Dolphins weren’t only show in town in 1972. Jai alai, horse racing, UM shared the stage
The Miami Dolphins naturally dominated the South Florida sports scene in 1972 as they marched toward their Perfect Season with legendary coach Don Shula.
There was no Miami Heat back then. No Marlins. No Panthers. No Inter Miami. No Miami Open tennis. No Homestead Speedway. No F1 racing.
But the Dolphins were not the only sports show in town. Those who were around back then recall a 17-year-old Carol City High senior named Joey Cornblit (“Joey” for short), who was becoming a star at the Miami Jai Alai Fronton at 3500 NW 37 Ave.
Crowds of 10,000 would show up — men in sport coats, women in dresses —- as giant searchlights shined the skies from the parking lot.
“It was huge, people got all dressed up, it was the Yankee Stadium of Jai Alai, the place to be seen, like a Heat game these days,” recalled Joey, now 67 and retired in Cocoa Beach. “Back then you were able to smoke inside, so the whole place was a cloud of smoke. You’d walk in the door and hear the cracking of the ball and the roar of the crowd.
“People would park on side of the road and 1,000 people would be waiting in line outside to get in. It was very exciting. The Cubans who had recently arrived knew and loved Jai Alai. They loved the ambiance, loved to dine in the court view restaurant. I was very fortunate to play in the best years. Miami’s biggest sports were the Dolphins and parimutuel racing. Dogs and horse racing in the afternoon, Jai Alai at night.”
Joey was making $600 a month (“I felt rich!”), living at home, and became such a big star he got to mingle with the rich and famous. He was a guest on popular national TV shows like “Mike Douglas Show” (Burt Reynolds was the other guest), “To Tell the Truth,” and “What’s My Line.”
He did a segment for “Good Morning America” in which he played Jai Alai against Bruce Jenner at the Miami fronton. He recalls a charity event at the Omni hotel in downtown Miami. Howard Cosell was the emcee. Shula and Dolphins owner Joe Robbie were being honored.
“I met (Larry) Csonka there, became buddies with Jimmy Kiick and Bob Kuechenberg,” Joey said. “They were really cool guys, very down to earth, nothing flashy. They weren’t making the money NFL players make now. I did a career day at a school with Mercury Morris. Charity golf tournaments, celebrity waiter events. It was usually me, some Dolphins and a few jockeys. We were the only pro athletes in town.”
The Miami Jai Alai Fronton also held concerts, so Joey got to see some of the biggest acts up close. Elton John and the Allman Brothers were among the musicians who played there in 1972.
Joey was not the only single-named sports star in town that year. Secretariat was also in South Florida in 1972. One of the greatest racehorses in history, Secretariat was stabled at the Hialeah Park Race Track for tropical winter training prior to winning the 1973 Triple Crown.
Known as “The Grande Dame of Racing” during its glory years, the 200-acre Hialeah Park with its trademark flamingo pond was a destination for the rich and famous. Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Princess Grace of Monaco, Amelia Earhart, Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Will Rogers and Joe DiMaggio were among the dignitaries who visited through the years.
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Among the famous horses who raced there: Seabiscuit, War Admiral and Seattle Slew.
Dog racing at Flagler and horse racing at Gulfstream and Calder were also popular in the early 1970s.
Meanwhile, at the University of Miami, the Hurricanes football team, under coach Fran Curci, went 5-6 in 1972 and drew crowds of about 18,000 at the Orange Bowl. The roster included future NFL first-round draft picks Chuck Foreman, Burgess Owens and Dennis Harrah.
Foreman, a running back, and Owens, a safety, were both chosen in the first round of the 1973 NFL Draft. Foreman was picked No. 12 by the Minnesota Vikings and went on to become NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year his first season and a two-time Pro Bowler. Owens was picked No. 13 by the New York Jets, where he played most of his career before winning a Super Bowl ring with the Oakland/LA Raiders.
Owens is 71 now and a Republican congressman from Utah.
Harrah was taken No. 11 overall in the 1975 draft and played 13 seasons as an offensive lineman for the L.A. Rams. Defensive lineman Rubin Carter, who went on to play for the Denver Broncos and coach many years in college and the NFL, was also on that UM team.
“The Miami Dolphins were the talk of the town, no doubt about it,” said Foreman, now 72 and a retired schoolteacher in Bloomington, Minnesota. “At UM, we were trying to find our way. We had some really good players, played a good schedule, but the Dolphins dominated the sports page at all times.”
Foreman recalled meeting some of the Dolphins players when they went to the UM campus.
“Some of those guys would come over to the U and work out, Bob Griese, Howard Twilly, Paul Warfield, Jim Kiick, Otto Stowe, Marv Fleming,” Foreman said. “They were working on their timing, on their patterns. They’d work out in our gym. Once or twice, I got to run for a pass with them. Just to have those guys working out at the school, seeing the success they had, the work ethic. You could see what it took to be winners.”
