Event Date: April 3rd, 1985
Event Description: Dizney Pursues Kosar
Source: UPI
Donald Dizney, owner of the Orlando Renegades, said Tuesday he would be delighted if other U.S. Football League owners chipped in to help him sign standout college quarterback Bernie Kosar.
Dizney made his comments one day after it was learned that Donald Trump had asked the other USFL owners to “partially reimburse” the New Jersey Generals for the cost of signing 1984 Heisman Trophy winner Doug Flutie.
“I am presently involved in getting Kosar and if the league wants to do something like that (reimbursing Trump) for me, I'm all for it,” Dizney said. “I just don't think the league could do it right now.”
Kosar, who led the University of Miami to the 1983 national championship as a freshman and is currently ahead of the pace set by Doug Flutie in establishing the all-time NCAA record for passing yardage, has indicated that he would forgo his two remaining years of college eligibility if the right deal can be made with a pro team.
Kosar hopes to graduate this summer and is expected to declare himself eligible for the NFL draft before the April 15 deadline.
“We've talked to Kosar's agent (Dr. John Geletka),” Dizney said. “It looks 50-50 right now.”
Trump sent a letter last week to the league office, asking that the matter of reimbursement for Flutie's contract reported to be worth as much as $8.3 million be brought up at a league meeting in the near future.
“Everybody asked Trump to go out and sign Flutie,” John Barron, a vice president of the Trump Organization, said Monday. “He said he would do it, but only if partial reimbursement were made by the league.”
“I have heard this before,” Dizney said of Trump's desire to be reimbursed. “But I don't know of anyone involved with the Renegades who agreed to anything like it.”
Barron Tuesday backed off his earlier assertion that Trump had gotten some sort of assurance from the other owners about helping with Flutie's contract, saying that Trump meant merely to “go back nicely and ask for a reimbursement.”
Jim Byrne, a spokesman for the league, said Trump's letter had been received and that it had been “circulated among the owners.” Byrne said the commissioner had agreed to bring the matter up at the next meeting but could not say when that would be.
Another USFL owner, Myles H. Tanenbaum, majority partner of the Philadelphia Stars, refused to comment on the reimbursement issue other than to say it was “a private matter for the people in the league.”
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