Boston Breakers The team started out in 1983 as the Boston Breakers, owned by Boston businessman George Matthews and former
New England Patriots wide receiver Randy Vataha. However, finding a stadium proved difficult. The lack of a professional-quality stadium had stymied previous attempts at pro football in Boston before the Patriots arrived in 1960. The largest stadium in the region was
Schaefer Stadium in
Foxborough, home of the Patriots. However, it was owned by the Sullivan family, owners of the Patriots, and Matthews and Vataha were not willing to have an NFL team as their landlord. As a result, their initial choice for a home facility was
Harvard Stadium, but
Harvard University rejected them almost out of hand. They finally settled on
Nickerson Field on the campus of
Boston University, which seated only 21,000 people – the smallest stadium in the league. The team's cheerleaders were called "Heartbreakers". Coach
Dick Coury put together a fairly competitive team led by
quarterback Johnnie Walton (then 36 years old, a former
Continental Football League and
World Football League alumnus who had been out of football since the late 1970s) and
Canadian Football League veteran
halfback Richard Crump. The Breakers finished 11–7, finishing one game behind the
Chicago Blitz for the final playoff spot. Walton, who had retired from pro football years earlier and had spent the previous three years coaching college football, was the league's seventh ranked passer. Coury was named coach of the year. Despite fielding a fairly solid team, playing in Nickerson Field doomed the team in Boston. The stadium had been built in
1915 as Braves Field and had not aged well. It was so small that the Breakers lost money even when they sold out as visiting teams got a portion of the gate proceeds. The Breakers and
Washington Federals were the only teams to draw fewer than 14,000 per game in 1983. The other 10 teams drew over 18,000 per game. (The fans who came to the games were generally passionate; the documentary
Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL? made note of a particular Breakers victory in which fans
stormed the field afterward.) Concluding that Nickerson Field was not suitable even for temporary use, Matthews again approached Harvard, but the school refused again. He then hashed out a deal to move to Foxborough, but ultimately decided against being a tenant of an NFL team. He considered an offer to sell a stake in the team to
Jacksonville, Florida businessman Fred Bullard, but pulled out after Bullard proposed firing Coury in favor of
Florida State coach
Bobby Bowden. (Bullard would ultimately land an expansion franchise, the
Jacksonville Bulls.) After floating offers to move to
Seattle,
Honolulu, and Portland, Matthews decided to move to New Orleans. He sold a 31 percent interest to New Orleans real estate developer Joe Canizaro, and the move was approved by the USFL on October 18, 1983. Matthews later sold his remaining stake to Canizaro, but Vataha remained as team president.
1984 New Orleans Breakers schedule Sources
Portland Breakers Searching for a home, Canizaro considered moving to
Sacramento and
Columbus, and even weighed merging with the
Birmingham Stallions. However, he was particularly intrigued when he visited Portland. It was a fairly large market with a reasonably adequate facility by USFL standards,
Civic Stadium (which seated 32,000 people at the time). The move to Portland was announced on It marked a return home of sorts for Coury, who had led the
World Football League's
Portland Storm in 1974. Initially, Portland seemed to welcome the Breakers with open arms. The Breakers sold 6,000 of its highest-priced tickets within twelve hours. They were forced to waive their entire roster after missing their final payroll. Coury later recalled that he and his staff never got paid the full salaries stipulated in their contracts.
Top "name" players Among the top "name" Breakers players were: linebacker
Marcus Marek; halfbacks
Marcus Dupree and
Buford Jordan; quarterbacks
Johnnie Walton and
Matt Robinson; kicker
Tim Mazzetti; punter
Jeff Gossett; offensive tackle
Broderick Thompson; and tight end
Dan Ross.
Coaches and executives Coury was the team's coach for all three seasons. He was no stranger to Portland, having coached the Storm of the
World Football League in 1974. Defensive coordinator was the late
Pokey Allen who would later take
Portland State University to two national championship games. Division I journeyman Bob Shaw who was hired after leaving Lou Holtz's staff at the
University of Arkansas and served in both New Orleans and Portland. The
offensive coordinator during the 1983 season was
College Football Hall of Fame and former
NFL Most Valuable Player Roman Gabriel. After the 1984 season,
Jim Fassel was hired as offensive coordinator, but after five months on the job, he left to become head coach at the
University of Utah. In 1985, the offensive coordinator was
Pete Kettela, a former head coach of the
Edmonton Eskimos. Allen would hire former Breaker executive Steven "Dream" Weaver as his marketing director and whose publicity stunts raised his Portland State teams to national acclaim. The team president for the Portland Breakers was
John Ralston, who was also a founder of the USFL. Other executives included Jack Galmiche, John Brunelle, and Brian Feldman. Feldman was the only executive who worked in all three cities. ==Single-season leaders==