Q&A: Jim Fassel, Las Vegas Locos head coach

By Richard N. Velotta

Monday, Jan. 31, 2011 | 3 a.m.

When he took the New York Giants to Super Bowl XXXV in 2001, coach Jim Fassel was at the top of his game.

The Giants were coming off a 7-9 season the previous year, but had “thunder and lightning” in their backfield — bruising University of Wisconsin Heisman Trophy-winning running back Ron Dayne and speedster Tiki Barber, who had a breakout year with his first 1,000-yard season.

Coming off a loss to the Detroit Lions to fall to 7-4, Fassel guaranteed in his postgame news conference that the Giants would make the playoffs. New York then won its last five games to go 12-4 and win the NFC East. Although the Giants lost the Super Bowl to the Baltimore Ravens, the late-season charge cemented Fassel’s credibility in the NFL — and was a harbinger of things to come in Las Vegas.

Fast-forward a decade to the birth of the United Football League. Fassel was named coach of the Las Vegas Locomotives. In both seasons, the Locos — that’s what they call themselves — came up with improbable wins in the UFL Championship Game. In 2009, Las Vegas beat the Florida Tuskers, a team they had lost to twice in the regular season, on a 33-yard field goal 1:43 into overtime after the lead changed three times in seven minutes. It was Fassel’s first professional championship.

A year later, the Locos lost their last two regular-season games but still qualified for the championship and upset the Tuskers 23-20 by blocking a potentially game-tying field goal in the closing seconds.

Fassel, a new Las Vegas resident, has had the title of president tacked on to general manager and head coach of the team. The former USC and Long Beach State quarterback was drafted by the Chicago Bears and also played with the San Diego Chargers and Houston Oilers as well as the World Football League’s Hawaiians team.

He also coached for the Arizona Cardinals, Denver Broncos, Oakland Raiders and the Ravens as well as holding the head coach’s job at Stanford and at the University of Utah. Among the players he tutored were Phil Simms, Boomer Esiason and John Elway.

From the team’s headquarters that has meeting rooms, a film room and a weight room in a warehouse near McCarran International Airport, Fassel talked with In Business Las Vegas about the challenges of marketing a fledgling team and league, what an NFL lockout would mean to the UFL and the Locos as a path for some players back to the NFL.

IBLV: How do you spend your time as coach, general manager and president of the franchise?

Fassel: I take my head-coaching hat off and put my general manager and president hat on. It’s all about business now. At the end of the day, we’ve won two championships, which I’m very proud of. I’ve got a great staff and a great bunch of players. But now, it’s a matter of selling this product to the community. I’ve never had that role before so I need a lot of advice from people who know this community. One of the reasons I moved here permanently is to be a part of the community. I need people who know what we need because I’m not a marketing guy or a ticketing guy, but I’ve been in the game long enough to know some of the strategies.When they named me general manager and president, I said, “My main job will be to hire good people who have the expertise,” just like when I hire a defensive line coach. And then, I can’t micromanage. I need to let them do their job.

How big is your staff?

We have a coaching staff of eight full-time assistants and two volunteers. I have three administrative people — personnel, football operations, those kinds of things. I have a trainer who has an assistant during the season, video, conditioning and all that stuff. We’re going to expand now, with a director of business. He oversees everything, from the aspect of ticket sales, marketing and public relations. He has all those people underneath him, working with him. We’re going to have our own full-time financial guy in the building to keep our records. So we’re growing as a staff and we need that. So it’s about 15-20 people.

After two years in the league, give a report card for how the UFL and the Las Vegas Locomotives are doing financially.

When they (the league) got into the business, like any business, you’ve got to figure for the first couple of years there are going to be losses. It’s just going to happen that way. In a true evaluation, we have not done the greatest job of marketing our product. The product on the field is outstanding. I’ve talked with a lot of guys in the NFL. We’ve had 11 guys sign to date with the NFL. But the people don’t know us. We’ve won two championships. But we know our market better than the league knows our market. So we have to be specific about how we reach them, which is why I have to hire three more people who understand that.

What’s the league’s growth strategy?

Our owners have a lot of money and a lot of love for the game. At the end of the day, they know they’re going to lose money Year 1, Year 2 and maybe Year 3. But after that, by getting new business, they’re going to grow if we have the right strategy. Bill Hambrecht, the owner (and co-founder) of the league, knows that the first thing you have to have is a good product. You can’t sell a bad product. Well, we do have a good product. Even the NFL recognizes that. It’s better than all the other leagues — the World Football League, the USFL, the XFL. We just need to market it correctly. I think That’s where we’re we are going into our third year. The NFL realizes they can get really outstanding players from our league. Those other leagues? They knew they didn’t have that ability.

Are there plans for any new franchises and where would they be?

