The All-America Football Conference (AAFC) was a football league established in 1944 by Chicago Tribune sports editor Arch Wald. He announced its formation at a press conference on September 2, 1944. It hoped to co-exist with the established National Football League, in much the same way Major League Baseball was set up. It didn’t quite work out that way.
This doomed, obscure minor league football outfit played just one regular season game in the Continental Football League (1965-1969) in the summer of 1967 before going out of business. The Long Beach Admirals were one of seven clubs that formed the new seven-team Western Division of the CoFL as the league expanded to the West Coast for the first time in 1967.
The Seattle Steelheads were members of the West Coast Negro Baseball Association (WCNBA) in that circuit’s only season, 1946. The team was actually the Harlem Globetrotters baseball club and returned to barnstorming when the WCNBA ceased operations.
The Macon Whoopee was a minor league hockey team that played in the second iteration of the Central Hockey League. They played from 1996 to 2001 and were the second Macon hockey team to use that nickname, though their predecessors from the Southern Hockey League added an “S.”
Houston’s dreams of landing a Major League Baseball team go back at least as far as the 1950s. The threat of a third major league, the proposed Continental League, yielded Houston a National League expansion franchise that was known as the Houston Colt .45s for its first three seasons.
The sport of indoor soccer spread across the country during the 1980’s and into the early 1990’s. Thanks to organizations like the Major Indoor Soccer League, National Professional Soccer League and the Continental Indoor Soccer League, practically every Major League city in the country had seen one or more indoor soccer teams come through town by 1999. Salt Lake City, Utah was an exception until the upstart World Indoor Soccer League (WISL) rolled into town at the E Center in West Valley in 1999.
The Mohegan Wolves were a short-lived team in Arena Football 2 that played out of the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Connecticut. When the Wolves joined up in 2002, AF2 was a sprawling 34-team league with franchises stretched from upstate New York to southern California. To keep costs down, the Wolves played primarily against regional opponents in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states.
The American Basketball Association (ABA) was formed in 1967 as a competitor to the established National Basketball Association (NBA). It started with 11 teams, and within a few years was angling for a merger with the older league. In 1976, the NBA took in four ABA teams, while three other surviving teams disbanded.
The history of the Ottawa Rough Riders Canadian football team stretches back to 1876 with the formation of an amateur rugby side known as the Ottawa Football Club. The team folded in 1996 after 120 years.
Fun While it Lasted presents the Jersey of the Week, brought to you by Royal Retros. Each week, we feature a historic uniform. Click to learn more about the team that wore this classic gear.
