Baltimore’s Despair

“Baltimore was broken in spirit over the loss of the Colts. The cleated heroes, in blue and white, were gone...There was so much wrong about the defection that hope lingered that something would certainly be done to quickly amend the situation. A belief existed that the league couldn’t do without Baltimore.”

— “From Colts to Ravens” by John Steadman

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Kurt Schmoke (former mayor of Baltimore)

The idea of getting an NFL team back, we were always hopeful.

John Ziemann (Baltimore Colts’ Marching Band president)

In 1985 there was a Baltimore group that wanted to buy the New Orleans Saints and move them to Baltimore. The NFL basically came and said, “Hey, look, don’t do this. Leave the Saints in New Orleans and we’ll look out for you for an expansion team.” Well they didn’t look out for us if you know what I’m saying.

Ken Murray (former Baltimore Sun sports reporter)

[Washington’s NFL franchise owner] Jack Kent Cooke was another guy who kept the NFL from expanding to Baltimore. He was a major player. He may have been the major player. He made an impassioned speech at one point to say his brothers, his brethren in the NFL, could not allow another team to come into what he considered his territory; even though he didn’t get a fan from Baltimore. It’s politics.

John Ziemann

The Cardinals were gonna come here. Again, we were more or less used by [St. Louis Cardinals owner Bill] Bidwell. It was like a rollercoaster. But we never gave up.

Ken Murray

[Bidwell] was able to use Baltimore’s wonderful offer to prop up the Arizona offer. That’s all he wanted in that deal.

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In 1993 the NFL expanded to 30 teams. Baltimore, St. Louis, Jacksonville, Charlotte and Memphis all bid for the two new franchises. Baltimore and St. Louis, having previously hosted their own NFL teams, were considered the favorites.

On October 23, in an unexpected decision, Charlotte was announced as the first recipient. The people of Baltimore grew anxious, but did not lose hope. “Surely,” they thought, “the NFL won’t screw us over again.”

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Jim Speros (Baltimore Stallions owner)

Everyone got crazy when Charlotte got the team and said, “Baltimore’s got to be next.” Charlotte was happy of course and no one ever thought Jacksonville would get a team.

Ken Murray

The NFL had just shafted Baltimore, twice. Giving it to Charlotte — which was okay, Charlotte has actually made it as an NFL team. Jacksonville is a horrendous NFL team. They should not have the franchise. That was where Baltimore got jacked.

Leonard “Big Wheel” Burrier (Baltimore Stallions superfan)

After a while when you see Jacksonville and the other football teams, and we still don’t have anything, it’s like, “What’s happening? Someone’s missing the boat here.”

Kurt Schmoke

I think it wasn’t until we actually got into the process many years later when the league was expanding and they turned us down in favor of Jacksonville and Carolina, that’s when kind of a gloom started to set in that people began to think that it might not happen.

Jim Speros

I don’t know if there’s even a word to explain — rejection, frustration. They’ve been left at the altar. It was just a terrible situation for these people and this city that really thought they were gonna get a team back. So I came in with a new fresh idea, I played off what had happened.

The Stallions’ Seeds

In 1985 Baltimore was granted a United States Football League franchise for one season. But the Baltimore Stars didn’t actually belong to Baltimore, practicing in Philadelphia and playing in College Park. Jim Speros, a Baltimore businessman from Potomac, Md., who’d played football at Clemson University, saw an opportunity to bring football back to the city.

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Larry Smith (then commissioner of the Canadian Football League)

We had a young man named Jim Speros who was a tremendous entrepreneur. And Jim, his dream was to get a football team into Baltimore.

Jim Speros

People in Baltimore were so upset with the NFL. I think half the reason they supported me was to show that the NFL made a huge mistake in not choosing Baltimore. You talk about timing, this is Business 101. It’s when timing meets opportunity, preparation; and the timing was perfect because this city for two years thought they were gonna get their NFL team back.

‘I literally could put my foot down through the floor’

The most obvious location for a football team to play: Memorial Stadium, the former home of the Baltimore Colts and the Baltimore Orioles. But the Colts left for Indianapolis a decade earlier and the Orioles moved to Camden Yards in 1992, leaving the stadium unoccupied for two years. By the time Speros expressed interest in moving in, it had fallen into disrepair.

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Jim Speros (Baltimore Stallions Owner)

I thought I had the best deal in the world when I signed the [Memorial Stadium] lease with the city for $1 per year... And then we found there’s 20,000 broken seats; the field is nothing but weeds and lumps and rocks; literally the locker room was just dungy, dirt, you can imagine even rodents running around.

