This West Virginia minor league football outfit that enjoyed a perfect season in 1965 and also launched the career of one of the NFL most fearsome pass rushers of the 1970’s.
The Quebec Rifles joined the United Football League as an expansion team in 1964. The Montreal-based team adopted the nickname of its local hero Head Coach, former Montreal Alouettes quarterback Sam “The Rifle” Etcheverry. The Rifles were a geographic anomaly in the eight-team UFL, a minor league loop based in the Midwestern U.S. with clubs in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia. In Canada, the Rifles were the first team to play pro football under American, rather than Canadian, rules. The team moved to Toronto in 1965.
United Football League (1962-1964) Continental Football League (1965-1969) Born: 1962 Folded: December 1969 First Game: September 9, 1962 (W 24-21 @ Cleveland Bulldogs) Last Game:
The Joliet Explorers were a low-level minor league football team formed in 1964 as an expansion club in the United Football League. The franchise would play for three seasons, jumping to the Professional Football League of America in 1965 and 1966 after the demise of the UFL. The Chargers were champions of the PFLA in 1965. Future television and movie star John Amos (Good Times, Die Hard 2) played running back for the Explorers in 1964. The team changed its name to the Joliet Chargers in 1967 and folded at the end of that season.
American Football Conference (195?-1961) United Football League (1962-1964) Born: Folded: February 1965 First Game: Last Game: November 26, 1964 (W 10-3 vs. Charleston Rockets) United
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