We knew we wanted to expand into Norfolk, Va. But then they also realized that probably the two toughest markets to really break into were Orlando and Vegas because of the entertainment here and the lifestyle in Florida. But Omaha did awesome in ticket sales and support. So did Sacramento. So did Hartford (Conn.). They moved the Florida franchise to Norfolk. After we won two championships, they said, “We can’t move that team.” I think the people are starting to identify that we are a winner, so you can’t move us and they’re not going to move us.

This month, the Florida Tuskers — probably your team’s biggest rival and the UFL championship runner-up this year and last year — folded. How big of an impact will this have on the league?

I don’t think so because the basic concept is to stay out of the NFL areas. The second thing would be that they talked about Vegas, Orlando and L.A. Those are hard markets. They have great potential, however — and this is my opinion — you’ve got to be a winner. Florida will buy you if you’re a winner. Las Vegas will buy you if you’re a winner. Well, we’re the winner. We’ve won the first two championships. That’s hard to do in any league. I don’t care if you’re talking about football, basketball, baseball or women’s softball. It’s hard to win two championships. The first year was a waste for us because we were housed down in Arizona. We didn’t connect with Las Vegas. The second year — and this is why my assistant and I moved here — I think we had a better connection. As I go through this town now, I don’t care if I’m stopping at a gas station or a grocery store, a hotel or a restaurant, people are saying, “Coach … it’s great that you guys won two championships.” So I think we have a presence. Now, we have to grow it. It’s one of the toughest markets, but I think people like to be around a winner.

What’s the plan for getting more people in the seats for Locos’ game?

That’s what we’re working on now. As for the progression of things, the first year I was so engrossed in just getting the team operational and hiring coaches and stuff. The second year, we moved here, but it was late (in the season) and I didn’t get involved in those type of strategies. After the second year, my whole focus has switched to get people in the community. Ruben Herrera is a good friend of mine and has been here, he knows everybody and knows the marketplace. Half the time while he was beating me at golf today, we were talking about the market (laughs). That’s what I need and that’s where I’ve got to go right now.

Some of the other sports franchises in Las Vegas have expressed some of the same frustrations you have, that it’s hard to compete with so many other entertainment options. Has that been your experience?

Yeah, I think so, but what I’m trying to understand is the Las Vegas market and its mentality. I’ve told my friends that everybody comes to party in Vegas on the weekends. But there’s a community here, too, and the community here is very much involved with sports. They really enjoy it. I also think that every professional sports franchise has tried to start in Vegas. Women’s basketball, men’s whatever. They come to Vegas. There haven’t been very many of them that have lasted longer than two years. We’re in our third year and we’re operational. And, we’ve won two championships, so we’ve set ourselves apart.

Any thoughts about trying to hook up with the gaming industry to draw some of their people to the stands? Or is it geared more to Las Vegans?

It would be hard for me to answer that right now. What’s really interesting is that what drives a lot of people to the NFL today is the fantasy league. I think w We need to do a better job with that. But the people who put those things together don’t know our league well enough. But it still could be a huge attraction to people to play our league.

What’s the biggest difference between UFL football and what we see in the National Football League?

Name recognition. I spent 20 years in the NFL. I can’t tell you that all our guys could go into the NFL and start. But they’re worthy of being on a team and contributing. That’s what wins championships. But they don’t have the name recognition. And in football, you don’t see the person. They have the helmet on and all that equipment. Our league can’t make the mistake that just because the guy has the name that he’s still a great football player. We have really good football players and it’s indicative of the fact that so many of our players signed in the NFL. But they don’t have the name recognition or the aura of their team. Once that is attached, I think we’ll have that recognition. I have talked to no less than 12 to 15 general managers and heads of personnel who say, “That’s a quality league now.” The coaching, the playing, the skill of the players is why you see so many people signing. I think the public will catch onto that. The NFL gurus will tell you it’s better than XFL, USFL, World Football League, far above that.

There are a few differences in the rules between the NFL game and the UFL game. Important or not such a big deal?

It’s not that big. The difference there is that with five coaches and the commissioner, we decide the rules. We voted to have a tiebreaker that allows each team to have a possession (after regulation time has expired). It’s the right thing to do. We passed it like that (snaps fingers). In the NFL, they’ve passed it for the playoffs as a test case. I think they’ll pass it in the future. The NFL is slow to change things because they are the best. They have a lot of rules that are good and things aren’t going to change easily.

Fans have been critical of the NFL for discouraging excessive celebrations after a big play. The UFL limits celebrations to the end zone and on the sideline. As someone with experience in both leagues, what are your observations?

You have to understand that the fans are your supporters. Without the fans, we have nothing. (Former NFL coach and Cleveland Browns President) Mike Holmgren made a great statement years ago on the tuck rule. (The “tuck rule” is a determination over whether a ball dropped by a quarterback is a fumble or an incomplete pass.) What his comment was is that there’s a hundred guys sitting at a bar, following the game and they all think there was a fumble. We need to make that a fumble. Our fans speak loudly.

