Sports Authority

Football has been on the local sports scene for decades, but in recent years, the most success has come from the Sacramento State Hornets. Photo by Aniko Kiezel

Football Fantasy

CITY HAS A HABIT OF MAKING TEAMS DISAPPEAR

Sacramento will never have an NFL team. It won’t have a stake in a major college bowl game. January playoffs and bowl games present a cruel reminder of these facts.

A city without an NFL or major college team isn’t necessarily deprived.

RG RG

By R.E. Graswich Sports Authority

Local football fans can fi nd joy watching Sacramento State score touchdowns against Northern Colorado and Montana. Several high schools have excellent programs.

And there’s always the 49ers. Santa Clara is a miserable drive. The worst Levi’s Stadium seat is ridiculously expensive. But there’s no threat of the 49ers moving too far.

In the late 1980s, the Raiders discussed moving from Los Angeles to Sacramento. It was a leverage strategy by Al Davis. He ignored a $50 million down payment from the City Council and returned to Oakland. He played us.

Despite its barren condition, Sacramento has history as a football town.

The city’s greatest sports promoter, Fred Anderson, loved football and squandered a fortune on it. Before he died in 1997, Fred established two teams, the Surge and Gold Miners. Both forced Anderson to dig into his savings to cover salaries, rent and expenses.

Fred had plenty of savings. He started with a lumber truck and grew very wealthy by expanding his company, Pacifi c Coast Building Products, into one of the West’s largest building materials operations.

Fred was stubborn. He never wanted to admit he backed a loser. The Surge and Miners weren’t bums on the fi eld, but Fred kept company with the wrong football crowd—guys who lacked his fortitude and values.

The Surge performed in the World League of American Football, a developmental stepchild of the NFL. The goal was to promote pro football in secondary cities, with three European metropolises sprinkled in to advance the NFL fantasy of world domination.

NFL owners helped fund the World League but quickly lost interest. The show lasted two years, folding in 1992, weeks after the Surge won the World Bowl championship.

Fred was stuck. He spent money fi xing up Sac State’s Hornet Stadium and didn’t want to waste all that wood and steel. He repurposed the Surge into the Gold Miners and joined the Canadian Football League, the fi rst American club to fl y l’Unifolié. TO PAGE 33