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| Journeyman National Football League quarterback Babe Laufenberg (11) was the Ohio Glory's first-ever draft pick, second overall in the 1992 World League of American Football draft. Tackle Ben Jefferson (64) was the team's other first-round pick, 11th overall. Linebacker George Koonce (59) and cornerback Aaron Ruffin (33) were back-to-back picks in later rounds. |
The Ohio
Glory didn’t have the benefit of much time to get everything put in place for
its inaugural season.
It also didn’t have the benefit of starting with any players.
When the Raleigh-Durham Skyhawks folded, the World League of American
Football decided to have whatever franchise replaced it get extra choices in
the 1992 WLAF draft, rather than allow it to keep a core group of players from
the 0-10 Skyhawks.
When the draft came around on February 4-5, 1992, the Glory was the only
team in the league which didn’t have a group of protected players from the year
before. The WLAF’s solution was to give the Glory both the first and last (11th)
picks in each of the first 25 rounds of the draft.
But before the Glory made its first-ever draft pick, it made history a
different way – pulling off the league’s first-ever trade with the Sacramento
Surge. The two teams switched places atop the draft, and for moving down one
spot, the Glory received center Curtis Wilson. Wilson started the entire 1991
season for the Surge, and was second-team all-league.
With the second overall pick, the Glory took journeyman National
Football League quarterback Babe Laufenberg. At 32, Laufenberg was at the end
of a football career which saw him play at three colleges (Stanford, Pierce
Junior College and Indiana) and for four NFL teams (Washington, San Diego, New
Orleans and Dallas).
Laufenberg, despite having more interceptions than touchdowns and a
completion percentage well less than 50 percent during his NFL regular-season
career, was expected to provide veteran leadership for a team whose players
wouldn’t have much time to get acclimated to each other.
“I knew Babe had pro experience, and Peter (Glory General Manager Peter
Hadhazy) said that it might be a good move, because there wouldn’t be a defense
he wouldn’t have seen,” said Glory Head Coach Larry Little in an interview two
decades later.
Said Chris Wolfington, Glory Assistant to the General Manager, of
Hadhazy’s affinity for Laufenberg, “Peter
had gone out and found a way to get him into the pool of players. So Peter had
to really do more than the usual amount of work for a player he thought would
be helpful.”
At the conclusion of the draft, the Glory ended up with 55 players to
begin the task of putting together the opening-day roster:
RD-PICK NAME (POS.) COLLEGE
1-2* Babe
Laufenberg (QB) Indiana
NOTE: Pick acquired from Sacramento with C Curtis Wilson for No. 1
overall pick (first trade in WLAF history)
1-11 Ben Jefferson
(T) Maryland
2-1 Mike
Graybill (T) Boston
University
2-11 Jeroy
Robinson (LB) Texas
A&M
3-1 Jason
Wallace (CB) Virginia
3-11 Randy Bethel
(TE) Miami
(Fla.)
4-1 Walter
Wilson (WR) East
Carolina
4-11 Tom Rouen (P) Colorado
5-1 David
Browndyke (K) LSU
5-11 African Grant
(CB) Illinois
6-1 Eric Crigler
(T) Murray
State
6-11 Amir Rasul
(RB) Florida
A&M
7-1 Kent Wells
(DT) Nebraska
7-11 Curt Mull (G) Georgia
8-1 Steve
Williams (CB) Boston
College
8-11 Kerry Owens
(LB) Arkansas
9-1 Rico Tyler
(RB) West
Virginia
9-11 Karl Coles
(G) Ohio
State
10-1 Tim James (S) Colorado
10-11 Chad Rolen
(DE) Arkansas
11-1 Patrick
Jackson (WR) Stephen F.
