The USFL’s Philadelphia Stars: Still brightly shining 40 years after championship seasons
By Sam Carchidi, The Hockey News, PSWA Past President
Back in the 1980s, the Philadelphia Stars were more than a spring- and-summer-time diversion for fans who needed their football fix.
They were a United States Football League powerhouse, a team that reached the finals in all three seasons of the league’s existence – the last in Baltimore.
Coached by Jim Mora, the Stars compiled a 48-13-1 record from 1983-85 and won a pair of championships. Carl Peterson, who had been the Eagles’ player personnel director, was the Stars’ general manager and president. Mora later had a terrific 15-year coaching career with New Orleans and Indianapolis in the NFL, while Peterson was a front-office sensation (GM, team president, CEO) with the highly successful Kansas City Chiefs from 1989 to 2008.
Both men helped shape the Stars, who won seven of eight playoff games before the league folded.
The Stars had players like John Bunting, Chuck Fusina, Scott Fitzkee, Brad Oates and Ken Dunek, among others, who had NFL experience. The club combined them with numerous up-and-coming players, including running back Kelvin Bryant.
The veterans “realized this was our last chance to play the game we really loved,” said Dunek, a big tight end who was second on the Stars, behind Fitzkee, with 44 receptions in 1985. “And when you mixed in guys like Kelvin Bryant and Bart Oates and Sean Landeta and those type of players, it was like a perfect storm. Those young people realized how important it was for us to be a winning franchise and they bought into that veteran leadership — and it just became a very positive situation.”
The Stars are being honored by the Philadelphia Sports Writers Association as its Living Legend Team on the 40th anniversary of their last title. Many of the aforementioned players will be on hand at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Cherry Hill, NJ, on Thursday, January 16, 2025 at the PSWA’s 120th Awards Banquet. To join in on the celebration, get your tickets here.
The close-knit team was led offensively by Bryant (4,055 yards rushing over three seasons), steady quarterback Fusina, lineman Irv Eatman, center Bart Oates, and wide receivers Willie Collier and Fitzkee. The defense was anchored by linebacker Sam Mills, who later starred in the NFL and went into the Pro Football Hall of Fame posthumously in 2022, sack-machine Don Fielder, and Mike Lush, a safety who had 23 interceptions over three years.
The Stars, who had Vic Fangio (current Eagles defensive coordinator) as a defensive assistant in their last season, moved to Baltimore for the 1985 campaign and won their second USFL championship, beating the Oakland Invaders, 28-24, at Giants Stadium on July 14, 1985.
It turned out to be the final game in the league’s history.
As for the Philadelphia Stars, they were actually building a strong following. Attendance wasn’t the reason the Stars left Philly. In their last season at Veterans Stadium, the Stars averaged a healthy 28,668 per home game in 1984, and a reported 80,000-plus attended a ticker-tape parade after they won the USFL championship that year.
The Stars’ 1985 move to Baltimore was because the league announced it would play a fall schedule in 1986 – a change recommended by Donald Trump, then the owner of the New Jersey Generals — and go head-to-head with the NFL. The Stars didn’t want to be in competition with the Eagles, so they relocated to Baltimore in 1985, mindful the city had just lost the NFL Colts in 1984.
“It was a shame because we averaged 28,000 a game in ’84 and won the title, and we probably would have averaged 50,000 (if they stayed in Philadelphia) the following year,” said Dunek, now publisher of JerseyMan and PhillyMan magazines.
The 1986 season never got off the ground. Many USFL teams were cash-strapped, and the league, needing a sizable settlement or a merger with the NFL to stay alive, filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL. The USFL “won,” but was awarded just $3 and the league folded.
Despite being in Philadelphia for just two (outstanding) years, the Stars left a lasting impression on the city’s football-crazed fans. They played exciting and dominating football, and many of the Stars’ players, coaches, and front-office executives went on and made their mark in the NFL.