As far as celebrations are concerned, fans want to see that. That’s what life is about today. I’m not in that generation, but that’s what they want. And we let them do it all the time, so why are we penalizing them? There has to be some restrictions because you’ve got obscene gestures and sometimes they can cause fights because they embarrass the other side. Those have to be eliminated because you don’t want to have fights. After awhile, it’s tilted too much to the other side. As long as you’re not embarrassing the other team and it’s not an obscene gesture, let them celebrate. The fans love the creativity. TV loves it. And that’s what drives the league. You can deny all the other things, but the TV and the fan support drive the leagues.

The UFL is some players’ ticket back to the NFL as you’ve mentioned. Is this good for your league or bad? Don’t you potentially lose some of your best players?

We don’t want to be considered a minor league. We also understand that we don’t want to be considered a developmental league. We’re an alternative league. But we also understand that where we are in our growth is that we’re not going to compete financially with the NFL, we’re not going to compete with the media exposure, so we’re an alternative. We have a price point that says you can enjoy good football and watch our games. At the end of the day, if our players go to the NFL and make five times or 10 times as much as what we’re paying them, great. We’ll still get good players. Bill Hambrecht was a good friend of (former Stanford University and San Francisco 49ers C coach) Bill Walsh. And everybody would listen to whatever Bill Walsh said. Bill Walsh told him that there are enough good football players to put a great product on the field. Every year, he would cut guys and every year that I was in the NFL, we cut guys and I’d say, “It’s a tossup between the guy we kept and the guy we cut and the guy we cut might come back and play in the NFL.” So I agree with Bill Walsh. There are enough good players to put a good product on the field and there are enough fans who want them.

Bill Hambrecht has been a very successful business guy. A billionaire. He’s done some amazing things business-wise. But one of the things he said that made me feel the best was.: “I’ve got businesses and I know how to do businesses. But I’m now in the football business. And I want my football people to make the football decisions to make this work. And you’ve done the best job.” That meant a lot to me. It’s mainly because he’s trusted me and everything that Bill Hambrecht has been associated with has been successful.

What else does he do?

He’s in all kinds of things, very diversified. He’s taken a lot of companies public and he’s got the golden touch with them. He’s an investment banker and convinced Google to have an online auction for their initial public offering. Bill Walsh told him there’s definitely room for another league based on the fan support, the players available and the coaches available. It doesn’t have to compete with the NFL. He has a passion for football. He’s made so much money in all his other businesses that he can use it on that passion for football. And it makes me feel good and it drives me inside that I want to have a part in making this league work.

And I think we’re in a great town. I really do. Early on, there were questions about whether we could make it work in Vegas. Bill and I sat down many times and he said, “It’s a tough market … maybe too tough.” But when we won the two championships, people have to recognize that this is our marquee franchise. We’ve been fortunate and it’s not been easy. I want to make this work so bad that I don’t want to walk away from this right now. I love what I do. I’ve coached in high school, college and the pros and this is exciting to me.

Many football fans are chewing their nails over the prospect of a lockout next season. Would you view a lockout as a good thing or a bad thing for the UFL?

I’m kind of torn because I really don’t want to see an NFL lockout. I really don’t. It hurts the fans, it hurts the players, it hurts the owners … everybody. There’s no winner. But it would help us because we moved our season up to start the first week of August. If at that juncture, there’s no NFL, millions and millions of people who like pro football won’t see it. As much as I don’t like what’s going to happen, those people are going to turn sour. There is a significant number of people who are going to say, “I’m tired of the billionaire owners and the million-dollar players and I’m going to find something else to follow. And they’re football fans.

I read a comment in the paper by someone who said, “Well, I’m going to follow Major League Baseball and the (National Basketball Association) and I’m a football fan.” I’d love to call that guy and say, “You know what? There’s going to be a quality football league and quality football if you want to come. You don’t have to go to baseball, you don’t have to go to basketball. And you can get your enjoyment for football by following this league.” Anybody who really knows football is going to say, “That’s a good game. That’s a competitive game.” And there will be a percentage of NFL fans who will say, “I’m tired of this. I’m not going to support it anymore.” At the end of the day, I’ve still never understood how so many people can put out that money that it costs to go to an NFL game when they’re working an hourly wage job. They have to have a passion. And I love those people. I love ’em because they earn X amount and they’re putting up a huge chunk of their income to go to a game to just cheer for their team for the love of the game. And then, they see this strike or lockout and they say, “ I don’t like this.”

