If the now-kaput XFL was football for mooks–a tawdry, sensationalistic, bastard son of the original sport that I called mookball–the Arena Football League is for people who simply can’t get enough football. It’s another bastard son, resembling basketball in its pacing and tempo, but it keeps the sideshow elements–the cheerleaders and fireworks–in their proper place. Played indoors on a 50-yard field that fits within an 85-foot-wide hockey rink, with eight-yard end zones and heavily padded boards, it favors quickness and agility over size and speed. It also asks for versatility–most players in the eight-man lineup stay on the field for both offense and defense. Yet their basic skills are football skills–they run and pass, block and tackle. Weird and misshapen as the game is, it’s football.
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But for all the bitterness I felt going in, once I sat down to study the sport it began to grow on me. For one thing, it has a pleasantly minor-league feel to it, which it doesn’t try to camouflage behind the bluster and pyrotechnics of the XFL. Rather than exotic dancers, the cheerleaders were dressed like cheerleaders, more or less, in silver halter tops and miniskirts, and the pregame fireworks that went off indoors during the introductions had pop without being ostentatious. Everything was in proportion. There was also a family feel to the crowd of 6,924, which included more women than went to all the XFL Enforcers games combined. A few players made immediate impressions. Dameon Porter, wearing number one, emerged from the inflated Rush helmet at the clubhouse end of the field flashing the number one finger sign, then coyly encouraged the crowd to applaud by curling his fingers in. Defensive specialist Derek Stingley went through a routine as if he were posing for a Greek wine jug. He flexed, went down on one knee, brandished an imaginary shield, pulled back an imaginary bow, thrust one hand forward, then hopped across the artificial turf to his teammates as if his pants were on fire.
The opposing Grand Rapids Rampage entered with no such fanfare; they didn’t need it. They were unbeaten at 4-0 to the Rush’s 2-2, and they showed their quality at once, marching to two quick touchdowns. Arena football is a pass-oriented game, with three linemen, three receivers–one of whom is allowed to move forward toward the line of scrimmage at high speed as the ball is snapped–a quarterback, and a token running back. The game moves like an NBA fast break. Rampage quarterback Clint Dolezel, a tall, thin, five-year AFL veteran from East Texas State, threw for the first touchdown and allowed Marcellus Marstella to plow in from a yard out for the second. The Rush, meanwhile, had a touchdown called back when receiver Joe Douglass got caught setting a pick; they settled for a field goal and were down 14-3 early.
But that’s NFL thinking, which turned out to have nothing to do with the AFL. Dicken hit Douglass with a couple of quick passes, the second for a touchdown, and the score was 33-24 heading into the fourth quarter. The Chicago defense suddenly stiffened, Grand Rapids kicked from its end zone, and Douglass ran the ball back to midfield. Then he pulled off a play worthy of a highlight reel in any league. Given a running start, he beat his man off the line of scrimmage and raced for the end zone. Dicken overthrew him, but somehow Douglass caught up with the ball, going up and hooking it one-handed, as if he were playing with a jai alai basket. The Rush were only two points behind, “Y.M.C.A.” was playing on the PA–there’s no escaping the Village People at any sporting event–and things were just warming up.
Stingley ran 20 yards right and 20 yards left in returning the kickoff to the Chicago 16. Dicken hit Douglass to move the ball into Grand Rapids territory, and then Douglass ran exactly the same pattern that Ross had–a down-and-out in motion–and Dicken hit him for a touchdown. The Rush kicked the point after for a 51-51 tie, but a Rampage penalty gave Chicago the choice of moving the ball half the distance to the goal–to the one-and-a-half-yard line. Rush coach Mike Hohensee took points off the board–an NFL taboo–to go for two and the win. Chicago’s Anthony Hutch jumped offside, moving the ball back to the six, but the Rush went for two anyway, and converted on a pass from Dicken to Douglass on a crossing pattern to put the Rush up 52-51 with ten seconds to play. The way Douglass went up for it and caught it aroused memories of Joe Montana’s famous pass to Dwight Clark.