Austin
11-11 O’Neill
Gilbert (DE) Texas
A&M
12-1 Ken Vines (C) Central State (Ohio)
12-11 Frank Griffin
(TE) USC
13-1 Nigel
Codrington (WR) Rice
13-11 George Koonce
(LB) East
Carolina
14-1 Aaron Ruffin
(CB) Nicholls
State
14-11 Chris Cochrane
(QB) Cornell
15-1* Curtis Moore
(LB) Kansas
NOTE: Moore traded to London for LB Marlon Brown
15-11 Lydell Carr
(FB) Oklahoma
16-1 Malcolm
Showell (DE) Delaware
State
16-11 Anthony Butts
(DT) Mississippi
State
17-1 Anthony
Spears (DE) Portland
State
17-11 Archie Herring
(RB) Youngstown State
18-1 Michael
Wallace (CB) Jackson
State
18-11 Steve Harder
(T) Dayton
19-1 Jerry Kauric
(K) No
college
19-11 Clarkston
Hines (WR) Duke
20-1 Mike Sunvold
(DE) Minnesota
20-11 Jono Tunney
(LB) Stanford
21-1 Robert Flory
(G) Arizona
21-11 Todd Millikan
(TE) Nebraska
22-1 Deval Glover
(WR) Syracuse
22-11 Zack Dumas (S) Ohio State
23-1 Stacy Harvey
(LB) Arizona
State
23-11 George Swarn
(RB) Miami
(Ohio)
24-1 Eric Snelson
(LB) Stanford
24-11 Chad Thorson
(LB) Wheaton College
25-1 Terence
Barber (WR) Florida
25-11 Darryl Gard
(RB) Bluffton
26-1 Mike Estes
(DE) Central
Washington
27-1 Chris Haering
(LB) West
Virginia
28-1 Ray Jackson
(S) Ohio
State
29-1 Chris
Stablein (QB) Ohio
State
Early in camp, the Glory took some hits with the retirements of Hines
and Haering, and with Gilbert and Barber not reporting. Hines was ninth in the
WLAF in receiving yards for Raleigh-Durham in 1991, and Haering finished tied
for 28th in the league in tackles.
The team signed wide receiver Phil Logan and defensive end Bob Curtis,
leaving the roster at 53 players, but Gard, Swarn and Curtis Wilson all were
placed on injured reserve prior to the February 20 NFL Enhancement Allocation,
leaving the Glory with 50 active players in camp.
The Glory was awarded 11 NFL players in the WLAF’s Enhancement
Allocation program:
NFL TEAM NAME (POS.) COLLEGE
CIN Antoine
Bennett (CB) Florida
A&M
GB Gene
Cullinane (C) Washburn
College
CLE John Hardy
(CB) California
CLE Eric Harmon
(G) Clemson
MIN Darren Hughes
(WR) Carson-Newman
CHI Eric Ihnat
(TE) Marshall
CLE Larry
Kinnebrew (RB) Tennessee
State
PHI Melvin
Patterson (WR) Stephen F.
Austin
CLE Dustin Quinton
(T) UNLV
MIN Scotty Reagan
(DT) Humboldt State
KC Steve
Starcevich (K) Philadelphia
Textile
Of the 37 players who made the initial active roster for the Glory, five
– defensive tackle Charles Jackson, quarterback Pat O’Hara, running back Adam
Walker, cornerback Mike Adams and defensive end Joel Dickson – were acquired in
the month leading up to the season.
And there was one key player the Glory acquired who never showed up.
Strong safety Greg Coauette, a first-team all-WLAF selection in 1991 for
Sacramento, was acquired from the Surge in a trade on March 8. He refused to
report to Ohio, instead opting to retire and stay in California.
"People in football are always making decisions for you," Coauette said in 1998. "In this case, I was going to make my own decision. I wasn't going to Ohio and I was staying in Sacramento, even if it meant quitting football."
There was one player the Glory had interest in, but never had the
chance to acquire - former Ohio State, NFL and Canadian Football League
quarterback Art Schlichter. Schlichter, banned from the NFL for gambling and
who hadn’t played in the NFL since 1985, turned down a chance to play in his
former home collegiate stadium to stay with the Arena Football League’s
Cincinnati Rockers.
Hadhazy said the Glory would have selected Schlichter had he chosen to play in the WLAF – and had Schlichter been cleared by the league to play, but Hadhazy also said at the time, "I would have felt like a prostitute had I taken him, because I know I'd take him to sell tickets. It would have been more a defensive choice.
“If I don't take him and somebody else took him and he comes back here and beats us, it would have made the organization look like a bunch of fools.”
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