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The Arizona Outlaws were a professional American football team that played in the United States Football League in the mid 1980s. They were owned by Fresno banker and real estate agent William Tatham, who had briefly owned the Portland Thunder of the World Football League.
The Outlaws were originally slated to play in San Diego. However, under pressure from baseball's Padres, the NFL's Chargers and the NASL's Sockers, the city refused to grant Tatham a lease for Jack Murphy Stadium.
Scrambling for a home, Tatham seriously considered playing in Honolulu for its inaugural 1984 season, but settled on Tulsa, Oklahoma--even though the city had not even been included in a list of possible expansion sites for the USFL. However, Tatham had roots in Oklahoma (his father had moved to California during the Great Depression), and felt that putting his team there would give something back to the state. He christened his team the Oklahoma Outlaws. The club was the second major-league sports team to play in the state, after the North American Soccer League's Tulsa Roughnecks.
The team played at Skelly Stadium. However, only two weeks into the season, Tatham's son, Bill, Jr.--the team's general manager, even though he was fresh out of law school--announced that Skelly Stadium was inadequate for the Outlaws' needs and that they would be playing elsewhere in 1985. Attendance was held down considerably by brutal spring weather; they frequently played games in heavy rain or snow. The Outlaws were competitive for much of the first half of the season, starting out 6-2. Unfortunately, two straight blowout losses sent the team into a downward spiral, and they didn't win another game that season, finishing 6-12.
Tatham nearly had a deal to merge the Outlaws with the Oakland Invaders. However, the deal collapsed at the last minute because Invaders owner Tad Taube was unwilling to give control of the team to the younger Tatham, who had by this time acquired a reputation as the enfant terrible of the league. Finally, the Tathams merged the Outlaws with the Arizona Wranglers for the 1985 season, and played at Arizona State University's Sun Devil Stadium as the Arizona Outlaws.
The 1985 season was very much a replay of 1984. They jumped out to a 4-2 start, including a 31-13 pounding of the powerful New Jersey Generals. However, they proceeded to drop six in a row, and seven out of eight. They rebounded to win three straight, but didn't get enough help to make the playoffs, and finished 8-10.
Area fans, playing host to essentially their third USFL team in as many seasons, didn't warm up to the Outlaws. They actually drew 4,000 fewer fans than they did in Tulsa or Oklahoma City, even though Sun Devil Stadium was almost double the size of Skelly Stadium. Despite this, the Tathams planned to stick it out. The Outlaws were one of eight teams slated to play in 1986--and the only team west of the Mississippi River left in the league. By this time, the Tathams had become the leaders of a small group of owners hoping to force a merger with the NFL (in which case their investment would more than double). However, the Outlaws, and the rest of the league, shut down as a result of the USFL's unsuccessful antitrust suit against the NFL. Professional football in the Valley of the Sun would not be gone for long: the St. Louis Cardinals moved into Sun Devil Stadium for the 1988 NFL season.
During the team's season in Tulsa, all six of their wins came during inclement weather. Wins against Pittsburgh, Michigan, Houston, Washington and San Antonio came in rainy conditions, and a win against Chicago came in a snow storm. Converseley, All 12 of the Outlaw's losses that year were either in clear weather or played under a dome.