old Fire players returned as well, including running backs Mark Kellar and Cyril Pinder, center Guy Murdock (the Fire's MVP), and receivers Steve Wright and Chuck Kogut. With Namath out of the picture, the Winds acquired veteran quarterback Pete Beathard from the Portland Storm, while wide receiver John Gilliam, who originally signed with The Hawaiians, also came to Chicago. Margene Adkins, a former Canadian Football League teenage star who at 28 was beginning to wear down from injury, was also a contributor to the Winds' offense; the Winds would be Adkins' last team before he retired from professional football. 1975 season The Winds did not have much success on the field or at the box office. They lost both pre-season games, to Jacksonville (in front of only 2,627 at Soldier Field) and Charlotte (Parilli's old team). Unlike the defunct Chicago Fire, which sold 15,000 season tickets in 1974, the Winds managed only 1,600. In late July, the league took swift action by forcing Pulliano to fire Parilli. His replacement was Abe Gibron, who had been fired as head coach of the Chicago Bears after the 1974 season. (An amusing typo in an article in The New York Times indicated Gibron had become coach of the "Chicago Winos".) Leo Cahill left a (relatively) comfortable position as Memphis Southmen GM to the precarious situation with the wobbling Winds. Gibron was given only 48 hours or so to learn about his new team. The Winds lost their first two regular-season contests, 10-0 in Birmingham and 38-18 in Shreveport, before beating the Portland Thunder, 25-18 in overtime; just 3,501 fans attended the contest, their last at Soldier Field. After two more road losses (at Hawaii and Memphis), the team was 1-4 and swimming in red ink. Unlike the Fire games from the year before, Winds games were not broadcast on TV or radio. The public address announcer for the two games in Chicago was Les Grobstein, who also worked with Eddie Ryan during Fire games. Results Source: The end Due to a dispute over partnership arrangements, two major investors withdrew $175,000 that they'd deposited with the league. (In a Sports Illustrated story on the death of the WFL, a Winds official referred to the investors as "Bob and Rich from California. I don't know their last names, but one's an Arab and the other's a Greek.") The investors' withdrawal dropped the Winds below league