Andy Scores! Vol 3 - Part 1/4: Off to Cleveland

Salary negotiations break down in Wichita and Chapman makes the move to the Force.

To read Parts 1, 2, and 3 of Volume 2, click here, here, and here.

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By the 1984-85 season, Andy Chapman had established himself as an MISL star. But his time with the Wichita Wings was coming to an end…

“By the time we got to the New Year [of 1985], I’m not starting in some of the games. As we got into February, I told Bill Kentling I didn’t think I could stay here and I needed to go…

[Here, Andy backtracks to 1981]

A defining moment in my career financially was the summer of 1981. Roy had come to Detroit to negotiate some contracts because Brian Tinnion, Clyde Watson, Steve Westbrook, Mike Powers, and myself were all playing with the Express. Roy took it upon himself to fly into Detroit and spend a couple of days coming to the Silverdome.

We are at practice and he’s stretching with us. Back then, not many of those Express players, Mike Powers and Steve Westbrook, really liked playing in Wichita because they weren’t getting minutes. Players are like that, but I never got caught up in that. You just make a coach HAVE TO pick you. While Roy was there, he negotiated the contracts for the other boys: the minimum, which was $2,000 a month plus transportation and accommodation. You shared an apartment and a vehicle with another player.

Even though they were pissed about it, they didn’t really have a choice. Roy comes to me to negotiate my contract. When I first arrived in 1979, I was happy to get the league minimum. But Roy comes into Detroit and offers me a contract that was the actual minimum. I knew that what I wanted was a 12-month contract, like some of the other star players had: the Zunguls and Juli Veees of the world. Some of the Wichita players had year-long contracts. So I picked a number I wanted and Roy said, ‘No chance.’

By the summer, the 1981-82 season is almost upon us. Bill Kentling calls and I told him exactly what I wanted as a contract. Basically, it was a 12-month contract that included, I have to be careful how I say this, tax-free money, bonuses, and monthly payments, and flights to England, and all sorts of things. And I wanted a two-year guaranteed contract. They had already started the process of my green card. It was really going to change my life.

When I told Bill Kentling on the phone, it was about 7:30 at night over at Pattie’s, and he said, ‘Oh, we can’t do that.’ And I liked Bill. I said, ‘I’m sorry, but I’ll be playing somewhere else then.’ It’s as simple as that. You aren’t a mercenary, you are just trying to get the best deal you can. I loved Wichita. Even though I had options to go to New York or to Los Angeles to play with the Lazers, I loved being in Wichita. So I was sad about it. But five minutes later, Bill calls me back and says, ‘Ok, we’re good. We’ll do the deal.’ I remember celebrating it with Pattie because it changed the whole trajectory of my career financially. Now I had a two-year contract that would start in October 1, 1981. I would get paid all year round instead of getting paid for indoor, flying out to play outdoor, and piecing it all together.

I embarked on that contract and that went until 1983. It came up again and I negotiated with Bill Kentling again and I got an even better contract in the summer of 1983. I signed another two-year contract that goes from 1983 to 1985. In the last year of my contract, in the winter of ‘84, Bill discovers that somehow they’d been overpaying me. They had overpaid me for six months and now they had to take it out of my contract for the next six months, which I wasn’t happy about. So they started to deduct in January of 1985.

In February I ask for a move and basically tell him I’d like to go to the Cleveland Force because it was looking like it could be the best franchise in the MISL. More importantly, it was only a two-and-a-half-hour drive to Detroit for Pattie. The Wolsteins were a very wealthy family in Cleveland [that owned the Force]. Within a matter of a couple weeks, Bill sold me to the Cleveland Force and I only had six months left on that contract because it would end on September 30, 1985. I left on March 1, 1985. They announced it in the shopping malls in Wichita. They did, it’s true. Because it was a big surprise.

Pattie flew back home to Detroit. All my furniture and everything, including my car, were shipped to Cleveland by the Force. I ended up staying with Keith Furphy for a couple months. Bill Kentling called me and said, ‘Hey, you still owe us that money we overpaid you on.’ I said to Bill, ‘Go…you know…forget that. You got money off the Wolsteins for me, so take it out of that.’ And that’s how I ended up in Cleveland.

It was strange because when the deal went through, before I left, Cleveland were coming to the Coliseum to play against Wichita. Part of the deal was that I wasn’t going to be allowed to play in that game, two days after getting sold there. I travel up to the game, walk into the Coliseum, and instead of turning left into the Wings locker room, I go into the locker room with the Cleveland Force. There’s Timo Liekoski, now my coach. A week before, he was my rival. It felt so strange. The finality of it had just happened.

So off I went to Cleveland. There was still from March 1 till the end of the season left to play. I live with Keith Furphy. He was a superstar in Cleveland. They had some big players there: Kai Haaskivi, [England international player] Peter Ward was there…Bernie James. So we had 12 games left in the season and they are struggling to get to the playoffs. My first game was in St. Louis and I got two goals and we won. We had 12 games left and I scored 12 goals. They got great media coverage in Cleveland. We got into the playoffs and I was on fire.”

[Next week: Part 2 of Andy Scores! Vol. 3]