Spiraling Footballs and Economies

By Tom Callahan

Quarterback Steve Young selects the U.S.F.L. and $36 million

Steve Young, the great-great-great-grandson of Brigham Young, was 22 before he made his first $36 million. As amateur actuaries were trying to figure out how a team's outlay of roughly $9 million could multiply so extravagantly over 43 years, the country was reeling last week at the new going rate for a college quarterback. But nobody was more flabbergasted than Young. Suddenly he saw his whole life laid out to 65, and all of his annuities flashed before him.

In one melancholy burst, he told the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, "I'm worrying about my values. Right now I'm a guy having a lot of trouble handling this. I've had times today when I wanted to give it all up. When I decided to sign with the [Los Angeles] Express, it was late. I had promised to give them an answer within a certain time frame. I'd been up for two days straight. It seemed the best thing to do under the circumstances. Then there I am at the press conference, and I'm sweating. I'm I thinking, 'What am I doing There?' I'm sure many people don't understand this money. I don't either. On the plane afterward, it was a private plane, just me and my girlfriend, I cried all the way home."

Endearingly, his mother Sherry said, "Right now I could kick him right between the eyeballs." Watching him sweating at the press conference, she thought, "I wanted this kid to enjoy it," but she understood. "He keeps seeing Roger Staubach in front of him." (At these prices, Young may be obliged to become Johnny Unitas.) "You have to remember, Steve has had a protected life. He doesn't even own a credit card." Until now, his concept of property has been a '65 Oldsmobile. "But he'll be fine, because he's a fighter, a doer. He's just realizing the responsibilities ahead, and he doesn't want to feel he has been purchased body and soul."

The purchasers are fascinating too. An international financier named Bill Oldenburg owns the Express, a U.S. Football League team thriving neither on the field nor at the box office. He claims to have passed up a chance to buy the prosperous Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League: "I could have bought and sold 400 Dallas Cowboys [asking price $62 million], but their personality and everything has already been established. I don't get off on that. I get off on building things from the ground up." At his Investment Mortgage International offices in San Francisco, a large Chinese gong is rung whenever a million-dollar deal is set.

Feeling a little like that gong, the 64-year-old N.F.L. has been losing some rather choice material to the two-year-old spring league--from eminent Underclassmen Herschel Walker (newly renegotiated New Jersey Generals contract: $6 million for four years) and Marcus Dupree (New Orleans Breakers, $6 million for five years) to 1983 Heisman Trophy Winner Mike Rozier (Pittsburgh Maulers, $3 million for three years) and Young, whose playing obligation is four years. A 6-ft. 1-in. lefthander, he passed for an average of 395 yds. per game last season. Cincinnati Bengals Assistant General Manager Mike Brown, who intended to choose Young first in the May 1 N.F.L. draft, said, "We were just trying to sign a football player. But the Express is trying to buy credibility in the L.A. market." The N.F.L. is competing for athletes, the U.S.F.L. for attention.

Only old American Football League types will understand this, but Express General Manager Don Klosterman and Coach John Hadl had more than $36 million with which to tempt the Brigham Young star. They told him about a time in pro football when camaraderie was not just a word. During the great war of the '60s, both men fought jubilantly on the side of the confederacy. Klosterman negotiated with players under goal posts and signed Heismart Trophy Winner Mike Garrett at halftime of the East-West game. Back then, when Kansas City signed a Garrett, the city of Buffalo cheered, just as the Bills' coups were celebrated in San Diego. Hadl was a No. 1 draft choice of the Detroit Lions, but never regretted throwing in with the Chargers, and ended up the N.F.L.'s M.V.P. at Los Angeles in his dotage.

Most A.F.L. sentimentalists use the New York Jets' triumph over the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III, the Joe Namath Game, to describe the elation available to pioneers. But Hadl told Young of a preseason victory in 1967, which was so emphatic--the Kansas City Chiefs 66, the Chicago Bears 24--that the players in the little league sensed where they stood more than a year before the rest of the country realized. "Our whole league," Hadl said, "was dancing in the street."

In that mood, Klosterman said, "I think we should move from the spring to the fall." But five relatively hale U.S.F.L. locales--Tampa Bay, Michigan, New Jersey, Denver and Philadelphia--are also N.F.L. territories. Three of the largest U.S.F.L. markets--Chicago, Washington and Los Angeles--have been flops. While a 62,300 house was counted the first week of this season in Birmingham, the Stallions might not wish to try Alabama and Auburn head on. Anyway, who would televise the games? Awaiting baseball and good weather, the U.S.F.L. has been achieving unspectacular rating shares, while ticket sales are down.

All of which is enough to daunt any 22-year-old millionaire pioneer. Young has a right to be scared. Even if he were Staubach and Unitas put together, he might still have to be Namath too. --By Tom Callahan