Turmoil in New Jersey as Trump Cleans House

Sporting News, April 30, 1985

While the USFL might be celebrating its recent NFL lawsuite winfall, not all USFL owners are happy with the state of affairs. Donald Trump, owner of the 2-6 New Jersey Generals, is fuming and his frustration has led to some radical changes and perhaps more to come. Within hours of the Generals’ Week 8 loss to Arizona, Trump announced the firing of his head coach, Walt Michaels. Michaels had been considered to be on the hot seat after the Generals began the season poorly, and now, with the Generals’ bye week scheduled for this week, it will be defensive coordinator Joe Mazur who will take over as interim head coach. Trump also announced the firing of the team’s General Manager and Director of Football Operations, both of whom have been with the team since its inception in 1983. Trump has also apparently reached out to several USFL teams about potential trades for star players such as Herschel Walker, Doug Fluite, Jim LeClair, or the injured Gary Barbaro. The sudden implosion of the New York metro franchise seems to stem from a series of setbacks related to league matters, but now the franchise itself is becoming a concern to league owners.

Donald Trump was tabbed by David Dixon and others to head up the New York franchise when the league was first forming back in 1982. He had even placed an initial deposit with the league, but pulled it back when there was a chance that he would be able to purchase the Baltimore Colts of the NFL. When the NFL spurned him, he began negotiations with the Generals’ erstwhile owner J. Walter Duncan to purchase the team after the 1983 season. The deal was settled in August of 1983, and Trump took over the franchise. Within a month of his approval by the council of league owners, Trump let first year head coach Chuck Fairbanks go, and signed former Jets Head Coach Michaels to replace him. He then engaged in the most aggressive NFL player poaching of any USFL franchise, signing Jim LeClair at linebacker, All-Pro safety Gary Barbaro of the Kansas City Chiefs, and former NFL MVP QB Brian Sipe from the Cleveland Browns. Trump’s hope was to add NFL quality talent to a 1983 squad which had only former U. of Georgia Heisman Winner Herschel Walker on its roster as fan-attractive talent. On one level the plan worked, as the Generals were one of the top attendance leaders in 1984, despite having a losing record for most of the year.

In the 1984 offseason, Trump began working with several other owners, primarily in non-NFL cities, to sway the ownership council to move the league’s season from spring to fall in hopes of at first competing with, and eventually merger with the NFL. Trump made the case that the league would slowly hemmorage money in the spring and would never be considered a major league by playing in what most considered baseball season. He argued that a relocation to the fall, paired with an anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL would lead to the NFL being forced to accept several USFL franchises into the fold, as many as 8 was his contention. Of course, his New Jersey franchise would be a core part of this merger strategy, despite the NFL already having 2 New York franchises already playing in Giants Stadium, where the Generals also play.

Trump anticipated being the lead proponent for the Fall and believed he had brought enough owners on board to sway the vote in his favor, but the timing of the league’s regular owner’s meeting ended up causing him to miss the key arguments. Trump was in a different court that day, defending himself against claims of racial bias and descrimination related to several apartment buildings he owns in New York. By the time he was cleared to return to the owner’s meeting the vote was lost and the USFL would remain in spring. Not only that, but he was found responsible for racial discrimination in the NY City court case and suffered a significant financial penalty from that case.

The Generals would remain in the Spring along with the rest of the USFL, and Trump would not be able to use the fall strategy to push for NFL ownership for his franchise. In his mind it was a catastrophe, and there was one man to blame, his new Head Coach, whom he had set up as his stand-in during the league owners meetings. Walt Michaels may be a solid football coach, but he was out of his depths in the meeting with league owners, sharing none of Trump’s charisma or persuasive ability, not to mention approaching the matter from a football standpoint instead of as a businessman. Trump, perhaps correctly, viewed the lack of persuasive ability from Michaels as a major factor in several owners shifting their vote towards the position of Tampa Bay owner John Bassett, with the eventual vote being 12-4 for spring.

To make matters worse, Michaels was not proving he could handle talent on the team. The Generals, despite the presence of Sipe and others, were mediocre at best. They drew well at the box office, mostly due to the star power of their roster, but they finished third in the Atlantic Division. So, for 1985 Trump blew up the roster again, trading Sipe to the Oakland Invaders in a 3-way deal that would allow the Generals to sign America’s QB, Heisman winner Doug Flutie of Boston College. Flutie did not come cheap, using the potential of an NFL signing to negotiate a lucrative deal with the Generals. But, with Flutie in the fold, once again hopes were high that the Generals would live up to their potential as a flagship for the league. They have not. The Generals are at the midpoint of their season and find themselves with only 2 wins, far behind division-leading Philadelphia, and likely playing out the string for the remainder of 1985. With the firing of Michaels, the team is almost certain to limp through the second half of the season, and with rumors that Trump is now proposing trades for his top stars, the team has moved from underachievers to a full-on train wreck.

League owners who were willing to speak off the record for this article have expressed significant concern about the franchise and its owner. The league can hardly afford to have a laughingstock of a team in its largest market, not when both Chicago and Los Angeles have been underachieving financially for the first 2 seasons (despite improvements this year). It also cannot have an owner who sells off his top talent, though I expect there are several teams that would welcome the chance to acquire Herschel Walker. While no one would say so for the record, it appears that there may be a movement afoot to either constrain the options that Mr. Trump would have with the Generals, or to convince him to sell the team. This may be the best option as it is clear that Mr. Trump has no desire to continue to lose money, even minimal amounts of money, on an endeavor which he no longer sees as having a significant upside. He is an investor above all, and without the passion for football that some owners have, or the chance to bring big-time sports to a beloved city or region that lacks it, as others seems to express, the motivation for him to remain with the USFL seems minimal.

Will New Jersey find trading partners for some of its top talent? How might that impact the balance of power in the league? What will owners do with a team that seems to be self-destructing? And when that franchise is in the largest media market in the world, how does that impact the league as a whole? It seems that even the potential winfall for the USFL from the recent victory in court against the NFL is not enough to settle the chaos with the New Jersey Generals, and so, the league may need to address a major crisis at a time when they should be in a celebratory mood, not crisis mode.