There are only two people I’ve ever wanted to kill – and King Corcoran is one.
I confess this because Twitter buddy Rich Looby recently posted what looks to me like ticket stubs from Philadelphia Bell games at JFK Stadium during the 1970s.
King Corcoran played quarterback for the Bell. One season he went 280-for-545 for 3,531 yards and 31 TDs.
To which I replied:
So let me fill in some details . . .
We were both born in 1943 – and just five days apart – but he in Jersey City and me in Nanticoke, PA. So for geographical reasons alone, we didn’t know each other.
We both played football and – as I just learned from Wikipedia – we shared a common football experience – sort of. In 1961, although playing for different teams, we both played against Roger Staubach when Roger played for the Navy Plebes. King Corcoran played for the University of Maryland freshman team and I played for the Naval Academy Prep School team in Bainbridge, Maryland.
Roger and the Plebes – pardon my French – kicked our ever-lovin’ asses on a hot and dusty day in Annapolis on the day we played them. My claim to fame came when I blitzed from Roger’s blind side and launched myself at him. He never saw me coming.
But at the last moment, he must’ve sensed me coming because he ducked – and I went flying over top of him. Fortunately for me, I caught just enough of his jersey to bring him down.
Now, if things had gone according to my plan, I would’ve played for the Plebes the next season and Roger would’ve been throwing passes to me during my sophomore and junior seasons – and he won the Heisman Trophy one of those years. But things didn’t go according to plan. I got kicked out of the program four days before the beginning of Plebe summer and never saw my dreams materialize.
In his game against the Plebes, King Corcoran quarterbacked the Maryland frosh to a 29-27 victory over Staubach. Although, later in life, he would spin a tale about leading Maryland to a come-from-behind 27-22 win and beating Staubach during the 1963 season. But that never happened. Corcoran sat out most – if not all – of the 1963 season with injuries.
60 MINUTES
My first remembrance of King Corcoran was when 60 Minutes did a segment promoting him while he was playing quarterback for the Pottstown Firebirds. At that time, NFL Films was just getting started and Steve Sabol became so infatuated with the Firebirds that he followed the team for a year and produced the one-hour film “The Making of a Championship Season in a Small Pennsylvania Town” – which aired on national TV in January of 1972 just before Super Bowl VI.
The film not only helped put NFL Films on the map, but it also put King Corcoran on the map.
The Firebirds played in the Atlantic Coast Football League, which was about a half-step above the semi-pro level. Back then many NFL players couldn’t support themselves solely by playing football – yet this hot-shot playing in Podunk was banking $125,000 from the Firebirds over three years.
And here he was on national TV on 60 Minutes tooling around in his Lincoln Continental convertible with Mike Wallace riding shotgun and talking on a goddam car phone. Back then, the only car phone I’d ever seen belonged to Joe Mannix – who was a fictional character in a detective series on TV. Nobody had car phones back then.
For Christ’s sake, I didn’t get my first car phone until 1984 – more than ten years later – which happens to coincide with when I met King Corcoran for the first time.
HOLIDAY SPA
Four years earlier, in 1980, I took a sales job at Holiday Spa in Center City Philly. My goals were modest and three-fold:
- Do something I liked.
- Make around twenty-grand a year to start.
- Be happy.
Holiday satisfied all three goals. I loved my work, made $22,000 my first year, and was happy as hell. I was also promoted twice:
- First, to assistant manager.
- Next, to manager.
In four years, my income went from $22,000 to $42,000 to $62,000 to $82,000. By then, I found myself transferred to our location at the Cherry Hill Mall. Remember, this took place during the 1980s and that was a hefty income. So hefty, I found myself burdened with something called “tax problems” and didn’t have the foggiest notion about finances.
Many of my colleagues at Holiday found themselves in similar situations.
What the hell was I going to do?
ENTER KING CORCORAN
My district manager put me in touch with King Corcoran. He came highly regarded since he was already working with several of our corporate officers in Baltimore – along with several congressman and senators in Washington, D.C.
I, of course, remembered him from the Pottstown Firebirds, 60 Minutes, and the NFL Films feature. He came heralded as an investment guru who was going to put me into real estate deals that would accomplish three things I desperately needed:
- Immediate tax write-offs.
- Short-term profits.
- Long-term capital appreciation.
King Corcoran arrived at Cherry Hill Mall attired in an off-white suit like Don Johnson wore on Miami Vice – that and a cranberry-colored turtleneck. We went to lunch, had a couple drinks, and talked business. Before our meeting ended, I was the proud owner of three rowhomes in Baltimore.
He told me that the real estate upon which my rowhomes sat was slated for development as an extension of the Inner Harbor. For the short-term, his management company would maintain my properties and make sure they were rented. He would collect the rentals and send me a check every month – a check that would cover the mortgages.
Sometime in the near future, the City of Baltimore would condemn the properties and pay me an outlandish sum to acquire my rowhomes. He would then help me reinvest the profits into bigger and better opportunities, get more tax write-offs, more short-term profits, and more long-term capital appreciation.
On our walk back to the spa, he told me he was close to acquiring a large chunk of land on the Pampas in Argentina. He said he discovered the opportunity while playing polo in Argentina – part of which was the truth. He did play polo in Argentina.
That land would be sub-divided and sold as rancheros. He said there was a fortune to be made in Argentina and he could put me into something like that on our next venture.
Maybe the notion of owning land on the Pampas should’ve sent up smoke signals – but it didn’t. It sounded exotic and glamorous – and profitable. I could see myself flying to Argentina to inspect my investment – someday – and discovering the women of Argentina at the same time.
LONG STORY
Making this long story a little shorter, I drove to Baltimore to inspect the properties from time to time. The rowhomes did exist. And King Corcoran did, in fact, send checks every month. But as the months passed, the checks got smaller and smaller because his bills for repairs got bigger and bigger. And every once in a while there was no check because a tenant vacated.
As it worked out, it was all – pardon my French – so much bullshit.
I got my tax write-offs all right. But short-term profits and long-term capital appreciation never materialized. In fact, I lost better than twenty-grand in less than two years – yet I was one of the lucky ones. Some of my buddies lost six figures. And congressman and senators lost millions combined.
That’s when the – pardon my French – shit hit the fan for King Corcoran. Capitol Hill mobilized against him. He was convicted of fraud and sentenced to federal prison.
If I’d known where to find him at that time, I could almost see myself planning a perfect murder and – pardon my French once again – killing that lying, conniving, mother-fucking sonavabitch. At least I would’ve kicked the ever-lovin’ shit out of him.
On June 19, 2009, he suffered cardiac arrest and died. If he were buried within a short driving distance from where I live, I’d make period visits to piss on his grave.
So, Rich, that’s how I know King Corcoran.
And that’s the story of King Corcoran and me.
In addition to being the official Eagles Outsider for BlameMyFather.com, Barry Bowe is also the author of:
- Born to Be Wild
- 1964 – The Year the Phillies Blew the Pennant
- 12 Best Eagles QBs
- Birth of the Birds
- Soon-to-be-published sexy, police procedural Caribbean Queen
- Soon-to-be-published novel Stosh Wadzinski
- Soon-to-be-published novel Polish Widow
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