Scott Oake (“CFL on CBC” host)

I remember being in Jim Speros’ office with water coming out of the ceiling.

Leonard “Big Wheel” Burrier (Baltimore Stallions superfan)

We would be sitting in the lower deck and when people flushed the toilet up in the upper deck it leaked. The pipes were so bad in there.

Ken Murray (former Baltimore Sun sports reporter)

I took a tour of the stadium after they made the agreement. And I literally could put my foot down through the floor in a couple of places.

Tom Matte (Baltimore Stallions vice president, broadcaster)

My role basically was to get improvements. I was brought on board because, politically, I had some connections to make sure that we could get some things done that we had to get done. And we did. We renovated the stadium, we put a new field in. It was a disaster.

Kurt Schmoke (former mayor of Baltimore)

At the time Jim came to talk to me about this, he said there would not be any requirements for the city to put in money for the stadium. He had been in it and he thought there were some cosmetic things that needed to be done, but no major expenditure by the city. And that was one of the reasons that it was easy for me to turn over the keys, because at the time the country was going through tough economic times and the city was too. So it would’ve been tougher for me to invite the Stallions in if I had to use a lot of city resources.

Ken Murray

They cleaned it up. Speros basically traded things. He’d trade tickets, or he’d trade other things, for services.

Bob Leffler (Leffler Agency, marketing firm of Stallions)

We [were] making trade deals for paint, TVs, rugs, computers, equipment, tape, training room supplies. We traded for all manner of stuff to put this thing together. It was fun, I have to admit.

Jim Speros

Within three and a half months I had got the field ready to go, put about $3 million into the stadium just to get that stadium up and running. We painted it, put a new field in, did the locker rooms.

Jim Popp (Baltimore Stallions general manager)

Construction was going on everywhere while we were putting this together over a six-month period… But we had players coming in the building, [we were] starting to put the team together.

Jim Speros

The person I had my eye on [to coach] from Day One was a gentleman named Don Matthews… They call him “The Don.”

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Mike Gathagan (Baltimore Stallions public relations director)

He was, without a doubt, the best coach that league has ever seen.

Jim Speros

[Matthews] had turned down jobs in the NFL. I know for a fact that he had a chance to go to Dallas, but he stayed in the Canadian Football League.

Jim Popp

When [Don Matthews] went in and did the interview, he’s like, “If I get this job, I’m gonna push for you to get this job.” And so he first interviewed in Las Vegas and then the following week he was in Baltimore. And then he told them they should be looking at me to come in and be the general manager. And then I got offered the job.

Ken Murray

Speros let Matthews and Popp run the team. That’s what he did. He knew he was in over his head and he said, “Don knows how to take care of the players, Popp knows how to get them. I’m just going to sign the checks.” ... And it was a pretty good combination. Wherever Matthews and Popp would have wound up would have been the team that would have won.

Jim Popp

We set up about one big room and put eight phone jacks in it and set up a table and a white board and had a whole list of players… I just gave them a list of names of players to start calling. One after the other after the other, talking to agents. And we made a little game of it. We were like keeping tally; it was like college recruiting. Who gets the first commitment? Who’s winning the commitment role, landing the guys I gave you? But we were all in one big room. It was all we had.

Scott Oake

[Matthews] started with quarterback Tracy Ham, a great running back in Mike Pringle, and one of the best defensive players at the time in Jerald Bayliss.

Mike Pringle (Baltimore Stallions running back)

Tracy Ham was definitely the team leader... Tracy was extremely professional in how he’d approach the game. He was not a “rah-rah” type of person, it was more of a leading by example.

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Tracy Ham (Baltimore Stallions Quarterback)

I think the pressure, especially from a quarterback’s position, was that we have to play good football. Because this town, they’re used to good football. I didn’t want to be the quarterback that didn’t bring good, solid football back to the city.

Ken Saroka

When Don Matthews gets to be the head coach, he already knew those players and got them to come down with an American dollar that was a little stronger. The dollar could buy a lot more, and there was no salary cap. It was stocked.

Ken Murray

[Future New Orleans Saints wide receiver] Joe Horn came here at the end of the first year. He never got into a game. He never got to the point where he learned the offense well enough to get into a game.

