KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The undeclared signing war between the nation's two pro football leagues has been raging, and the NFL has struck back.
The U.S. Football League has scored heavily with some of college football's biggest names -- Herschel Walker, Mike Rozier, Marcus Dupree. But on Monday, the Kansas City Chiefs claimed the NFL's first major victory -- and gained a certain measure of personal revenge in the process -- with the signing away of star running back Ken Lacy from the USFL champion Michigan Panthers.
Lacy, who rushed for 1,180 yards in his rookie season, is in the final year of a two-year contract and, according to the Chiefs, will be available for play in the NFL about mid-July at the conclusion of the Panthers' season.
The 6-foot-1, 220-pound Lacy had secretly been negotiating with the Chiefs and several other NFL teams since mid-March. His defection marks the first time an established USFL player has chosen to jump to the rival NFL in the leagues' two-year battle for the nation's top football players.
For the Chiefs, in dire need of a quality running back since the drowning death of Joe Delaney last summer, it was also a slap at the USFL. Last season the New Jersey Generals raided the Chiefs for the services of All-Pro free safety Gary Barbaro.
The Chiefs said Lacy, a former wishbone fullback with Tulsa University, signed a series of one-year contracts spanning three years. He agreed to terms in Kansas City, then returned to Michigan for practice with the Panthers.
'We are confident Ken will join us as soon as he completes his playing responsibilities for the Michigan Panthers following their current season,' said Chiefs general manager Jim Schaaf.
The standard USFL player contract runs from Dec. 1 through Nov. 30, which would have forced Lacy to sit out the opening three months of the 1984 NFL season. But since he was one of the first players to sign with the new league, the clause apparently was not included in his contract.
Lacy, who also caught 40 passes for 433 yards last season, missed four games of the current season with a partial shoulder separation but returned for Michigan's loss Saturday against the Oklahoma Outlaws. In his three games this season, Lacy has rushed for 222 yards on 39 carries.
Kansas City ended 1983 ranked last in the NFL in rushing with 1,254 yards.
Lacy was a sixth-round choice of the Panthers in 1983 and, although he didn't open the season as a starter, finished third in the USFL in rushing behind more publicized rookies Walker and Kelvin Bryant.
'We're sorry to lose him, first of all, and we've made a very, very fair contract offer,' said Vince Lombardi Jr., Panthers president and general manager. 'It was really the very best that we could do for him. If he got more money from Kansas City, and we must assume that he did, that's fine. We have no second thoughts.
'If he had brought Kansas City's offer to us, in all probability, we couldn't have done anything. But we were not approached.
'Kenny is a high-class kid,' Lombardi added. 'There's no doubt that he'll continue to give 100 percent effort to the Michigan Panthers for the rest of this season.
'Actually, you'd have to say its a feather in our own cap. It's showing that some of the NFL teams, and Kansas City in particular, are thinking.'
