 800 fans. We also made the playoffs so there were some highlights to the season but the new owners from Wichita Falls were already commited to moving the team to their hometown in Texas and succeeded in doing so.
Biloxi is a fun place to live but to bring a minor league basketball team back to the city, you would want to assure fans up front that the organization would be sound financially and that your basketball members would represent the community in a positively, both on and off the court.
Btw, I do have some Jets memorbilia and game tapes but I would not donate them.