Jim Popp

In our tryout camp we had [wide receiver] Wayne Chrebet, who we cut, we didn’t keep, before he went to the Jets… He did very well that day; just at the end of the day he wasn’t the type of receiver we were looking for. At least what the coaches were looking for at the time, they were looking for more of a speed stretch guy.

Chris Armstrong

When I first got here, my first day, it was rainy but it was real humid. When I worked out, I remember Coach Matthews asking me if I could still run. I said I could run pretty good. So he told me that if I run a 4.5-forty [yard dash] that he’d sign me right on the spot. So I went out in the mud and the rain and ran a 4.4. And the guy was like, “You wanna do it again?” And I was like, “Nope.”

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Jim Popp

I knew what it took to put together a team… And I took that approach into Baltimore, I knew what it took and what we needed to be to be successful, and used those concepts with everybody and hit the ground running.

Ken Murray

To be honest, the best way to put it is they were pretty good from Day One. They had very good coaching, they had veterans at the key positions and they just made it work through repetition.

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A Whole New Ballgame

With the roster filled out and the stadium cleaned up, the coaching staff turned its attention to teaching its young American players how to play Canadian football. With new rules and new vocabulary, the CFL game was exotic, to say the least.

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A Horse With No Name

With the season fast approaching, owner Jim Speros had to pick a name for his team. His decision proved highly controversial, sparking a lawsuit that made national headlines and united the city.

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Jim Speros (Baltimore Stallions owner)

A lot of people came up with some great names for the team, the Sharks, they wanted to call them the Bombers... I thought maybe something horse related would be good...I was getting ready to name the team right from the beginning Stallions... John [Steadman, legendary Baltimore sportswriter] walked into my office in April 1994... He says, “If you don’t name this team the Colts you’re gonna fail miserably, because I know this town, I know this city, I know football, and you’re not gonna survive here.”

Kurt Schmoke (former mayor of Baltimore)

I don’t believe that Jim investigated whether it would be viewed as some kind of trademark infringement, because he made real clear and everything it was the CFL Colts.

Jim Speros

We named the team the Colts and the city went crazy. We sold 13,000 season tickets within a matter of four days after we made that announcement.

Ken Murray (former Baltimore Sun sports writer)

The NFL sued. Early on they recognized it, it didn’t take them long. Trademark infringement is what they got them on.

Jim Speros

Literally two days before I was supposed to have my first preseason game, which was going to be at Memorial Stadium, I get whisked into court in Indianapolis. I walk in with three attorneys and there’s 13 attorneys sitting on the other side of the bench representing the National Football League ... The NFL did me the biggest favor in the world because this became national news for six months.

Ken Murray

It made everybody even madder. “Why can’t we use the Colts name?”

Dan O’Connell, (Baltimore Stallions statistician)

It made everybody galvanize against the NFL.

Jim Speros

Unfortunately they told me I had to cease and desist using that mark until this gets straightened out… There I was, two days before a game, and I had to basically go back — the field was painted with Colts in the end zone, I had all this memorabilia, programs printed. We had to black out shirts, black out programs, black out cups. We did everything we possibly could because we did not want to be an infringement on what the judge was saying in Indianapolis.

Mike Gathagan (Baltimore Stallions public relations director)

We had interns luckily that were literally blacking out — taking magic marker — and taking the CFL Colts logo and the name Colts, and taking black magic marker and eliminating that from the program page.

Ken Murray

We ended up calling them most of the time the CFLs. That wasn’t too catchy. But they weren’t going by any name, so we did what we had to do.

Bob Leffler, (Leffler Agency, marketing firm of Stallions)

I don’t even think we had a slogan. We had no name! This was a team with no name.

A Surprisingly Good Team

Despite the loss to Calgary in the first home game, fans were hooked. Baltimore led the CFL in attendance in 1994, averaging 37,000 fans per game, roughly 7,500 more than the next team, Edmonton.

On the field, it was clear Popp and Matthews had assembled a winning team. While Shreveport, Sacramento and Las Vegas — the CFL’s other new American expansion teams — finished a combined 17–36–1, Baltimore galloped to a 12–6 record.

Baltimore didn’t just have a football team, they had a good football team.

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Ken Murray (former Baltimore Sun sports reporter)

They made typical mistakes that any football team would make early in the year, but those things kind of ironed out fairly quickly… As the season progressed, as they started to pile up a couple of wins, you could see that they had the making [of a great team].

Mike Pringle (Baltimore Stallions running back)

Initially I think most of the people came out of curiosity, as a looksee, let’s see what this is all about… After they saw the product on the field and the caliber of play the excitement just continued to grow, and grow to the point where our fans were showing up at practice.

