The Philadelphia Bell were one of twelve original franchises in the World Football League in 1974. The Bell made several efforts to poach high profile stars and draft picks from the National Football League during their brief lifespan. But the team was best known for “Papergate”, an attendance reporting and accounting scandal that helped to demolish the fledgling WFL’s credibility barely than a month into its debut season.
The Raleigh Cougars low-level minor league basketball outfit founded by former N.C. State star and Harlem Globetrotter Clyde “The Glide” Austin. The team’s name recalled the old Carolina Cougars club that played in the American Basketball Association in the early 1970’s. The Cougars’ biggest name was Lorenzo Charles, who famously slammed home a buzzer-beating dunk to lift N.C. State to the 1983 NCAA championship.
American Basketball League (1961-1962) Born: April 21, 1960 – ABL founding franchise Folded: December 31, 1962 First Game: Last Game: ABL Championships: 1963* (*Sort of…) Municipal Auditorium Memorial
The Marion Marauders were a Class D minor league baseball club in the small North Carolina of Marion. The mill town on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains had a U.S. Census population of fewer than 3,000 residents in 1950. The Marauders’ seven-year run from 1948 to 1954 marked the only time pro baseball was played in Marion. Read more…
Doomed entry in Abe Saperstein’s short-lived American Basketball League of the early 1960’s. The team took its odd name from owner Paul Cohen’s Technical Tape Company. Gene Conley, a two-sport star who previously played Major League Baseball for the Milwaukee Braves and pro basketball for the Boston Celtics, was the Tapers’ big name player. The club lasted just two months in the nation’s capital before bolting town for Long Island midway through the 1961-62 ABL season.
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