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The opportunity to play in Texas (and the Astrodome, where weather would never be a factor) clinched it. On June 9, Kelly inked a multimillion-dollar deal with the Gamblers. Giving this young quarterback with western Pennsylvania roots an outrageously lucrative contract to spurn the NFL and join an upstart league sounded like a familiar tale.

“His signing is the equivalent of Joe Namath signing with the American Football League. In fact, Jim’s a much better player. Namath’s college statistics can’t compare. Jim did more in three years than he did in four,” boldly proclaimed the Houston owner, Jerry Argovitz. “We had Jim Kelly rated as college football’s top quarterback even before the NFL draft. We like everything we see about him. This signing has impact.”

An organization named the Gamblers seemed an appropriate one for Jim Kelly to join after leaving Miami. An expansion team, Houston would not play its first game until late February 1984. (As part of its early appeal, USFL games were played in the spring, opposite the NFL’s fall schedule.) Having seen no playing time since the injury to his throwing shoulder in September 1982, Kelly would go nearly eighteen months without taking an in-game snap. The stability of the newfound league as well as the quality of play (and his teammates) were also issues that Kelly had to consider.

“There are risks in what I’m doing, but I made up my mind,” he said upon signing his contract. “Everybody has to take a risk once in his life. But I’m happy I did and I won’t regret it.”

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Jeff Hostetler also took an enormous risk leaving Penn State in January 1981, another decision that he would not regret.

“Our family had a meeting with coach Joe Paterno to inform him of our decision. Joe tried to change Jeff’s mind, but his decision is final,” Norm Hostetler told the Harrisburg Patriot. “Because of all our past connections, it was an extremely difficult thing to have to do. But we felt that Jeff will not get his chance here.”

Family had played a central role in Jeff enrolling at Penn State. And in his second college search, again a fellow Hostetler pointed him in the next direction.

“My older brother Doug was recruited by West Virginia when he was coming out of high school,” said Hostetler. “After he had graduated [from Penn State in 1979] he was in sales and he was traveling and he had always gone down through Morgantown and told me I have to go down and take a look. And he is the only reason I went down to take a look.”

Jeff had actually been to Morgantown the previous fall. In late October 1980, Penn State traveled south along Interstate 68 to play at newly opened Mountaineer Stadium. Hostetler relieved an injured Todd Blackledge in the second half and preserved a 20-15 victory over first-year head coach Don Nehlen’s team.

“It was a cold, miserable, wet day,” he remembered. “It was a big day for us and I had a big part in it. I remember walking down through their stands in order to get to their locker room—because the stadium still wasn’t completed—so we had to walk through the stands to get down to the locker room. And I can remember the fans yelling at us and saying stuff to us. And I can honestly remember thinking, ‘Wow, is this great. This would be a great group of people to play for. They just absolutely loved their Mountaineers.”

Although he weighed opportunities from Ohio State, Michigan State, Maryland, and nearly transferred to Pitt (where, by Hostetler’s senior season, Dan Marino would have just left), West Virginia soon became an easy choice. Only eighty miles south of the family farm near Holsopple, Morgantown was a short drive for the Hostetlers each Saturday afternoon of the college season.

Teammates immediately welcomed their new quarterback. Linebacker Darryl Talley had been a junior when Hostetler and the Nittany Lions defeated the Mountaineers in 1980. Now he was elated to have Hostetler playing for, rather than against, West Virginia.

“Jeff came in the game after I knocked Todd [Blackledge] out and proceeded