Ken Murray

I remember they practiced on an abandoned high school field, but it had glass, it had condoms, it had all kind of nasty stuff. The bleachers were terrible. And I remember this one day, it was late in the season and something was going on because the offense and defense were getting chippy. And all of a sudden a big brawl breaks out. It was the best football fight I’ve ever seen. And these were teammates! Throwing punches at each other, taking their helmets off and throwing punches. It went on for five minutes, it took awhile to get in control. And afterward I went to the locker room, they had to come back to Memorial Stadium where the locker room was, and I went in and everybody was like, “Hey, that was fun!”

Leonard “Big Wheel” Burrier (Baltimore Stallions superfan)

I’ll tell you this, it’s a funny story. We’re walking around the stadium and this girl comes by and says, “Oh Mr. Wheel, I’d love to get my picture with you. My father wanted to get his picture with you.” She says, “Wait here and hold this box.” I mean it was a box, I don’t know what the hell it was. “So hold this box I’m gonna go get my husband,” [she says]. And they’re getting ready to take the picture and I ask, “Well where’s your father?” She says, “You’re holding him.” I was holding his ashes all this time. She said, “Yeah, we bought a seat for him to come out and we sat his ashes right there on the seat.” I said, “Oh, s**t.”

Ken Murray

I would say that by the end of the first month, I had a pretty good idea that this was a team that could surprise. Then I think by about halfway through we started seeing this as a team that could go to the Grey Cup.

Steve Burrato (Baltimore Stallions offensive coordinator)

Oh, there was a cross-border rivalry, no question. Their first comments were that we didn’t have to have Canadian players. [The Canadian teams] all had to start 10 Canadian guys.

Scott Oake (“CFL on CBC” host)

The American teams didn’t have to do that, so they certainly had a huge edge as far as competition went.

Ken Murray

[Don Matthews] recognized that they couldn’t put the cap on American players, and they used a basic roster of American players which the Canadian teams couldn’t do. So that automatically made them better in all the skill positions than all the Canadian teams.

Dan O’Connell (Baltimore Stallions statistician)

It was not a level playing field at all.

Mike Pringle

I was blessed to have probably the second biggest offensive line in football at that time, second probably to the Dallas Cowboys. That’s in all seriousness. My offensive line was huge all the way across the board.

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Steve Burrato

To some degree, it was an advantage, and then it was a lot easier to replace people that got hurt.

Ken Murray

[Canadian fans and players said,] “They got all the Americans, we got the Canadians. We’re not gonna beat the Americans.”… The Canadian executives, owners, presidents, wanted to see the American teams succeed because they saw that as maybe a savior for the league.

Larry Smith (then commissioner of the Canadian Football League)

I had hate letters.

Mike Pringle

We were all in the Canadian Football League, we just happened to be on different sides of the border. We tried to squash in the media any type of [U.S.-Canada] rivalry like that, because we didn’t want it to be “us against them.” It wasn’t the Olympics.

Final 1994 East Division Standings

Team	Wins	Losses	Points For	Points Against
Winnipeg	13	5	651	572
Baltimore	12	6	561	431
Toronto	7	11	504	578
Ottawa	4	14	480	647
Hamilton	4	14	435	562
Shreveport	3	15	330	661

The First Playoff Run

Baltimore began their playoff run the same way they began the regular season, by defeating the Toronto Argonauts, this time at Memorial Stadium in front of more than 35,000 fans. In late November, the team faced the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the East Division Finals with a trip to the Grey Cup on the line.

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Ken Murray (former Baltimore Sun sports writer)

They played in Winnipeg, which was probably the coldest I’ve ever been for a football game. It was brutal, and they barely beat a team that shouldn’t have been on the field with them. But the field and the conditions made it a winnable game for Winnipeg.

Irvin Smith (Baltimore Stallions defensive back)

I said, “You know what? I’m going to be like the O-linemen today. I’m going to go out with no sleeves on.” You know, sleeveless, and show my so-called guns. And I remember I ran out for pregame warmups and I don’t think I made it a full lap around the field during my little pregame routine jogging around the field. And came back in and I couldn’t find enough long sleeve sweatshirts to put on.

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Chris Armstrong (Baltimore Stallions wide receiver)

They were throwing things. It was challenging, it was like minus something. It was very cold, and fruit was flying.

