Remember the Spartans

A half-century ago, the University of Tampa brought big-time football to Hillsborough County.

Before the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the South Florida Bulls became the gridiron pride of Hillsborough County, the University of Tampa (UT) Spartans put the football world on notice. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the small college on the Hillsborough River earned a reputation among college football’s blue bloods as the school nobody wanted to play. Just ask Miami, which they beat twice in a row (1970 and 1972).

The Spartans were the original tenants at brand-new Tampa Stadium, which opened in 1967 but did not house an NFL team until the Bucs arrived in 1976.  In the years prior, the team played at Plant Field and Phillips Field near the university campus.

“We could have stood up against anybody in the country. We weren’t afraid to play anybody,” says Randy Smith, a Spartans linebacker during the early 1970s. ““The whole town was excited. Back then, you didn’t have college programs down there like you do now.”

The University of Tampa was established in 1931 as Tampa Junior College. Two years later, the school became a four-year institution, adopted the name University of Tampa and moved to its current location. That same year, the rechristened institution adopted the nickname Spartans and started playing football. 

Since 1933, the Spartans had been a successful small-college program, competing in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). The program posted consistently winning records and played its home games at Phillips Field, a 12,000-seat venue adjacent to campus that’s now the site of Tampa Preparatory School. 

On two occasions, the Spartans played in and won the Cigar Bowl, a New Year’s Day postseason contest for small college programs played at Phillips Field. It wasn’t until the back half of the 1960s that UT’s gridiron aspirations were much more than that of a steadily successful small college program with steady local support. UT was a school of fewer than 1,500 students that relied more on the support of football-mad Floridians than on the enthusiasm of its undergraduates.

When Hillsborough County financed and built Tampa Stadium to lure professional football, the county and UT athletic director Sam Bailey entered a marriage of convenience, as the Spartans became the venue’s first tenants.

The Spartans debuted at Tampa Stadium on Nov. 4, 1967, against the third-ranked and eventual SEC champion Tennessee Volunteers. The Vols thrashed Tampa 38-0, but the game gave UT football and its new showpiece stadium an unprecedented national profile.

In 1968, Bailey brought in a head coach up to the task of making UT big-time: former Miami All-American quarterback Fran Curci. From 1968 to 1970, Curci built UT into one of the country’s top small college programs, culminating in a 10-1 campaign in 1970 that was punctuated by a 31-14 pummeling of heavily favored Miami.

“Curci was an up-and-coming, young, brilliant coach who had a lot of charisma,” says John Lopez, who played at UT in the mid-1960s before serving as a UT athletic trainer during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In 1969, Curci worked with Florida A&M coach Jake Gaither to stage the first interracial football game in the South when the Spartans hosted the Rattlers at Tampa Stadium. Tampa quarterback Leon McQuay, a local high school standout from Blake, was one of the few African American major college football players in the Southeast. Curci negotiated a guaranteed gate for Florida A&M on the condition that the school bring its famous marching band.

“The stadium is sold out and the halftime performance goes for almost 47 minutes. The people are going crazy. The band gets a standing ovation longer than either football team,” Lopez recalls of Florida A&M’s 34-28 victory.

In addition to his coaching acumen and charm, Curci was a fantastic recruiter, building pipelines into Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania. He also took advantage of UT’s small college status, which enabled players to transfer directly from major college programs without sitting out a year—a precursor to today’s transfer portal.

“The program had kind of a bad image. It was known as ‘Transfer U.’ They had a lot of guys who had gotten into trouble at other programs for academics or discipline issues,” Lopez says. 

This reliance on transfers led Tampa to be perceived in some circles as a renegade program. Tampa’s football boosters, the Sword and Shield Club, contributed to this image and were rumored to have provided players with money under the table, as well as financing the development of the program.

The most prominent transfer to come to UT was John Matuszak, who arrived after Curci’s tenure. Standing 6-foot-9, 280 pounds, Matuszak had several run-ins at Missouri before transferring to UT. He went on to become an All-American, and the Houston Oilers made him the No. 1 overall pick in the 1973 NFL Draft. Years later, Matuszak brought his physique and wild reputation to the big screen, where he was best known for his role as Sloth in “The Goonies.”

Curci left Tampa after the 1970 season to take the Miami Hurricanes’ head coaching position but set UT up for continued success. In 1971, UT moved to NCAA Division I football as an independent and proved immediately competitive. Between 1968 and 1974, the program posted a 54-21 overall record and averaged more than 22,000 spectators per game at Tampa Stadium.

Nevertheless, the UT job became a stepping stone to more prominent coaching gigs.

“I think it’s a wonder that we did as well as we did, because you’d have a new coach coming in each year with their way of doing things,” Randy Smith says. “We won a lot of games, but I think we would have done better if we had the same coach for four years.” In Smith’s four years at UT (1970-1973), he played for four different head coaches.

Tampa’s best year as a Division I program came in 1972, during its only season under Earle Bruce, who went on to coach at Iowa State and then replaced Woody Hayes at Ohio State.

“We were a confident team. Earle Bruce had us ready and disciplined,” recalls Mark Deeb, who played running back at UT from 1972 to 1974.

Bruce cultivated a strong sense that the players were playing for each other. Deeb recalls Monday film sessions in which teammates would cheer one another for self-sacrificing plays from the previous Saturday’s game.

The Spartans finished the 1972 season 10-2 and as the champions of the Tangerine Bowl—now known as the Citrus Bowl. Played in Orlando on a cool December night, Tampa outlasted Kent State in a 21-18 contest.

