SUPER BOWL BUCS, ONCE THE BIGGEST LOSERS (#39): I later became directly involved with sports in Pinellas County, but I was a Season Ticket holder when the Tampa Bay Bucs played their first game. It was in 1976 at Tampa Stadium, in our across the bay rival, Hillsborough County. I watched as the Bucs lost their first 26 games during the 1976 and 1977 seasons. It was painful and frustrating, but it prepared me for my 4 year term on the Pinellas Sports Authority.
I was on the 9 person Board of the PSC when the Florida Suncoast Dome (now Tropicana Field) opened in 1990 and hosted the Davis Cup Finals, and when the Tampa Bay Lightning played their first game in 1993. As Executive Director of the Salvador Dali Museum I helped arranged for the Davis Cup Opening Reception to be held at the Museum. I caught hell from my boss, A. Reynolds Morse, for letting the Davis Cup be displayed in the main gallery, but I thought it would draw more publicity for the Museum and our lobby would be too crowded with people eating and drinking.
I was on the PSA when we pursued a team for our empty baseball stadium. The Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins both played us to get better deals in their hometowns. Our baseball investors had a deal to buy the San Francisco Giants, but it was blocked by MLB, and the team was sold to a San Fransisco group for $15,000,000 less than the Tampa Bay baseball group had agreed to pay. We were supposed to get the first expansion team, but by some back room deal it was awarded to Miami in 1993, my last year on the PSA. We didn’t get a team until 1998. It was a good thing the Tampa Bay Bucs had prepared me for heartbreak.
The Bucs overall record is 279 wins, 429 losses, and one tie. That is a lot of losing and I was there for a lot of it. In the midst of the 26 game losing streak, Coach John McKay was asked at a post game press conference, “Coach, what do you think of your team’s execution?” McKay, with a straight face replied, “I am all in favor of it!”
While Lee Roy Selmon was my favorite player (that’s part of Monday’s story), the brightest time during my tenure as a season ticket holder came when Doug Williams was our quarterback . Doug became the first African-American quarterback taken in the first round of an NFL draft when the Bucs took him as the 17th pick in 1978. The Bucs had won just two games in their first two seasons, but with our strong-arm quarterback from Grambling State, we won 5 games in 1978. I don’t remember which game, but I saw Doug slip on bad turf and throw a touchdown pass while sitting on his but!
In 1979, Doug’s second year, we beat the Philadelphia Eagles in the playoffs to meet the LA Rams in the NFC Championship Game. I was there at old Tampa Stadium, known to fans as “The Big Sombrero”, on a rainy day for a great game. We lost 24 to 17, but we were only 8 points away from the Super Bowl in our 4th season and the future seemed bright.
Owner, Tampa Attorney Hugh Culverhouse, didn’t realize it, but the future was only as bright as Doug Williams. Doug was the only starting African-American quarterback in the NFL at that time. While with the Buccaneers, Williams was paid $120,000 a year, the lowest salary for a starting quarterback in the league, and less than the salary of 12 backups. Doug took us to the playoffs again in 1981 and 1982. After the 1982 season, Doug asked for a $600,000 contract. Bucs owner Hugh Culverhouse refused to budge from his initial offer of $400,000, despite protests from coach John McKay.
Feeling that Culverhouse was not paying him what a starter should earn, Williams bolted to the new United States Football League’s Oklahoma Outlaws. The next season the Bucs went 2–14, and did not have a winning season for 14 years. During their “stinking stretch” the Bucs lost 10 to 14 games every year, except 1995 when they only lost 9 games.
Things were so bad, we joked about the dedicated season ticket holder who was going to miss a game because of his father’s funeral. He tried to give his tickets to friends and coworkers, but no one was the least bit interested. Saturday before the game he was at the mall and left his two tickets under his windshield wiper of his car with a note, “Free Bucs tickets. Good seats. Please help yourself.” He was pleased that his tickets wouldn’t go to waste. When he came back a few hours later, there were 8 tickets under his windshield wiper with the note!
Culverhouse’s willingness to let Doug walk away over $200,000 was seen as insensitive, especially since Doug stood by the team during the players’ strike and only months before Doug’s wife, Janice, had died of an aneurysm. Good ‘ol boy Hugh thought he could do better than a black quarterback. When Culverhouse, who never won a Super Bowl, sold the team, he was not missed in the least. The Bucs did not win a Super Bowl until 2002.
When USFL folded, Doug went on to play with the Washington Redskins. He capped the 1987 season by winning Super Bowl XXII with a 42-10 rout of John Elway and the Denver Broncos. Doug completed 18 of 29 passes for 340 yards and 4 touchdowns. He was the first black quarterback to win a Super Bowl and was named MVP of Super Bowl XXII!