Donald Hill-Ely (Baltimore Stallions wide receivers coach)

We’re down by one and it’s maybe 10 seconds left on the clock, Matthews sends on the field goal team, and it’s do or die, that if we don’t make this kick we don’t go to the Grey Cup. And it’s 54 yards. But the wind is blowing 60 knots, 70 knots [at his back].

Jim Popp (Baltimore Stallions general manager)

Donald Igwebuike who’s from Nigeria, a soccer player turned into a kicker, and he nails a fifty-something yard field goal in that weather to win [14–12].

Irvin Smith

That ball would have probably been good from 65–70 yards.

Mike Pringle (Baltimore Stallions running back)

It’s very difficult to play up there, especially elements that they were used to: very cold, snowing. We were able to go up there and in kind of an us-against-them type of atmosphere...get a victory.

Ken Murray

It just wasn’t a great football game. It was really a matter of surviving it.

Steve Burrato (Baltimore Stallions offensive coordinator)

We won a squeaker of game in a really cold, windy, miserable day in Winnipeg to go to the Grey Cup.

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Ken Saroka (Baltimore Stallions fan)

That first Grey Cup was like national pride because here’s Canada represented by the BC Lions, and nobody wanted the cup to go south of the 49th parallel.

Mike Gathagan

I think the team was extremely confident going into Vancouver because we had just hammered the BC Lions late in the regular season.

Tracy Ham (Baltimore Stallions quarterback)

We hadn’t spent a whole bunch of time working on hand signaling or nonverbal signals. We ran no-huddle, but it still was all verbalization. I don’t think we really anticipated the crowd being that noisy. We knew it was going to be loud, but it really showed us how much the Canadians wanted the Grey Cup.

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The Stallions took control immediately, intercepting Lions QB Kent Austin three times in the first half. Coming out of halftime with a 17–10 lead, Baltimore let BC inch back into the game after consecutive field goals by Lions kicker Lui Passaglia.

The teams traded field goals throughout the second half. Late in the fourth quarter, the Stallions drove deep into BC territory with a chance to hammer in a touchdown for the lead.

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Steve Burrato

We ran a counter play with Tracy, he extended the ball over the goal line, and had possession of it with his arms extended. [BC] slapped it out of his hands and they called it a fumble. So they got the ball and we didn’t get a score.

Jim Popp

Tracy Ham fumbling on the half-yard line, ball spilling into the endzone… That would have put us up with less than five minutes in the game, probably would have sealed the game.

Tracy Ham

I didn’t play particularly well.

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With two minutes left and the game still tied, Danny McManus, who replaced Kent Austin at quarterback for BC, fired downfield to Ray Alexander — a play still burned deeply into the minds of the Stallions’ coaches and players.

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Irvin Smith

[BC was] trying to drive down to get into field goal range. [Ray Alexander], I remember he was like six-two, six-three, pretty tall receiver, and him and I went up for a ball together and we both came down with the ball, and the ball hit the ground, I mean like it was an incomplete pass. I wanna say the back judge called an incomplete pass but another official came in from lord knows where and called it a complete pass. And it was obvious, I mean you can look at the tape and see it that it’s pretty much not a completed pass.

Steve Burrato

There wasn’t replay anywhere in ’94… Obviously the call at the end of the game was ridiculous.

Irvin Smith

Unfortunately it did come down to a questionable call.

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Though Passaglia missed the subsequent field goal attempt that would have put BC ahead, the controversial call still backed Baltimore up deep in its own territory. Their next drive stalled, and the Lions got the ball back with excellent field position and less than a minute to go. On the game’s last play, Passaglia buried a 39-yard field goal to give BC the win.

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Steve Burrato

To lose the game with no time on the clock to a field goal was really heartbreaking… It was a real long walk. I had my chin on my chest. I had lots of company, but you seem to take those things personally. You know everybody else is in the same frame of mind, but from your perspective, nobody feels quite as badly as you do.

Mike Gathagan

It’s almost 20 years ago and I’m still bitter about that.

Ken Murray

The Baltimore team did not lose the game at the end. They lost the game because they weren’t doing the things during the game that they normally did. They didn’t run the ball as well, they didn’t throw the ball as well. When I looked back on it, I thought maybe the Lions did a better job of preparing for that game. They played an inspired game, the Baltimore team did not play an inspired game. It wasn’t anticlimactic, but it kind of had that feel to it where it was like this wasn’t the Stallions’ best game, this wasn’t their best effort. For whatever reason they were off. They didn’t play well, and some of their key players let them down.

