
Ivylise Simones
Until the election, we’re bringing you “The Trump Files,” a daily dose of telling episodes, strange but true stories, or curious scenes from the life of presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.
One of Donald Trump’s biggest achievements as a team owner in the United States Football League was the signing of Doug Flutie, the Boston College quarterback and 1984 Heisman Trophy winner, to his New Jersey Generals.
The USFL was off to a good start as a spring football league, but it had Trump-fueled ambitions of moving to the fall and challenging the NFL for dominance. To have any chance of that, the league needed to sign big-name stars, and Flutie, a college hero who had thrown one of the most famous passes in football history, fit the bill. Trump launched a charm offensive on Flutie and his father, and his deep pockets meant he had no problem giving the quarterback the “reasonably ridiculous” contract he’d promised: $8.3 million over six years, according to the New York Times, making him the highest-paid football player in the country.
At least at first. Less than two months later, in April 1985, Trump was demanding that other USFL owners help pay for parts of Flutie’s contract. “When a guy goes out and spends more money than a player is worth, he expects to get partial reimbursement from the other owners,” Trump told United Press International in his guise as John Barron, one of the fake underlings Trump invented to talk to the press. “Everybody asked Trump to go out and sign Flutie…for the good of the league.”
At first, Trump claimed the USFL’s other owners had verbally agreed to help fund his act of altruism. But shortly thereafter, he admitted to the Times that it hadn’t happened. “I said that I would [sign Flutie], but that at some future date I would ask for partial reimbursement,” he said. “Nobody agreed that they would. Nor would I have expected them to. But I wanted to get it on the record.”
The other owners shrugged off Trump’s demands—which were soon overshadowed by much bigger problems for the USFL. The league, driven in part by Trump’s thirst for a fall schedule, quickly fell apart after Flutie’s rookie year. Attendance had dropped, teams (including the Generals) were forced to merge, and the league received only $3 in damages despite winning its antitrust lawsuit against the NFL. The USFL never played another game, and Flutie moved on to the Chicago Bears.
Read the rest of “The Trump Files”:
- Trump Files #1: The Time Andrew Dice Clay Thanked Donald for the Hookers
- Trump Files #2: When Donald Tried to Stop Charlie Sheen’s Marriage to Brooke Mueller
- Trump Files #3: The Brief Life of the “Trump Chateau for the Indigent”
- Trump Files #4: Donald Thinks Asbestos Fears Are a Mob Conspiracy
- Trump Files #5: Donald’s Nuclear Negotiating Fantasy
- Trump Files #6: Donald Wants a Powerball for Spies
- Trump Files #7: Donald Gets An Allowance
- Trump Files #8: The Time He Went Bananas on a Water Cooler
- Trump Files #9: The Great Geico Boycott
- Trump Files #10: Donald Trump, Tax-Hike Crusader
- Trump Files #11: Watch Donald Trump Say He Would Have Done Better as a Black Man
- Trump Files #12: Donald Can’t Multiply 16 and 7
- Trump Files #13: Watch Donald Sing the “Green Acres” Theme Song in Overalls
- Trump Files #14: The Time Donald Trump Pulled Over His Limo to Stop a Beating
- Trump Files #15: When Donald Wanted to Help the Clintons Buy Their House
- Trump Files #16: He Once Forced a Small Business to Pay Him Royalties for Using the Word “Trump”
- Trump Files #17: He Dumped Wine on an “Unattractive Reporter”
- Trump Files #18: Behold the Hideous Statue He Wanted to Erect In Manhattan
- Trump Files #19: When Donald Was “Principal for a Day” and Confronted by a Fifth-Grader
- Trump Files #20: In 2012, Trump Begged GOP Presidential Candidates to Be Civil
- Trump Files #21: When Donald Couldn’t Tell the Difference Between Gorbachev and an Impersonator
- Trump Files #22: His Football Team Treated Its Cheerleaders “Like Hookers”
- Trump Files #23: Donald Tried to Shut Down a Bike Race Named “Rump”
- Trump Files #24: When Donald Called Out Pat Buchanan for Bigotry
- Trump Files #25: Donald’s Most Ridiculous Appearance on Howard Stern’s Show
- Trump Files #26: How Donald Tricked New York Into Giving Him His First Huge Deal
- Trump Files #27: Donald Told Congress the Reagan Tax Cuts Were Terrible
- Trump Files #28: When Donald Destroyed Historic Art to Build Trump Tower
- Trump Files #29: Donald Wanted to Build an Insane Castle on Madison Avenue
- Trump Files #30: Donald’s Near-Death Experience (That He Invented)
- Trump Files #31: When Donald Struck Oil on the Upper West Side
- Trump Files #32: When Donald Massacred Trees in the Trump Tower Lobby