In arena football, it’s not about the money

By Ron Kantowski

Monday, Aug. 24, 2009 | 2 a.m.

As I sat in the wheelchair section atop the Orleans Arena (can you believe they ran out of room on press row at ArenaCup 10?) watching guys catch khaki-colored footballs off fishing nets Saturday night, my first inclination was not that this is a silly game with silly rules played by almost grown men hailing from colleges with directions or a “Kutztown” in their names — which was my first inclination while watching one of the 16 or so indoor football teams that have tried to make a go of it in Las Vegas over the years.

No, my first thought was of Vince Papale.

Vince Papale was The Ultimate Walk-On. Only he did it at the National Football League level for the Philadelphia Eagles, not for some Division III college with a direction or a “Kutztown” in its name. His story is so inspiring that Disney made a movie out of it. Mark Wahlberg was cast as Papale, who, if you believe the best scene in the movie, became the quintessential special teams player while playing in pickup games in vacant lots in the rough part of Philly as it poured down rain with lights from beat-up Buicks illuminating it for all to see.

Man, I really want to believe the movie.

Anyway, ArenaCup 10 reminded me of that. Only there were 16 Vince Papales on the field at the same time. And none got muddy or wet, although, come to think of it, it would have been pretty cool if they had.

There weren’t any guys from Kutztown State catching khaki-colored footballs off the end zone fishing nets. But one team featured representatives from Cal Poly, Norfolk, Western Washington, Texas State, Eastern Washington, Western Oregon and Mid-American Nazarene; the other Otterbein, Virginia State, William & Mary, East Stroudsburg, Wilkes University, California of Pennsylvania and Slippery Rock. There also was a guy from Clemson, who must have been a little bit embarrassed by the fact.

The thing that impressed me, if not the players, is that all were playing professional tackle football, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof, for about $200 a game. Even the guy from Clemson. I should also note that one of the teams had a slash in its name — it was called Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, like the cities in Pennsylvania. That seemed appropriate. The other team was called Spokane, which is the perfect name for a Pacific Coast League baseball team, if only Spokane still had one.

The announced crowd was 5,846 and it was loud, partly because they kept playing songs like Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” at decibel levels that would have turned the collective brain matter of the early 1980s English synthpop duo to mush. And partly because the Spokane team brought a few thousand fans, almost all of whom made a lot of noise, too, and were sporting bright orange jerseys with the No. 9 on them.

I think this was because unlike real football, only eight men are allowed on the field at a time, so instead of calling itself the “12th Man,” the cheering section in arenafootball2 simply subtracts three. The guy sitting next to me had another theory: that unlike in the NFL, there are no 10s among arenafootball2 groupies. But even he had to admit that by the fourth quarter, the ones in the bare midriffs shaking their groove things and seductively flipping their hair to and fro after every Spokane touchdown were getting awfully close to double digits.

Nothing against all those gyrating 9’s, but I was more impressed by gyrating No. 15 in a Spokane jersey. Raul Vijil, a little wide receiver from Eastern Washington, was named the player of the game for catching ... well, too many touchdown passes to count in Spokane’s 74-27 victory.

After the game, Vijil flashed a $50 grin — the bonus reportedly paid to winning team members — as a reporter from the Spokane newspaper asked him football-type questions about fade patterns and momentum. After that, I asked him a bunch of non-football questions, like whether he had another job to augment the $250 he just pocketed for winning ArenaCup 10, or a wife and a family and a dog. And if he did, how long could he keep chasing a football dream that pays just peanuts. (The shells cost extra.)

Vijil told me he works part-time for Primerica Financial Services helping families get out of debt, a fact that he is both proud of and knows something about. He has a significant other, Sarah Riley, who has stuck with him through thin and thin over the past five years — “I just love that girl so much,” Vijil said.

“She’s supported me, gone back to school to get her MBA, so now maybe it’s time for me to help her out,” he said. “There are new leagues forming and I know I’ve got some more football in me. But there’s a time when it becomes time to move on.”

When I left Vijil, he was still smiling.

I thought this is what Vince Papale must have looked like when it finally stopped raining.