USPBL MANAGERS THROUGH THE YEARS
The USPBL has had a lot of manager/owners throughout our 46 years of existence.
No attempt has ever been made to list them. Until now.
Having become league commish early in my USPBL career, I kept league documents. Among these are
Newsletters, Standings, Draft information and MANGER DIRECTORIES. With all those documents I've been
able to compile a list of all the USPBL Managers over the years.
There are 120 total listed. Of these, 4 are "UNKNOWN" and 10 are "OPEN".
Thus we have had 110 Managers with 106 named here.
MANAGER SEASONS
I coined the term MANAGER SEASONS. This is the number of Managers that were needed to cover all the
teams for all the seasons.
1980-1994 16 teams over 15 seasons required 240 manager seasons.
1995-2003 18 teams over 9 seasons required 162 manager seasons.
2004-2025 20 teams over 22 seasons required 440 manager seasons.
Human Beings account for all but 13 of the 840 manager seasons. Those were Open Teams.
Unknown Managers account for 7 manager seasons.
OPEN TEAMS
While the number of Open Teams seems lower than you would think, there are 3 explanations:
1) In recent years, I don't list managers that do not finish the season. They are removed from the directory.
When starting a season with an Open team, we do not carry over the prior team's name to avoid confusing it with a manned team, So Open teams are easily identified in the Directory. HOWEVER in the past, a
manager would leave at the start or during the season but remain in the directory and standings with the
same name as the prior season. Thus some managers prior to 2012 are getting credit for a year of service
when it may have been an open team for part or all of a season.
2) I don't have the Directories for 1981, 1982, 1985 and 1986. For some, if they appeared in 1980 but not
1983, or in 1984 but not 1987, I gave them credit for the missing seasons. In many cases I was able to use
other means such as the newsletters or standings to determine who was or was not on board. So there was
some guesswork involved for those seasons.
3) There really aren't as many seasons with OPEN teams as you might think. Recently we went through
a spell of having 7 open teams since 2015. Yet from 1999-2014 there were none. Other than this recent drought and that brief period from 1997-1998, we had waiting lists and filled vacant teams quickly.
Open teams have not been a serious issue. It might just seem like it is.
The chart on the right has 25 of the 110 managers on it. They account for 570 Manager Seasons out of
the 840 total. That's 68% from longtime managers alone. Known Open teams account for just 1.5%.
Even if a bunch of those managers listed pre-2012 were actually Open teams, the % is still very low.
THE USPBL MANAGER LIST BY FRANCHISE
A few explanations regarding this listing.
* I have this arranged by USPBL TEAM FRANCHISES. Then in CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER for each
of the Franchises from the USPBL's inception in 1980 through 2025.
* There are 4 managers listed twice. As this list is by franchise, 4 served as managers of 2 different franchises. Chris Malitsky began with Team 7, left, then returned taking Team 9. Scott was the expansion manager for Team 17, left, then returned to run Team 5. Greg Smith had Team 12, left, then returned with
Team 8. Darin Payne managed Team 7, then 12,
* Team 6 underwent an odd transition of managers. Chip Hendrick left, Joe Walsh took Over, Joe left,
Chip returned, Chip left, Joe returned and has run Team 6 since.
* I do not have information regarding 4 of the 1980 Founding managers. They are listed as ??? while
OPEN teams are listed as XXX.
* This is a list for Managers and Franchises so I skipped listing TEAM NAMES which I do have.
* The number of managers for the franchise is shows in (parenthesis).
* Franchise's longest owner is in Boldface/CAPS
* Blue designates that the manager owned teams for two franchises
* There are 46 Seasons for Teams 1-16. 31 for Teams 17-18. 22 for Teams 19-20.
