Proud Stars alumni enjoying USFL reboot
John Bunting spent the night of his 34th birthday surrounded by friends he would keep for life, professionally content, a glass of champagne in hand.
That was in 1984, just after 43,789 fans in Tampa saw the mobile linebacker help the Philadelphia Stars win the USFL championship with a 23-3 victory over the George Allen-coached Arizona Wranglers.
“July 15,” Bunting was saying Monday. “That was the last game I ever played. I took off my pads, celebrated, and that was it.”
Bunting would go on to a glorious coaching career, twice leading Rowan into the Division III tournament before realizing his professional dream to coach at his alma mater, the University of North Carolina. But on that night, he was a proud member of a developing majorleague dynasty.
“I had a blast,” said Bunting, who had been to the Super Bowl with the Eagles in 1980, “playing for the Philadelphia Stars.”
The USFL was around for three springs, the Stars never missing a championship game. They fell to Michigan in 1983, thumped Arizona in 1984 and then successfully defended the championship over Oakland. That year, they played their home games in College Park, Md., and technically were labeled the Baltimore Stars, although they were headquartered and practice in Philadelphia.
Like Bunting, Ken Dunek was with the NFC champion 1980 Eagles and later the champion Stars. He often has wondered how it all would have ended had the league not taken the advice of New Jersey Generals owner Donald Trump to try to force a merger with the NFL by transitioning from a successful springtime operation to a fall league.
But then came the spring of 2022. Then came a revived if cockamamie, madefor-TV USFL. And then came the usual: The Philadelphia Stars reaching the final, Sunday in Canton, Ohio, against the Birmingham Stallions.
“It’s certainly an oddity that the Stars have been in all four USFL championship games,” allowed Dunek, who has become a football TV analyst and magazine publisher. “I don’t know enough about the current team and players and coaching staff to make a value judgment about whether they deserve to be there, but obviously they do because they have earned the right. And I’m hoping they will win it.”
The new USFL technically
is not tied to the 1980s league. It has faced lawsuits from some original owners, who have claimed their corporate images have been counterfeited. Fox, which operates the league, has countered that after 30 years those trademarks had been abandoned. What is unmistakable is that the USFL logo, team names and uniform colors are similar enough to evoke alumni pride.
“I watch them as much as I can,” said Scott Fitzkee, a former Stars wide receiver. “I saw the win over the Generals
the other day. I like the uniforms. We have a cabin in Gatlinburg, Tenn., and that’s where I will be this weekend. But my whole family — my wife Michelle, son Brody and daughter Bryn, who plays lacrosse at Ohio State, which I have to hear about all the time because I am a Penn State guy — will be watching the game.” Laughing, he added, “We are all Stars fans for some reason. We all love football. And I always talk about the Stars a lot. So they’ve all become fans of the new team.”
Unlike the original USFL — which included Reggie White, Herschel Walker, Jim Kelly, Steve Young, Doug Flutie and some of the most popular professional players of their time — the current loop is peopled by players just hoping to be noticed by the NFL. Even more strange, its regular-season games all unfolded in Birmingham, typically before gatherings seeming to number in the tens.
By contrast, the original Stars included five-time Pro Bowl center Bart Oates, former Eagles NFC champions Dunek, Bunting and Fitzkee, mistake-free quarterback Chuck Fusina and Sean Landeta, who would become the punter on the NFL’s 1980s All-Decade team. Running back Kelvin Bryant eventually won a Super Bowl with Washington. Tackle Irv Eatman would play 10 years in the NFL. Pass rusher William Fuller would play in four Pro Bowls. That was a pretty good team put together by president Carl Peterson, previously an exec behind the 1980 Eagles.
In August, Dunek and Bunting will be in Canton, not just to enjoy the Hall of Fame induction of their former Eagles coach Dick Vermeil, but also of the late Sam Mills, a former Stars linebacker who would become a superstar with the New Orleans
Saints. Twice in recent years, former Stars have gathered at Chickie’s and Pete’s in South Philadelphia to reminisce about one of the finest pro sports operations ever to represent Philadelphia.
It’s what champions do. “People have this argument all the time: Would that team have been good in the NFL?” Dunek said. “Well, every significant player on the Stars had an NFL background, either prior to being with the Stars or after the Stars folded. Were we NFL caliber? Of course we were NFL caliber. We had NFL players. Would we have have won a championship? I don’t know.
“But I do know this: The Stars came to play every game, so you knew to buckle your chinstrap because they were going to get after it.”
So Sunday, there will be Philadelphia Starsmaking it a most drawn-out 4-for-4 in USFL final appearances.
“Like anything, as we get older, it’s nice to see anything that can bring back nice memories,” Landeta said. “I am really looking forward to it. It will be so nice to text a number of the guys, something that we couldn’t do in the 1980s, and talk about it.”
As for Bunting, he figures it will be worth a look.
“I’ll flip it on,” he said. “And I’ll watch it for as long as I can.”