Scott Oake (“CFL on CBC” host)

That brought out the patriotism of Canadians, in particular CFL fans, and there were as a bit of “Take that USA.”

Chris Armstrong

Once you make it to the Grey Cup once — you make it to the championship, the Super Bowl or whatever your championship is — and you play in that game and you lose, there’s always disappointment and there’s always frustration.

Jim Popp

We gave a Grey Cup away. We should have never lost the game.

Chris Armstrong

It was tough. It was tough because we felt we were more prepared and we were the better team. But unfortunately it just didn’t go our way and it kind of fueled us going into the 1995 season with the “unfinished business” slogan.

Donald Hill-Ely

From that moment on the guys made a vow that we were going to get back to the Grey Cup and we were going to win. But that was one of those moments that you could taste it. And Matthew’s speech at the end of the game was “This year we knocked, next year we’re kicking the door in.”

Unfinished Business

The team was hungry to get back on the field, but there was a more pressing matter at hand: settling on a name for the team. Negotiations with the NFL over the Colts name had stalled, and the $500,000 worth of pro bono services a law firm had given Speros to fight the case was drying up. He was intent on settling the issue before the 1995 season began.

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Jim Speros (Baltimore Stallions Owner)

At the end of the year in November we just decided to stop pursuing getting the [Colts] name.

Ken Murray (former Baltimore Sun sports writer)

The NFL had its way. They always have their way.

Jim Speros

We never lost the case, but the fact was the NFL can just wear you out financially. They couldn’t believe that I had a law firm doing pro bono and fighting this thing.

Ken Murray

In the offseason they ran a contest and they decided Stallions was the name. It was a good choice, it’s a name they probably should have gone with from the beginning.

Leonard “Big Wheel” Burrier (Baltimore Stallions superfan)

I’m glad they came up with the Stallions instead of some of the other names they were coming up with. You know, the Hippopotamuses.

Ken Saroka (Baltimore Stallions fan)

The second season I became a season ticket holder. Again, good team, same setup, same coach. Hungry team, obviously on a mission.

Tracy Ham (Baltimore Stallions quarterback)

We didn’t feel like we finished what we had started.

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Ken Murray

They were much more confident, they knew how good they were. They added a couple of key players, they came to recognize how they could tweak things a little bit better, and the fans were into it too.

Mark Weightman (Baltimore Stallions intern)

From the other interns, to the staff, to the players, everybody was like, this year we’re getting it done, nothing’s gonna stand in our way. And I felt that right away and that was part of what became overwhelming to me, seeing how driven they were from training camp, that we just need to finish what we started last year.

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After a narrow season-opening loss — to the BC Lions in a repeat of the 1994 Grey Cup — the Stallions rattled off five straight wins, cruising to first place in the south division. But a three-game road trip in nine days at the end of July halted that momentum.

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Mike Gathagan (Baltimore Stallions public relations director)

We played in Birmingham on a Saturday night, and then we chartered a plane and played Edmonton on a… Wednesday night, and then ended up playing Calgary on a Sunday.

Dan Crowley (Baltimore Stallions quarterback)

I had no idea how we got ready to play that third game. We stayed in this tiny little Canadian town and we had 38 football players staying there three nights. It was amazing.

Irvin Smith (Baltimore Stallions defensive back)

I ate the best steak I’ve ever eaten in my life in that town.

Jim Popp (Baltimore Stallions general manager)

[The games] are bundled together and you stay on the road. But staying on the road creates [bonds]… It’s a little like going camping. All the guys, you’re with the boys, and there’s a lot of card playing in between meetings and getting to know each other a little better.

Mike Gathagan

You imagine how the bodies were beat up, and I think there were a lot of chips on. Conspiracy theorists were out there saying, “Nobody else had to play this, three games in nine days.”

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The Stallions lost the final game of that trip, then returned home and lost to a mediocre Memphis team. At 5–3, with their hold on first place hanging by a thread, Matthews decided his team needed some motivation.

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Irvin Smith

That next day at practice [Matthews] and the organization flew in about 25 people to tryout for the team in front of us. We were practicing on one half of the field and they would have an all-out combine on the other end of the field. Because certain players weren’t getting certain things done, and that’s his mentality. “If you’re not getting it done I’m gonna cut you and find somebody else who will.”

Mike Pringle (Baltimore Stallions running back)

That was the coaches’ way of saying that all of you guys are expendable, you guys need to pick up your game or we’re gonna replace you… We still talk about that today, that was something that really got our attention.