Harrah remembers the Hurricanes being in the Dolphins’ shadow all season long.
“I was on the freshman team and we were so jealous of the Miami Dolphins because all of the media, everyone was just so excited about the Dolphins and they were saying very little about the Miami Hurricanes,” Harrah said. “We were definitely put on the back burner at the time. I followed and watched the Dolphins, but I was just a kid, and I was jealous of the press they were getting.”
Harrah’s other memories of 1972 include hanging out at Bill and Ted’s Tavern in South Miami, known for its burgers, hot dogs, beer specials, pool table and pinball machines. One South was another popular spot.
“I also remember going to Crandon Park to look at the girls and going to Jai Alai a few times with some UM alumni,” Harrah said.
Foreman also went to Jai Alai with UM boosters.
“It was an exciting game and a big thing back then,” Foreman said. “The Jai Alai guys had a flair to them, that Miami swag. That’s the part of Miami people don’t understand. There’s a certain swag Miami has. If you’re born there you got and if come there, it takes you a little time, but you get it. The Jai Alai guys had it.”
One of the most interesting players on that 1972 UM team was Tony Cristiani, a 5-9 nose guard and tightrope walker who grew up in a circus family that owned the Cristiani and Wallace Circus.
“Tony was a little phenomenal stud, so quick and athletic,” Harrah said. “He was unbelievable.”
While the UM football team was making strides in 1972, the men’s basketball team had been disbanded a year earlier, on April 22, 1971, because of sagging attendance and financial losses.
The nomadic Hurricanes had traipsed from the Coral Gables High gym to the Miami Beach Convention Hall to Miami-Dade Junior College to Dinner Key Auditorium.
When the Board of Trustees folded the program that day, the press release read: “The basketball team will cease operation temporarily until such time as a permanent field house can be constructed on the main campus.’’
A decade earlier, Rick Barry had become a UM legend and would go on to star in the NBA. Before Barry got there, a kid named Dick Hickox led the 1959-60 Hurricanes to a 23-3 record, top-10 ranking and their first NCAA Tournament. But in 1972, the program was dead and would not be resurrected for another 13 years.
Pro basketball was also floundering in South Florida in 1972. The Miami Floridians, known for the bikini-clad ball girls, became simply the Floridians for the 1971-72 season and split their home games between Miami and Tampa.
They played their Miami games at Dinner Key Auditorium and Miami Dade College North gym. Foreman said he remembers going to a few of their games.
The Floridians finished in fourth place in the Eastern Division, with a record of 36–48. The team was disbanded in June 1972 and pro basketball didn’t return to the area until the Heat arrived in 1988.
The other pro sports franchise in town in 1972 was the Miami Gatos of the National American Soccer League.
The Gatos played mostly at Miami-Dade College and averaged 2,112 fans that season. Their record was 3-8-3 and their roster included players from Peru, Brazil, Ecuador, Ghana, Scotland, Trinidad and Tobago, England, Argentina, Cuba, Belgium, the United States and Paraguay.
Their biggest star was Trinidadian Warren Archibald, and the team wore purple and white uniforms.
The biggest game of the season was May 31, 1972, when they played a friendly against English club Arsenal, which had been vacationing in the Bahamas. Tickets were 50 cents. A crowd of 4,726 showed up and Arsenal won 3-2. The game was closer than Arsenal players anticipated, and according to published reports, things got a bit chippy on the field.
“A Soccer Friendly gets Unfriendly,” read a headline in The Miami News. The Gatos were leading 2-0 after a goal by Archibald, but then Arsenal scored three straight goals for the win.
Among the Gatos players was rookie Alain Maca, the team’s 1972 first-round draft choice out of Brockport State University, who remembered sitting with Gatos general manager Norm Sutherland in a waterfront Miami restaurant.
“About four tables over, Paul Hornung [former Green Bay Packer]was sitting with people from the Miami Dolphins,” Maca said in an interview with Front Row Soccer. “I’ll never forget what Sutherland said. ‘Maybe one day Alain it will be as much as that guy across the table.’’’
Foreman, a native of Frederick, Maryland, said he never intended to go to college in the South because integration was still ongoing in this region of the country. UM coaches convinced him and his parents that he would be treated with respect and that Miami was a diverse community.
He wound up falling in love with Miami and its Latin culture. He says playing in the same town as the Miami Dolphins also provided lasting memories. One of his favorite was in Chicago in the days prior to the 1973 College All-Star Game, a preseason game between recent college seniors and the defending Super Bowl champions.
“I was walking down State Street with some other players, a car pulled up and a man in the car yelled `Hey Chuck!’ out the window,” Foreman recalled. “I looked over and it was Don Shula. Don Shula, giving me props in Chicago on State Street. My friends were like, `You know Don Shula?’ Everyone knew Don Shula. But it was so cool that he knew who I was. I will never forget that moment.”