I’ve been on the inside of all of this — coach and playing and that’s all we focus on and people come out and they’re great and they have a good time. But I really sympathize with the people whose salary isn’t big enough to justify what they pay, but it’s their life. And they say, “These guys are making millions of dollars and the owners are billionaires. And they’re fighting over money when we’ve got to pay so much money to see them in a game. It’s not fair.” And hopefully, the people say, “You know, I can get just as much enjoyment going to see this game and I don’t have to spent anywhere close to the amount of money and they’re not going to have a strike.”

The NFL doesn’t look at Las Vegas too favorably because of sports wagering. As a new Las Vegan, what are your thoughts on gambling on football? Does it affect the integrity of the game?

I don’t think it does. I think there’s too much made of it. You always have to protect yourself that it doesn’t penetrate our team and the league where games are fixed. We’re a long, long way away from that. I’m not dissing the other leagues, but basketball and baseball could be fixed (easier than football). It’s incredibly different from football. I’m not saying that you couldn’t get to a quarterback or something, but there’s too many people involved in losing in football than there are in baseball or basketball. It’s really hard to fix football.

Earlier you referenced that the NFL embraces “fantasy football” leagues. Do you think fantasy football is a form of wagering?

Absolutely. Sure it is. Absolutely. No question about it.

But yet, you think fantasy football for the UFL would be a good thing.

I think it would be a great thing. But before we can take that step, they’ve got to grab the concept of the league and the teams. My son, who works for me here as director of football operations, was saying the same thing. “We need to get a fantasy football league for the UFL.”

The NFL also is very protective of its trademarks and the use of its intellectual property. Does the league go overboard by demanding that casinos refer to the Super Bowl as “the big game” and tactics like demanding that casinos not be shown in television ads running during the Super Bowl?

Personally, I think the Super Bowl has become a national holiday. It really has. I’m a football guy. You may as well make that day a national holiday because people go to parties and go to bars and restaurants. Their whole day revolves around the Super Bowl.

Do you think Las Vegas would ever host an NFL game such as the Pro Bowl or an exhibition?

It certainly could. The NFL’s attitude may be that because this is a gambling town, they don’t want to associate with it. With the NFL trying to protect the integrity of the league … I can understand that mentality. But I think it could still be good. In this town especially.

Yes, this town, because they’re coming to bet.

So is the NFL overboard on protecting that name, Super Bowl, because it’s grown into, in your words, a national holiday?

The NFL? Really?

OK, I can tell you’ve only lived here about a year because this is a controversy, year after year. The casinos can’t put “Super Bowl” on their marquees. They have to call it “the big game.”

Really? You’re kidding me. Sorry, I haven’t head about that. I remember that when we were in the Super Bowl, I was so isolated. I had been to the Super Bowl a number of times. But when we played in it, we were so isolated. I didn’t go anywhere. (Former Miami Dolphins C coach) Don Shula came to see me and we talked an hour or two in my suite and I had dinner with some friends and all that, but I didn’t do anything. The whole thing was about the game. We got beat, so it didn’t work. Maybe I ought to reconsider that. But you know, it’s such an event that you have to isolate yourself. I had so much security and protection around me that I just didn’t want to do anything. I just wanted to focus on the game.

Compare your Super Bowl experience with the UFL Championship Game in Omaha, Neb., last year.

From a football standpoint, it’s the same. The competitiveness, the intensity of it, the feeling … it’s the same. The only difference is that the world is watching the Super Bowl. But once you kick that ball off, as a coach, you’re just honed homed in on, “What have I gotta do? What have I gotta do?” It doesn’t matter whether you’re in the Super Bowl or the UFL Championship, as a coach, you still feel the same juice.

Given that Las Vegas is a relatively small market, do you think Las Vegas would ever host an NFL game such as the Pro Bowl or an exhibition?

It certainly could. The NFL’s attitude may be that because this is a gambling town, they don’t want to associate with it. With the NFL trying to protect the integrity of the league … I can understand that mentality. But I think it could still be good. And, there’s not a stadium in our venue here that could host one. The stadium would probably need to have a minimum of about 70,000 seats.

As a Broncos fan s I have to ask: Would you have accepted an offer from Denver to coach the team and be reunited with one of your Stanford protégés, John Elway?

You know, it’s a very hard question to answer and I mean this sincerely — you can ask any of my kids — I love this job. This job I have is as good a coaching job as you’re going to find. Does it bring the money and the notoriety and the glitz and glamour? No, it doesn’t. But I’ve been to the top of that mountain. I love this job. So it’s hard to answer. I love the Broncos. I have a great relationship with John (Elway, executive vice president of football operations for Denver). But there wasn’t just something that was driving me to do it. I would say that my personality is more of a pioneer than a historian and I really enjoy this. Deep inside me, I want to be a pioneer in this league to make this thing work. When I’m long gone, 20 or 30 years from now, that this league is working and it’s surviving and it’s productive and that I was one of the guys who made that happen, instead of being one more guy in a long list of something else.