Ken Murray

Don didn’t worry about how people perceived him. Don didn’t care about what people thought of him, he didn’t care about what the players thought of him. He didn’t care about being liked, he didn’t care about being a coaches’ coach, he didn’t care about any of that. Winning was the bottom line for Don, and he was diligent in seeking the bottom line. If Don thought a player needed to be motivated, he’d find a way to motivate a player.

Jim Popp

Then we ripped off 13 straight [wins]. Some of them were tight but I think we knew almost every time we hit the field we had a chance to win.

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Bob Leffler (Leffler Agency, marketing firm of Stallions)

The team was unconsciously good. The team was good the first year, but they were dominant the second year.

Ken Saroka

It was kind of like a singular purpose, you could just tell that [the Grey Cup] was on their minds.

Final 1995 South Division Standings

Team	Wins	Losses	Points For	Points Against
Baltimore	15	3	541	369
San Antonio	12	6	630	457
Birmingham	10	8	548	518
Memphis	9	9	346	364
Shreveport	5	13	465	514

The Championship That Nobody Cared About

The Stallions steamrolled through the playoffs, beating Winnipeg 36–21 and San Antonio 21–11, to notch a second straight trip to the Grey Cup. This time around, they travelled to wintry Regina in Saskatchewan to face the Calgary Stampeders, led by CFL legend Doug Flutie.

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Steve Burrato (Baltimore Stallions offensive coordinator)

It was bitter, cold and the wind was blowing so hard before the game started that they almost held the beginning of the game. They were afraid… The temporary stands they had on one end wouldn’t hold up under the winds. It was blowing 50 mph and faster before the game started.

Jim Popp (Baltimore Stallions general manager)

I can remember the CFL officials walking in the door and going… “We may have to postpone the game until tomorrow.” And we’re like “Aw, what are you kidding?” And they responded, “Well we can’t for insurance purposes let fans in the stands because they may collapse with the wind.”

Irvin Smith (Baltimore Stallions defensive back)

When you went out for the coin toss, you honestly didn’t play to have the ball. You played the wind.

Jim Popp

It was Canada versus U.S., that’s how hockey is, soccer is, whatever sport you wanna put out there. It was like an Olympic event is what it was… We were going into that game 17–3… The two all-time winningest coaches in history were battling each other.

Irvin Smith

We knew that Doug Flutie didn’t have a rifle arm. So when they went into the wind we guaranteed he wasn’t going to put the ball in the air. I mean we put all our ducks in saying, “Hey. We’re gonna rush Doug, we’re not even gonna give him time to think about it.” So we’re gonna make them run the ball, and take the passing aspect of the game completely out. And then when he does have the wind, “Hey we’re gonna lock up his receivers and with the wind pushing his ball it might make it sail, but we’re gonna play man to man the whole game, we’re gonna be in his face and be in the receiver's face and make them make plays.”

Jim Popp

We played a solid football game first half and an even better second half. Just a stellar defensive Cup performance.

Mike Pringle

Playing against Doug Flutie’s team in the Grey Cup added to the sweetness of the game. It was a big win, and I think for Tracy Ham in particular, to be able to go out there and play against somebody of that caliber.

Ken Murray (former Baltimore Sun sports writer)

If that’s gonna be your swan song… to say you beat Doug Flutie [37–20] in the championship game, that’s pretty damn good.

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Donald Hill-Ely

It was so bittersweet. We were celebrating a championship knowing that once we land back in Baltimore that the cheers were just a couple days from running out.

Jim Popp

[We] came back to Baltimore [and] wanted people to meet us at the airport... [we assumed] the fans and everybody would be there cheering us on.

Mike Gathagan (Baltimore Stallions public relations director)

We came back and had a small event with some fans down at the Inner Harbor and that was pretty much [it]. We got a little bit of media attention that week.

Kurt Schmoke (former mayor of Baltimore)

There would have been a lot of celebration about the Grey Cup victory but for the focus on an NFL team coming.

Jim Speros (Baltimore Stallions owner)

We were winning. It was the perfect model of how to build a team and put a team on the field…We led the league in attendance, we led the league in sponsorship sales, we led in total revenue sales, we were the best team in the league, we won the Grey Cup, we won every award. I won franchise of the year, my coach won coach of the year, my quarterback won MVP. It’s like, what else could we win? It was certainly devastating.

Jim Popp

It left everybody in the cold. You didn’t know what was going to happen. You had no idea.

