The Oklahoma City Slickers was the name given to two different American soccer clubs based in Oklahoma City. The first team competed in the second American Soccer League in 1982 and 1983. The second Oklahoma City Slickers competed in the USISL from 1993 to 1996. Home games were played at historical Taft Stadium in Oklahoma City.
In 1982, the Oklahoma City Slickers were one of two new clubs to join the long-standing but struggling American Soccer League (at the time the unofficial 2nd division league in the US). The expansion team, bolstered by NASL veterans Wolfgang Rausch, Phil Parkes and Jeff Bourne[1] and coached by former Dallas Tornado player Brian Harvey, surprised many on their way to a regular season record of 19–3–6. They entered the playoffs on an eleven-game win streak and cruised through the first round against the Carolina Lightnin’. In the best-of-three championship round, they beat the Detroit Express at the Pontiac Silverdome in the first game; however, they failed to capitalize on their chance to close out the series at home in Game 2 and went on to lose the deciding Game 3 in Detroit. Harvey was named the ASL Coach of the Year.[2][3]
In 1983, the Slickers faced changes and turmoil on and[4] off of the field. The year began with general manager Jim Walker being fired in January. The team also lost several key players during the offseason, with Wolfgang Rausch leaving to coach the expansion Dallas Americans, who also snapped up three other starters from the ‘82 squad (including leading scorer Jeff Bourne).[5] Then, just as the season was getting underway, news emerged that majority owner Ralph Penn had been stripped of many assets, including his shares in the team, due to a variety of legal and financial troubles. The shares were placed into court-appointed receivership and then sold at auction.[6] The players and coaches who remained had to endure missed paychecks and uncertainty about whether the club would last through the season, and the team started the season 0–8. Local businessman David Fraser provided cash to help the club meet its financial obligations and assumed control of Penn's shares, and Walker returned to the front office to help stabilize the floundering franchise. Their efforts allowed the players and coaches to focus on soccer, and the team began to find ways to win some games; however, they still finished the season with a league worst 7–17 record.[7][8]
When Fraser returned his shares to the minority owners in November, citing unsustainable out of pocket spending and an overwhelming level of debts still owed by the organization, it appeared that Oklahoma City's first experience with professional soccer was coming to an end.[9] But when the remaining American Soccer League owners held their annual meetings in January 1984, the owners of the Jacksonville Tea Men and Dallas Americans decided to break from the slowly dying league and worked over the weekend to form a new organization called the United Soccer League.[10] Fraser saw in this new league an opportunity he had not yet enjoyed: the chance to operate a soccer team with a financial clean slate in a league that was designed to be more fiscally responsible than its predecessor. He quickly joined the USL as the owner of what was, on paper, a new organization called the Oklahoma City Stampede but that was effectively a fresh start for the existing Slickers organization.[11]
| Year | Division | League | Reg. Season | Playoffs | National Cup |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1982 | 2 | ASL | 2nd | Finals | Did not enter |
| 1983 | 2 | ASL | 3rd, Western | Did not qualify | Did not enter |
Though the uniforms and logos of the new team were different (the Slickers' black and gold was replaced with red and white), fans of the Slickers from the previous two summers would have been familiar with the majority of the Stampede's roster as well as GM Walker and coach Harvey. Two experienced forwards from the shrinking NASL, David Kemp and Thompson Usiyan, provided an offensive boost to this young core of former Slickers (finishing 2nd and 3rd in league scoring), and goalkeeper Delroy Allen posted a 1.61 Goals Against Average and three shutouts to key the defense. The revitalized club finished atop the Southwest Division and tied with the Fort Lauderdale Sun for the best regular season record (15–9). The league's points system (borrowed from the NASL) gave the Stampede the top seed heading into the playoffs, and the team initially believed this meant a first-round matchup with the winners of the relatively weak Northern Division, the Buffalo Storm. However, a last-minute conference call among owners clarified that the top seed should face the Wild Card play-in winner regardless of the standings points, and the Stampede found out just a few days before the semifinals began that they would instead be facing a much tougher and more familiar opponent in the Houston Dynamos.[12] Despite owning a 4-2 record against Houston in the regular season, The Stampede was eliminated by the Dynamos two games to none.[13]
