USFL '86: Oklahoma, or, Oral's Fixation

The smallest club with the biggest heart managed to snag prospect Kevin Murphy; Oral Roberts--smallest shareholder but the loudest frontman--introduced the Sooner on his university's campus, at the top of ORU's 80-foot "prayer" tower, an oblong, gold and silver phallus in the Googy style. A controversial local DJ named Sammy Solomon--popular with Tulsa's cosmopolitan set for clashing with rednecks and religious conservatives, who'd sign off with "Bleeding Hearts Bleed Justice," and who wept on air after Gary Hart's loss in the '84 primary, would be assassinated in the "Oriental" aisle of his local Reasor's--where one could find both canned LaChoy products and kosher offering--after quipping that Roberts' campus would "make an excellent for one of those Italian sci-fi pornos." The World buried the story after Kevin's signing. 

Murphy wasn't the only get: Tony Casillas, the number two overall pick in the NFL draft, signed a four year offer after weeks of radio silence from the Falcons, whose genteel ownership was horrified by the notion of having to "negotiate" in the current landscape. The club also brought in Uwe Von Schaman and Willie Tullis, both jettisoned by the Oilers in September.

The biggest moves, however, were the 4-year, $2 million signing of St. Louis' Stump Mitchell--really half that was salary, with $350,000 cash and the remainder a zero-coupon with a maturation of 2010--and a one year, no cut, $259,000 offer to Drew Pearson. 

The ex-Cowboy hadn't played since '83. Everyone knows the story: the horrifying car crash, the long recovery. He would try to make it to Dallas training camp in '85, but doctors urged him not to--his liver was so damaged, an injury could be fatal. When asked about his prognosis, Pearson replied that not even 99% certainty was enough. He accepted his fate, until meeting a Mr. Erdogan Kolby--an energy trader and Outlaws minority owner--at a ribbon cutting ceremony for a new QuikTrip in Jenks, Oklahoma. Mr. Kolby put him into contact with a Dr. Bakhtin, a Soviet surgeon and guest teacher at the University of Oklahoma's medical school, part of a "convivial exchange of benign research." A descendant of the recently revived literary critic, Bakhtin specialized in sports medicine and developed treatments for alcoholic hockey players in the Soviet Championship League. Bakhtin quickly recognized that he could treat Pearson, to get him that final percentage point.

Oral pulled the Stump and Pearson signings off by saying that the Lord wished to "bring him on home," he was unable to secure funds. Trotskyites would claim the money came as part of an operation with the CIA to clean payments by Bin Laden Group for RPGs and other weapons in Afghanistan. Birchers wrote that off as lunacy--clearly the "Stump Steal" was the work of Posadists within the CIA looking to fluoridate the Arkansas river and go unnoticed. 

They were both wrong, at least about Drew. Local authorities found Mr. Kolby in the Arkansas: it was later revealed that he ran covert sales of Soviet, Iranian, and Libyan petroleum products for private clients in Oklahoma and Dallas, and that he possibly used the Outlaws as a way to clean transactions in order for those three nations to receive payment in dollars; the tracing was so complicated that they couldn't really remove Kolby's money from the rest of the group.