Ken Murray

The Stallions fans were still Stallions fans. But by and large the city no longer cared, and that was unfortunate, but that’s the way things work. The CFL rolled the dice, they took a gamble. [The Stallions] won a Grey Cup and the city didn’t really care. They were eager to get them out of town.

Starting From Scratch, Again

The team had just capped off one of the most dominant years in CFL history, becoming the first team to win 18 games in a season. But their future was in doubt. The city was ready to move on to its new NFL franchise. And the only remaining CFL U.S. expansion teams — Shreveport, Birmingham, San Antonio and Memphis — were getting ready to fold.

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Kurt Schmoke (former mayor of Baltimore)

I hoped that we could host both teams because the seasons didn’t overlap that much. I thought it was a possibility that we could keep the CFL and have the NFL team there.

Ken Saroka (Baltimore Stallions fan)

But the reason [the Stallions couldn’t stay in Baltimore], it was explained to us, was the commercial advertising — the sponsorships, the signage — that that kind of money would have dried up and it wouldn’t have been profitable. The wear and tear on that field probably wouldn’t have been a good idea. You kind of got the idea that Mayor Schmoke and the governor were more interested in the NFL, and kind of wined and dined the NFL using the CFL’s success.

Steve Burrato (Baltimore Stallions offensive coordinator)

It was pretty obvious that there wasn’t going to be a fan base for both teams. And there wouldn’t be a facility for both teams. For the CFL team to beat their head up against an NFL franchise wasn’t something they were going to do.

Jim Speros (Baltimore Stallions owner)

Bottom line was I had to cooperate, which was a smart business decision. And the 22,000 season ticket holders — a lot of them felt like, why wouldn’t I just stay there and coexist. I explained to people that this is the right decision for the whole league, not just for Jim Speros and our team here in Baltimore. Plus, we’d die on the fumes just trying to compete here against an NFL team. We’d be minor league.

Ken Murray (former Baltimore Sun sports writer)

Everybody who was going to a game was gonna go to the NFL game. If they gave tickets away, they might have got 12–15,000. If they sold tickets, they would’ve gotten less than 10.

Jim Speros

We looked at Houston, we looked down in Norfolk, Va., we looked down in the Tidewater area, we looked at Virginia Beach. Houston had lost the Houston Oilers to Nashville, and Drayton McLane, the owner of [Major League Baseball’s] Houston Astros, gave me a free invitation to come down and put it in the Astrodome; he wanted to be a part owner with me.

Chris Armstrong (Baltimore Stallions wide receiver)

Everybody was told, “Just relax, be patient, we’ll all get it when it’s all put together.” But as an athlete you’re worried about your future. We’ve got wives, we’ve got kids, we’ve prepared to be in Baltimore. We thought we were gonna be here for a long time, and then now we have to relocate and go somewhere else.

Jim Speros

The League had kind of made their mind up, they wanted to relocate back to Canada because Montreal was an open market. The team had left there in 1987.

Irvin Smith (Baltimore Stallions defensive back)

I’m telling my family, “I’m coming home, I’m not [going] back up there; I don’t like it, they speak French and I speak English, you know I don’t wanna be there.” Once the franchise got moved up there I talked to the general manager I talked to the coaches, they’re like, “Just suck it up and come up here, stop being a baby.” And honestly I ended up loving it. I still call it my second home.

Dan Crowley (Baltimore Stallions quarterback)

You can’t complain about Montreal. It was a beautiful city. Seventy-five percent of that city speaks French. Our summer camp was 40 miles outside the city. That was bizarre to me, we’re out there practicing, we go out to eat a restaurant, and I had no idea Canada was French. Stupid thinking I guess.

Mark Weightman (Baltimore Stallions intern)

We had four months to create a team, create a logo, sell season tickets, get sponsors, build the organization, figure out how where our offices are gonna be. It was just a whirlwind of activity.

Jim Popp (Baltimore Stallions general manager)

When we went to Montreal we had to start from scratch from nothing with our players. You start over, and we’ve had success in Montreal with the frame of the team from Baltimore. We still try to make [the Stallions] part of the organization to some degree. There’s still some… historic value to Baltimore still alive with Montreal.

‘It Keeps Going’

Almost two decades have passed since the Stallions moved to Montreal and became the Alouettes. Jim Popp is the team's general manager and head coach, and former Stallions intern Mark Weightman is now the team’s president and CEO. They’ve won three Grey Cups since 2002, but the legacy of the Stallions hasn’t faded for those who were there.

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