The USL had plans to promote stability and increase community presence by operating its teams year-round with an indoor season in the winter, and owner David Fraser spoke early on about playing in the winter of 1984/85 in what was then Oklahoma City's largest indoor sports arena, the Myriad Convention Center.[14] However, these plans never materialized for the team or the rest of the league, and the playoff loss to Houston on August 24 would be the last game the team would play in Oklahoma City as the Stampede. In December, Fraser announced plans to move the team to Tulsa and rename it the Tornado's (the apostrophe is not a typo), hoping to fill the void left by the folding of the Roughnecks the previous September.[15] But in the months following this announcement, it would become clear that despite respectable attendance figures and measures to keep salaries and costs in this new league manageable, profitability and stability would be just as elusive for the USL as it had for its predecessor, the ASL. In February a last-ditch set of USL/NASL merger discussions that hoped to bring a financial boost to the USL and a boost in membership to the flagging NASL ended without an agreement. In short order the NASL folded, and six of the nine USL teams either ended operations or withdrew from the league. Only Dallas and Fort Lauderdale (renamed South Florida) along with an expansion team in El Paso/Juarez joined Tulsa to attempt the USL's 1985 outdoor season.[16] Further compounding the challenges of attracting fans and sponsors in a new town on short notice, the Roughnecks' former general manager, Noel Lemon, announced in January that he was starting up a new version of the Roughnecks to return for the 1985 NASL season. When the NASL folded, the "new" Roughnecks announced a 20-game exhibition schedule that was to start in the same month as the USL season, leaving the city of Tulsa with two hastily assembled and underfunded clubs competing for the attention of the town's soccer fans.[17]
The USL re-arranged its schedule to open with a round-robin "USL Cup" series of six exhibition games, which began in late May. The Tornado's organization immediately began showing signs of serious financial distress. They fell behind on rent payments to their home stadium, and after not receiving pay for some time, the players boycotted a June 6 home game and June 8 road game.[18] Coach Harvey resigned and some players began to take their leave. New investors came in ready to take over principal ownership from the Frasers, and the Tornado's did manage to play the final game of the Cup round. However, the 1–0 loss at South Florida on June 15 would prove to be their final match.[19] The opening of the "regular season" on June 22 was cancelled (sources differ as to whether this was due to unpaid stadium rent or another walkout by unpaid players). The league's other teams and the league itself were not faring any better, and a few days later creditors foreclosed on the USL and locked officials out of their offices. The season was suspended on June 25.[20]
| Year | Division | League | Reg. Season | Playoffs | National Cup |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1984 | 2 | USL | 1st, Western | Semifinals | Did not enter |
| 1985 | 2 | USL | season suspended | N/A | Did not enter |
In February 1993, the United States Interregional Soccer League announced the merger of the Oklahoma City Warriors of the USISL and the Oklahoma City Spirit of the Lone Star Soccer Alliance. The new team would compete in the USISL using the name the Oklahoma City Slickers.[21] Brian Harvey coached the Slickers in their first year with Warriors head coach Chico Villar serving as an assistant and team general manager. The team also returned to Taft Stadium.[22] In 1994, Duane Cummings replaced Harvey as head coach. The Slickers withdrew from the league and disbanded after the 1995–96 USISL indoor season.
| Year | Division | League | Reg. Season | Playoffs | National Cup |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | N/A | USISL | 7th, South Central | Did not qualify | Did not enter |
| 1994–95 | N/A | USISL Indoor | 1st, South Central | Finals | N/A |
| 1995 | 3 | USISL Premier | 4th, Western | First round | Did not enter |
| 1995–96 | N/A | USISL Indoor | 3rd, Central | Sizzlin' Five | N/A |
