Carolina Chargers

American Football Association (1979-1981)

Thank you to Gene Crowley of BirminghamProSports.com for sharing the 1979 Carolina Chargers program shown at top.

Background

The Carolina Chargers were a ramshackle minor league football team that played out of Charlotte, North Carolina for three summer season between 1979 and 1981.

The Chargers were originally formed as an expansion team in the Southern U.S.-based American Football Association by veteran coach Perry Moss in early 1979, backed at first with $50,000 from an absentee Texas oil man. Over the next two-and-a-half years, the Chargers were in constant turmoil behind the scenes, as a variety of come-and-go investors and fizzled fundraising schemes left the team in a state of constant uncertainty.

Moss himself departed right before the 1980 season to coach a rival AFA club in West Virginia, leaving the team’s ownership for its final two seasons shrouded in mystery. The man most often associated with ownership of the team in 1980 and 1981 was Earl Todd, a 44-year old described as “not really in any particular business right now” and with a possible background in “intelligence agencies” by Charlotte Observer beat writer Les Bowen in 1980.²Bowen, Les. “Money Root Of Mystery.” The Observer (Charlotte, NC). June 27, 1980 Todd, for his part, denied ever owning the team.³Quirk, Kevin. “Effort To Revive Chargers Falls Through.” The Observer (Charlotte, NC), July 8, 1981

In Competition

On the field, however, the Chargers were solid competitors, led by former North Carolina A&T start Ellsworth Turner at quarterback for all three seasons. The Chargers appeared in the AFA’s American Bowl championship game in each of their first two seasons, losing to the Jacksonville Firebirds in 1979 and to the Perry Moss-coached West Virginia Rockets in 1980.

Demise

Three games into the 1981 season, a long-simmering dispute between Chargers players and officials over the league’s pay structure erupted into the open. The AFA paid players a percentage (1% per player) of team revenues after taxes, which in reality meant a share of ticket sales, since AFA teams had no other revenue to speak of. These variable paychecks, when they arrived on time, were often less than $100. Chargers players refused to continue playing under this stem. AFA Commissioner Billy Kilmer announced the Chargers were no longer part of the league. A couple weeks of back-and-forth took place, trying to return the Chargers to play, but nothing came of it and then team folded.

The following spring, the AFA awarded a new Carolina entry to the city of Greensboro known as the Carolina Storm. The Storm signed a bunch of former Chargers players, including star QB Ellsworth Turner. Failing to find a suitable field in Greensboro, the Storm ended up right back at Charlotte’s American Legion Memorial Stadium after all. The Storm were, to a large extent, simply the Chargers re-born under a new name and owner. Even Earl Todd, the owner(?)/frontman of the Chargers during their final days returned as the Storm’s General Manager.

The Carolina Storm won the final two American Bowl championship games of the AFA in 1982 and 1983. In all, the Chargers/Storm appeared in the AFA championship game in four of the five seasons the teams competed, missing only during the 1981 season when the Chargers folded in midseason.

The AFA went out of business following the 1983 season.

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Outsiders II

by Bob Gill with Tod Maher & Steve Brainerd

 

Outsiders II covers the independent minor leagues of professional football from 1951 through 1985. This volume contains histories and yearly statistical summaries for the top minor leagues of the period, plus the World Football League, which has a claim to major league status, and the United States Football League, which was clearly a major league. It also includes yearly summaries for the best of the lesser leagues, which featured a good number of interesting players in their own right.

 

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In Memoriam

Head Coach Mike Faulkiner (Chargers ’81), a long-time NFL scout and assistant who earned a Super Bowl ring as a scout for the San Francisco 49ers in 1994, died of pancreatic cancer at age 60 on January 15, 2008.

Downloads

5-30-1981 Carolina Chargers Roster

Links

Gene Crowley’s American Football Association Tribute site

American Football Association Programs

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