Street signs honor business leaders who helped bring Bucs to Tampa Bay

TAMPA - We all remember the boat parade when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won the Super Bowl in 2021. For some, that team, led by Tom Brady, was the best thing that ever happened for local fans. However, there was another big win 50 years ago that may have been even more important.

The NFL awarded a new franchise to Tampa Bay in 1974, with the Bucs taking the field in 1976. Paul Catoe is a retired broadcaster and media executive who remembers.

"I think a lot of people said we'll never get a franchise. I think there were some naysayers, but yet there were some people who said yes, I think it could happen," Catoe said.

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Tampa was much smaller in the early 1970s, but the area's growth was accelerating.

"There was an identity that comes with being a big-league city," says Rodney Kite-Powell of the Tampa Bay History Center. "Miami had the Dolphins, but Tampa was kind of searching for that identity."

One can trace the beginnings of our area's push for an NFL franchise by looking at honorary street signs. There's one near Raymond James Stadium honoring Tom McEwen, the late Tampa Tribune Sports Editor, who was a driving force. Another street sign will soon go up on Parker Street in Tampa honoring Jim Urbanski, the late President and General Manager of that newspaper.

They both worked with a group of business leaders that included Leonard and George Levy, Walter Baldwin, Joe Zalupski, and others that lobbied NFL owners for the franchise.

"The guys got together and said, we have something here. We can fill the stadium," says Catoe.

They persuaded the league to bring NFL football to Tampa Bay, with Hugh Culverhouse as the owner.

Thousands of fans were ready when the Bucs first took to the field in 1976, but the team wasn't. The Bucs lost 26 straight games before getting their first win.

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"They were kind of the Lovable Losers," says Kite-Powell. "The name Bucs was shortened to Yuks, and that's kind of what they were."

Catoe says fans were embarrassed.

"People in the stands with sacks over their head and everything," he laughs.

But some diehard fans now fondly remember long, hot days in old Tampa Stadium and autograph sessions with players like Ricky Bell and Lee Roy Selmon. The team also brought a regional identity to the growing area.

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"The regional identity of Tampa versus Tampa Bay really took root at that time," says Kite-Powell.

The group pitching the NFL for a franchise had to use the population of the region and its growing television market to be successful. The City of Tampa alone would have been too small to win the franchise.

Members of the group that got the Bucs also helped Tampa Bay get selected for the site of the 1984 Super Bowl. Four more Super Bowls would follow in Tampa, where a group of friends set out to get a football team and found a way to get it done.

"These guys, they laid the foundation for everything that's happened," says Catoe, who says getting the Bucs was a first step in growing the Tampa Bay region into what it is today.

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