Chicago Fire (WFL)

The Chicago Fire was an American football team in the short-lived World Football League for one season, 1974.

The team was founded in late October 1973, with building magnate Thomas Origer becoming the first owner to purchase a WFL franchise, for around $400,000.

Chicago was also the first franchise to sign a player, former Notre Dame and Chicago Bears wide receiver Jim Seymour, and then added quarterback Virgil Carter, who also had played for the NFL's Bears as well as the Cincinnati Bengals and San Diego Chargers. Another notable Fire player was punter Chuck Ramsey, who would later go on to play with the New York Jets. Jim Spavital, one-time coach of the Canadian Football League's Winnipeg Blue Bombers, piloted the Fire. The radio announcer for the Fire was former Milwaukee Bucks play-by-play man Eddie Doucette, while ex-Chicago Bears lineman Mike Pyle served as the color commentator. Home games were played at Soldier Field in the Loop area.

Fittingly, the Fire started out hot, winning their first four games and seven of their first nine. Chicago also drew decent-sized crowds to Soldier Field, with an average attendance of 33,858 at their first five home contests. After Virgil Carter threw four touchdown passes in a 32-22 road win over Southern California, the Fire were 7-2 and competitive in the WFL's Central Division, which contained the loop's two strongest teams in Birmingham (9-0) and Memphis (also 7-2). However, it turned out to be the last game the Fire would ever win, as a rash of injuries triggered a 10-game losing streak. Crowds also began to dwindle, as barely 20,000 showed up to watch the Fire's last home game, a 60-17 rout by the Hawaiians, the most points ever scored by one team in a WFL game.

By late October, Fire owner Origer had had enough. Fed up by the team's collapse (as well as bankrupt), Origer said at an emergency meeting in Chicago on October 29 that his club would pull out of the WFL (with three games left in the schedule) if league commissioner Gary Davidson was not fired.^[1] Davidson quit, but two weeks later Origer still refused to fly the team to Philadelphia for Chicago's final game, forfeiting the contest and giving the Fire a final record of 7-13. Soon after, the club disbanded.

In 1975, the WFL tried again in the Windy City with the Chicago Winds, who attempted to sign legendary quarterback Joe Namath. But Namath stayed in the NFL, and the Winds were disbanded after just five games (including one game at Soldier Field that drew a crowd of 3,470). The World Football League followed suit a few months later, passing into history.

In 1981, another Chicago Fire club played in the minor-league American Football Association. Led by running back Billy Marek, the new Fire also played at Soldier Field, albeit in front of small crowds: the biggest attendance of the year was estimated at 8,500. Chicago did have a successful season on the field, winning the AFA's Western Division with a 8-4 record. In the playoffs, Chicago knocked off Jacksonville, 24-17, in front of 5,000 at Soldier Field, then played in the league championship game, a 29-21 road loss to the West Virginia Rockets on August 30, 1981. They even managed to get one of their games on local television: WGN-TV, scrambling for summer sports programming during the baseball strike, broadcast a Fire game from Soldier Field on June 27, 1981.^[2] (Although ratings were higher than that of the Chicago Sting soccer team on WGN, station officials declined to carry any more Fire games.) Financial losses, and the formation of the bigger-budget USFL in 1982, put the Fire out for good.

Chicago's current professional soccer team, founded in 1997, also is named the Fire.

^[3]

• Chicago Winds
• 1974 World Football League season

• "Head coach WFL", Football Digest, August 1974 issue

• Chicago Fire on FunWhileItLasted.net
• 1974 Chicago Fire stats & results at ultimate70s.com