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Thursday, July 22, 2010

'Forgotten' Philadelphia Stars in football-movie project

Remember the Philadelphia Stars? The red-and-gold-shirted Stars (based on owner Myles Tanenbaum's old Central High colors) played at Veterans Stadium for the upstart pro United States Football League, made it to the league championship in the summer of 1983, and won it all the following year.

"We were the last true champion in Philadelphia football. We call it 'the Team that Time Forgot'," says ex-Stars tight ened Ken Dunek. That's also the working title of the movie Dunek has started making about the Stars. He says investors have pledged "in the seven-figure range" to produce the film over the next year; he's "received interest" from people at HBO and ESPN; and he's got former Sport Magazine football reporter, author and informercial producer J. David Miller and Derek Britt of New York rap video-reality show-documentary producer SeroyBritt working on the project.

It's a business story as well as a football idyll. The Stars dominated their league; they dreamed of going on to greater things -- even an NFL berth. It wasn't to be; a group of rival team owners, led by the New Jersey Generals' Donald Trump, got tired of losing money, and pressed the league to challenge the NFL's supremacy, in court with an antitrust challenge, and at the ticket office by switching to autumn games, in head-to-head competition with the much richer NFL.

That forced the Stars to relocate to a college stadium in Baltimore, where they won the league's final championship; then the USFL collapsed. Before that happened, founding Stars owner Tanenbaum, a shopping-mall developer and donor to Republican and Jewish causes and the University of Pennsylvania's Tanenbaum law library, had sold and cut his losses.

A backup on the Eagles 1980 NFL division championship team, Dunek joined the Stars two years later, after he was released by the New York Giants. His Stars teammates included Sam Mills, later an NFL All-Pro for the Saints; Bart Oates, who centered the New York Giants' Super Bowl teams under coach Bill Parcells; quarterback Chuck Fusina, punter Sean Landeta, and others who made it in the NFL.

Dunek retired to Mount Laurel, whe he runs KRD Marketing LLC; the long-ago Memphis State U journalism student self-published a book of real-life stories last Spring. His ambition is to make the Stars story a football "classic" that stands comparison with Invincible, Rudy and other grit-inflected guts-and-glory gridiron films. The Web site went up earlier this month. "This project," Dunek concluded, "is just getting off the ground."
Posted by Joseph N. DiStefano @ 4:57 PM  Permalink | 7 comments
Comments   
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 4:16 PM, 07/22/2010
    The Stars should have stayed in Philadelphia and the Eagles should have been allowed to move to Phoenix. Then the Stars could have become an NFL expansion team. By now, an NFL expansion franchise in Philadelphia probably would have won two Super Bowls.
    — Gnip Gnop
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 9:35 PM, 07/22/2010
    Sam mills, thought he played for Carolina?
    — The Philly Shadow
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 9:39 PM, 07/22/2010
    Let's not forget about Reggie White.
    — Richardgozinya
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:02 AM, 07/23/2010
    The champion USFL Stars proved that Division II (i.e. Mike Lush / Safety - East Stroudsburg University - PA) and Division III (i.e. Sam Mills / Linebacker - Montclair State University - NJ) have more per capita viable talent than Divison I college football.
    — Liberty4All
  • Comment removed.
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 9:32 AM, 07/23/2010
    More Like forgotten baseball stars...why didn't we call for Clifton Lee to star in this?
    — stephenjclark
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 9:40 AM, 07/23/2010
    The ESPN 30 for 30 Documentary "Who Killed the USFL?" already beat them to the punch.
    — cpartridge76


7 comments
About Joseph N. DiStefano
Joseph N. DiStefano writes this blog to feed his PhillyDeals column in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Joe has been a member of Bloomberg LP’s New York Finance Team, wrote the book “Comcasted,” taught writing at St. Joseph’s University, and studied economics and history at Penn. Reach Joe at 215-854-5194 and JoeD@phillynews.com
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