Gladiators Take the Bite Out of Rattlers
Scott Miller
Thursday March 18, 2004
After an unsuccessful onside kick attempt by Arizona, quarterback Clint Dolezel led the Gladiators to a quick touchdown. Dolezel finished 34 of 51 for the day with 8 touchdowns, but that was not enough to get him offensive player of the game. That honor went to Marcus Nash, who accounted for 192 yards off on 16 receptions and four touchdowns. Nash’s performance was good enough to earn him this week’s league offensive player of the week as well.
The Las Vegas 7-0 lead was short-lived since the Rattlers tied up the game after a three-play drive, that ended 10:40 of the first quarter. In fact, the teams were never separated by more than a touchdown until the fourth quarter. After a safety at 13:10 and a touchdown at 8:12, the Gladiators had their largest lead of the game, 51-42.
Emotions got the better of the two teams, as evidenced by the 23 penalties in the game. This finally bubbled over at approximately 6:45 of the fourth quarter when Gladiator head coach Frank Haege was ejected from the game.
After the start of a Rattler drive, Tom Pace entered the game on offense for Arizona. Coach Haege began complaining to the officials that a penalty should have been called before the play was run. As Haege continued to object, a sideline warning was issued. Haege continued to try to get the penalty flag dropped. Then the referee ejected him from the game and Haege threw his head set several rows back in the stands, tore off his shirt soccer style, and stormed off of the field and out of the Thomas and Mack Arena. Rule 4.9 in the rulebook clearly specifies a 10-yard penalty for an illegal substitution, which Las Vegas thought applied when Pace entered the game.
The commissioner is expected to speak with Coach Haege and will review the game reports. Any decision on a suspension will be made after that process. There may have been confusion regarding Pace’s status or if his use constituted a substitution. Pace began the game listed as two-way player and was only used as a defensive specialist after both Arizona defensive specialists left the game—Hamin Milligan suffered a knee injury and Clarence Lawson was ejected for bumping an official. Rule 4.7 deals with specialists and has many clarifying examples, but none of them seems to cover a specialist being used to substitute for a player on the other side of the ball. Whatever the officials’ ruling should have been, they could have managed the game better, and should have given Haege an explanation before the play was run, even if that meant an official time out. If there are official time outs for television, why can’t there be a timeout to get the rulings on the field correct?
Former UNLV football player Lenny Ware started his first game for the Gladiators. He was activated when WR/LB Jeremy Wilkinson was placed on injured reserve with lower back strain, and he had a respectable day—four receptions for 48 yards—but what would have been his first professional touchdown was called back on a late flag for illegal procedure.
Ware’s best play of the game came in overtime when we caught a Clint Dolezel pass for 14 yards and a Las Vegas first down.
“To come back and play in front of the crowd that I played in front of in college, you can’t beat it,” Ware said.
The Gladiators’ next game is in San Jose against the SaberCats, who are currently ranked number one in the AFLWA poll. San Jose will definitely be favored, however the Gladiators have finally shown that they can do what it takes to win close games when they don’t make the costly mistakes. They had no fumbles, Clint Dolezel threw no interceptions, and special teams made no serious mistakes.
Scott Miller is a professional computer geek and talk show host in Las Vegas. His show is streamed live from klav120am.com on Fridays at 8PM. Archives of his show, The Usual Suspects can be found at his website.
