Chicago Winds

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Chicago Winds was the World Football League's ill-fated 1975 successor to the Chicago Fire. The team was named the Winds (note: plural, not singular) because Chicago was nicknamed "The Windy City." The team played at Soldier Field.

The team was assigned to the WFL's Western Division for 1975 (the WFL having shrunk from 12 teams to 11, and from three divisions to two). Prior to the 1975 season opener, the Winds attempted (unsuccessfully) to sign Joe Namath to a contract. The team did, however, hire former Chicago Bears head coach Abe Gibron as its head coach (although a 1975 New York Daily News' article about the hiring, in which Winds was printed with an "o" in the name instead of a "d" resulting in an article stating that Gibron had been hired to coach the "Chicago Winos").

The Winds did not have much success of the field. After completing their two-game preseason schedule in July 1975, they took the field for the regular season beginning in early August 1975. By early September, after just a month of play and a 1-4-0 won-lost record, the club folded.

A team folding in mid-season was not unusual for the WFL (the Jacksonville Sharks and Detroit Wheels had folded 14 games into a 20-game regular season in 1974), so the league was prepared. Since there were 11 teams, one team had a bye each week. With the Winds having folded, the bye team each week was slated to take the Winds' place in the schedule. Even this arrangement didn't last too long, as the entire WFL collapsed at the end of October 1975.

World Football League

Birmingham Americans (1974) | Birmingham Vulcans (1975) | Charlotte Stars (1974) | Charlotte Hornets (1974-75) | Chicago Fire (1974) | Chicago Winds (1975) | Detroit Wheels (1974) | Florida Blazers (1974) | The Hawaiians (1974-75) | Houston Texans (1974) | Jacksonville Sharks (1974) | Jacksonville Express (1975) | Memphis Southmen (1974-75) | New York Stars (1974) | Philadelphia Bell (1974-75) | Portland Storm (1974) | Portland Thunder (1975) | San Antonio Wings (1975) | Shreveport Steamer (1974-75) | Southern California Sun (1974-75)