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The Las Vegas Posse was a Canadian Football League team that played the 1994 season as part of the CFL's short-lived American expansion. The Posse was one of the least successful CFL teams, both on the field and off.
History
On the field
The Posse had notable football talent such as KR Tamarick Vanover, RB Jon Volpe, LB Greg Battle and K Carlos Huerta. They also had a rookie quarterback named Anthony Calvillo, who would later go on to become the all-time leader in passing yards in all of professional football. The franchise also had an experienced coaching staff with Head Coach, Ron Meyer who had previous coaching experiences with UNLV and in the NFL, and also had future Winnipeg Blue Bombers coach Jeff Reinebold as one of their Assistant Coaches. Carlos Huerta won the Jackie Parker Trophy as the Most Outstanding Rookie of the West Division that year.
The Posse started with wins over the Sacramento Gold Miners and Saskatchewan Roughriders, but things quickly went downhill. Part of the problem was lack of familiarity with the Canadian game. For instance, during a game against the B.C. Lions, Vanover signaled for a fair catch--not knowing that there is no fair catch in Canadian football. The ball rolled into the Posse end zone, and the Lions recovered it for a touchdown. Players openly complained about the apathy of their coaches and teammates.
The Posse finished the season 5–13 and finished last in the West Division and next-to-last in the CFL.
Off the field
When the Posse started the 1994 season it was clear that CFL football would not last in Las Vegas. They were owned by an absentee owner, Nick Mileti, based in Cleveland, Ohio (and had previously owned 2 teams in said city, the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers and the AHL's Cleveland Barons). The team played at Sam Boyd Stadium in suburban Whitney. The stadium was uncovered and offered no protection from the infamous Las Vegas summer heat (the CFL season runs from the summer through the fall so it can end before the harsh Canadian winters set in). Head coach Ron Meyer was seen at many practices running drills with no shirt on in the sweltering heat. The Posse practiced in a smaller-than-regulation field (only 70 yards long) at the Riviera Casino and Resort, where a sign read "Field of ImPOSSEable Dreams." The end zones at Sam Boyd Stadium were only 15 yards long, instead of the usual 20 yards. With no marketing assistance from the league and a glut of other entertainment options, local interest was virtually nonexistent.
The most memorable moment for the franchise occurred on July 8, 1994, when the team played the Sacramento Gold Miners in the first ever CFL match involving two American based teams. The Posse defeated the Gold Miners 32–26 at Sacramento's Hornet Stadium.
There were also several infamous moments. At the team's first home game against Saskatchewan, the singer of the national anthems, Dennis K.C. Parks (singing under the pseudonym "Greg Bartholomew"), had only a vague knowledge of the Canadian anthem "O Canada" and when he sang it, the song sounded similar to "O Christmas Tree". Two weeks later he was brought to a game in Hamilton where he sang it properly. On another occasion Posse head coach Ron Meyer asked the "Showgirls" to loiter behind the bench of the B.C. Lions in an attempt to distract the opposition. The scheme did not work and Las Vegas lost the game 39–16.
The Posse's attendance figures were never good to begin with, but significantly tailed off as the summer wore on. Management unsuccessfully tried to sell tickets by employing tactics such as:
- Reducing ticket prices to US$9 for each seat. The few who bought season tickets for about US$750 (in more expensive categories) were given extra tickets to make up for the price difference.
- Advertising their scantily-clad cheerleaders, the "Showgirls", and by staging halftime bikini contests.
The Posse's penultimate home game against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers had an announced attendance of only 2,350 people — the lowest recorded attendance in CFL history. Many of those in attendance were fans who made the trip from Winnipeg. Just before the team's last scheduled home game, against the Edmonton Eskimos, Mileti announced the team would disband due to massive losses. The CFL, however, does not allow teams to fold in midseason. Instead, citing the team's wretched gates, it moved the game to Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton. Several Eskimo season ticket holders has already arrived in Las Vegas and were forced to watch the game in a ballroom at the Imperial Palace because Air Canada wouldn't allow them to go back to Edmonton on such short notice. The Posse's average attendance was a dismal 8,953.