TEAM 1 (7) Stu Lipken 1980-1994 Todd Schryver 1995 Don Conaway 1996-1997 Jerome Ables 1998
Matt Sanner 1999 Nathan White 2000 MIKE CARPENTER 2001-2025
TEAM 2 (8) Dick Nelson 1980-1994 Joel Daas 1995 Eugene Stomp 1996 Mike Rodriguez 1997-1998
Eddie Frietas 1999-2007 John Ramsey 2008 JAMIE CHAGNON 2009-2024 Jeff Fesperman 2025
TEAM 3 (6) David Zack 1980 Jeff Morabito 1981-1984 Doug Richardson 1985-1989
Jeff Johnson 1990-1991 Lt Col Frank Kelly 1992-1998 MARK SANNER 1999-2025
TEAM 4 (10) Ed Coss 1980-1986 Chris Besecker 1987-1891 Larry Richards 1992-1995
John Barkoviak 1996 Randy Hulett 1997 XXX 1998 Mike Murphy 1999-2009 Jon Stamets 2010-2012
Tony Giorgi 2013 RICH GILLUM 2014-2025
TEAM 5 (7) Chuck Schaffer 1980-1987 James Shaeffer 1988 BILL ROBISON 1989-1998 / 2001-2018
Brian Stokes 1999 Nick Sebasta 2000 (Robinson 2001-2018)) XXX 2019 Scott Adams 2020-2025
TEAM 6 (3) ??? 1980 Chip Hendrick 1981-1984 / 1987-1988 JOE WALSH 1985-1986 / 1989-2025
TEAM 7 (13) Steve Brown 1980-1986 Carl Seawick 1987 Jim Lindquist 1988
Darin Payne 1989-1990 Phil Loudin 1991 John Unterreiner 1992-1995 David Allen 1996
Clint Anderson 1997 XXX 1998 Stephan Feurhartdt 1999-2003 Chris Malitsky 2004-2010
Scott Novoseller 2011 DUSTIN RIDGEWAY 2012-2025
TEAM 8 (6) Tom Underwood 1980-1982 Mike Konwinski 1983-1984 Maark Hetterich 1985-1989
Roger Katter 1990-2001 Greg Smith 2002 RICHIE WAGGONER 2003-2025
TEAM 9 (12) ??? 1980-1982 Dave Robertson 1983-1985 ROB WORKMAN 1986-2001
Chris Sims 2002-2010 Bernie Knauber 2011-2012 Jack Neahusen 2013 Gil Smith 2014
Jay Schwass 2015 Rob Lennon 2016 Earl Christianson 2017 XXX 2018 Chris Malitsky 2019-2025
TEAM 10 (2) Tom Skellie 1980-1982 JIM WALSH 1983-2025
TEAM 11 (8) ??? 1980-1981 Doug Hennes 1982-1985 Jeff Hall 1986-1987 Sean Palatka 1988-1990
Dan Payton 1991-1997 XXX 1998 BOB SARCEWICZ 1999-2022 Tyler Petrie 2023-2025
TEAM 12 (13) ??? 1980 John Martin 1981-1984 Ron Charron 1985-1989 Pat Walsh 1990
Darin Payne 1991-1994 Jeff Snell 1995 James Carrico 1996 Greg Smith 1997 XXX 1998
Tony Abrantes 1999-2006 CHRIS CURTIS 2007-2019 XXX 2020-2022 Dave Gineo 2023-2025
TEAM 13 (5) Dennis Engle 1980-1991 DC Deur 1992-1995 Cliff Knotek 1996-1997 XXX 1998
WAYNE TOMCZEWSKIi 1999-2025
TEAM 14 (2) Brian Giles 1980-1983 BART WALSH 1984-2025
TEAM 15 (2) Steve Bronson 1980-1985 MARK CARPENTER 1986-2025
TEAM 16 (3) Jon Hieber 1980-1986 George Mowry 1987 DAN MODEL 1988-2025
TEAM 17 (6) SCOTT ADAMS 1995-2014 Tim Wofford 2015 XXX 2016 Jay Snider 2017-2021
XXX 2022 Ben Cunliffe 2023-2025
TEAM 18 (3) Darin Stephenson 1995-2002 Craig Hale 2003-2011 JIM WALSH (JJ) 2012-2025
TEAM 19 (2) Stephan Skubis 2004 RAY CASH 2005-2025
TEAM 20 (2) Mike Taday 2004 BRAD ECKEL 2005-2025