The Kent State team featured future Hall of Fame linebacker Jack Lambert and an undersized safety named Nick Saban, who went on to coach his teams to seven collegiate national championships.

By the time of the Tangerine Bowl, UT players were full-fledged local celebrities, the stars of the biggest show in town. They were not only recognized but feted up and down the Hillsborough River. On game days, the team received police escorts from campus to the stadium, and throngs of fans hollered as they got off the bus.

“I can’t tell you how cool it was to run out onto the field at Tampa Stadium and hear your name over that big old loudspeaker,” Deeb said.

Two of the program’s most prominent players of the game, and during this era, went on to successful careers in professional football and professional wrestling, respectively.

Freddie Solomon was one of the top high school players of his era in South Carolina but was unable to gain admission to either Clemson or the University of South Carolina due to academics. Tampa admitted him, and he flourished both in the classroom (where he earned his bachelor’s degree) and on the gridiron.

Solomon became the greatest dual-threat quarterback of his era, breaking career and single-season NCAA records for rushing yards and rushing touchdowns by a quarterback. In 1974 he finished 12th in Heisman Trophy voting. USF thought highly enough of Solomon to name him honorary captain at the program’s home debut in 1997. In the NFL, he became a wide receiver, playing 11 seasons for the Dolphins and San Francisco 49ers, where he earned two Super Bowl rings catching passes from Joe Montana.

Starring at fullback and tight end for the Spartans was Paul Orndorff, who was selected in the 1973 NFL Draft by the New Orleans Saints before becoming a professional wrestler. Known as “Mr. Wonderful,” Orndorff wrestled in the main event of the first WrestleMania, teamed with Roddy Piper to face Hulk Hogan and Mr. T in a tag team match.

The good times for UT football came to an abrupt halt after the appointment of B.D. Owens as the college president in 1972. He wasn’t at UT long, but he shaped the future of the institution in significant ways. Owens made it clear he wanted to deemphasize athletics.

He commissioned the school’s finance committee to investigate the financial impact of UT football on the institution. In February 1975, the committee reported that the program had lost $170,000 in 1974. Boosters denied the assertion, claiming that the school had taken donations earmarked for football and placed them in UT’s general fund.

Owens and the committee asserted that the program’s losses would get worse when the city’s recently announced NFL expansion team, which would become the Tampa Bay Buccaneers,  commenced play in 1976. Competition from the NFL would inevitably cut into UT’s support, according to Owens.

Football supporters responded by raising $100,000 in February 1975 to try to save the program. Players walked downtown Tampa handing out pledge cards to potential donors.

UT’s board of trustees met to discuss the program’s future. President Owens made the presentation, arguing for the school to drop football. Following a five-hour session, the board voted 16-9 to end the football program immediately, shocking supporters who figured they’d have at least one more season.

Coaches scrambled to find new schools for UT players, helping more than 50 players transfer. Owens made the task more difficult by cutting off the football office phones just two days after the announcement.

At the time, many of the program’s supporters believed Buccaneers ownership had paid off UT to drop football, a perception that remains common today. John Lopez is skeptical of the rumor and innuendo.

“I worked for [Buccaneers owner] Hugh Culverhouse as the Buccaneers’ assistant athletic trainer from 1976 until 1979. Culverhouse was notoriously miserly and would not pay anybody off,” Lopez said, describing Culverhouse with an expression originally used for Chicago Bears owner George Halas: “He threw nickels around like they were manhole covers.”

The demise of UT football forced Hillsborough County taxpayers to foot more of the bill for Tampa Stadium, which was financed through municipal bonds. Receipts from UT football games contributed $90,000 of the $160,000 annual debt service at the time. County taxpayers picked up the remainder. A new municipal bond would soon pay for the expansion of Tampa Stadium from a seating capacity of 46,500 to 71,000, adding further to county taxpayers’ burden.

Despite its rapid demise, the legacy of the Tampa Spartans shaped the sport both locally and nationally. For decades, the coaching ranks of Florida high school football included many former UT players. At the professional level, 22 Tampa players were selected in the NFL Draft—16 of them between 1969 and 1975—and 14 suited up in NFL games.

“I always tell my kids they retired my number and everybody else’s down there,” Smith jokes. The bond among former UT players remains strong. A text message chain of more than 20 former players from the late 1960s and 1970s persists to this day.

“When you’re in the trenches with your buddies for three or four years, you develop relationships that last forever,” Smith adds

The Spartans held several team reunions over the years—none more emotional than the 2011 gathering to honor the life of Freddie Solomon, who was in the final stages of his battle with colon cancer. The event was hosted by 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo, the University of Tampa and the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, where Solomon worked with area youths after retiring from the NFL.

Roughly 20 former UT players attended, and the event featured a highlight film of Solomon’s college and professional career. Several noteworthy figures in the 49ers organization spoke about Solomon. Jerry Rice, Joe Montana and Ronnie Lott filmed a tribute to their former teammate. DeBartolo was the keynote speaker, calling Solomon one of the kindest human beings on the face of the earth.

Deeb remembers catching the eye of his friend and teammate Solomon, who he describes as appearing to weigh roughly 130 pounds at the time. Despite his condition, Solomon “gave me a giant bear hug and he wouldn’t let go,” Deeb said. Solomon died in 2012.

In recent decades, Tampa has developed a highly successful Division II college athletic program, winning national titles in nine different men’s and women’s sports. Despite that success, UT athletics lacks the national profile that the Spartans football program established all those years ago. 

While UT football has faded from view, the success and the support they enjoyed played an essential role in making Tampa a major football market.

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