Shortly after the Tulsa Roughnecks victory of the 1983 Soccer Bowl, President Ronald Reagan sent congratulatory remarks to the team as they carried the trophy in a celebration parade through downtown Tulsa. Until the Oklahoma City Thunder won the NBA Finals in 2025, the Roughnecks were the only major professional team from Oklahoma to win a championship.
Highlights
The Roughnecks first match was a 6–5 indoor loss on February 11, 1978, at the Bayfront Center versus the Tampa Bay Rowdies. Three nights later in their home debut, the same two teams faced off in front of the first 3,250 Roughnecks fans at the Tulsa Assembly Center.[4][5] A few weeks later they would capture the Skelly Indoor Invitational which they hosted.[6] Over the years Tulsa regularly appeared in the NASL playoffs. They won the NASL title in Soccer Bowl '83, defeating the Toronto Blizzard at BC Place Stadium (Vancouver) by a score of 2–0 before a paid attendance of 60,051.[7] The team's all-time win–loss record was 104–106. The Roughnecks' home games consistently drew better-than-league-average attendance with the annual record occurring during the 1980 season when the team averaged 19,787 spectators over 16 games for a total attendance that year of 316,593 (placing the Roughnecks at No. 5 between the Seattle Sounders and the Washington Diplomats). The largest home game attendance for Tulsa occurred on April 26, 1980, when 30,822 fans watched the Roughnecks' 2–1 victory over the New York Cosmos at Skelly Stadium. The highest attendance for any Roughneck game occurred on August 26, 1979, when Tulsa met the Cosmos in New York for a NASL playoff game before a crowd of 76,031.[7]
Post-NASL
When, in August 1984, the Major Indoor Soccer League rejected the Roughnecks' application to join several other NASL teams in participating in the MISL's 1984-85 season (citing the town's small market status and subpar arena), team owners decided to fold the financially struggling franchise as of the end of the NASL season in September. Former general manager Noel Lemon and a handful of local investors were not ready to give up on soccer in Tulsa, and they were granted permission in January 1985 to revive the name and put together a team to play outdoors that summer.[8] Before this club could take the field, though, the NASL completed its long, slow collapse and cancelled the upcoming 1985 season in March. Lemon's new Roughnecks, which featured several holdover players from the previous iteration of the team, carried on as an independent club and pieced together a 20-game exhibition schedule against teams from the MISL, WACS, Europe and South America, as well as former NASL and USL sides that had not folded.[9][10] Excluding several cancelations along the way, the team compiled a record of 8–2–1, before suspending operations on July 17, 1985.[11]
Many former players have found employment as paid trainers of youth soccer teams for clubs such as the Tulsa United, Tulsa Soccer Club (TSC), Tornado Soccer Club, and Hurricane Football Club (HFC).
^Tierney, Mike (February 15, 1978). "Rowdies trounce Tulsa". St. Petersburg Times. p. 1C. Archived from the original on May 16, 2016. Retrieved January 20, 2018.
