How James Romain Went From Alaska to the Philadelphia Soul's Franchise Interception Leader
Harrison Brown
Wednesday May 29, 2019
“I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the Northern Lights,” Philadelphia Soul defensive back James Romain said to me. “Nah not really,” I said, thinking it was a fancy type of lamp or something. “The Northern Lights are like hot casts, the cold air and the warm air mix together and the air changes color. It’s like green, blue, it looks like something magical. If you’ve got the chance Harrison, google the Northern Lights. Like it's…beautiful,”
Google showed a nice display of images for the Northern Lights, but Romain saw the phenomenon in person during his first season of Indoor Football with the Fairbanks Grizzlies in 2011.
Fairbanks Alaska that is.
Romain spent just one season watching the Northern Lights in the Alaskan sky, and another in Green Bay before making the jump from the IFL to the AFL and signing with the Philadelphia Soul in 2013. He’s played for the Soul every season since and currently has thirty-four career interceptions, the most in franchise history. Even after all the success and a few championships during his time in Philly, Romain still remembers the freezing cold beginning to his professional football career in Alaska.
“Ohhh Fairbanks Alaska was, oh man, it was different. When I first got out there, first of all there was snow everywhere, there was four feet of snow and the ground was about three to four inches thick of ice on the concrete. You’re literally driving on ice and snow the whole winter,”
“When we got out there it was probably like five hours of sunlight a day. Adjusting to that was kind of different. We would wake up around like 10 AM and it was still dark outside. We would go to practice and we’d come out and the sun would be up but then it would set around 3:00 or 4:00 PM,”
“It was kind of tough adjusting to that, and then as time went on, it became 24 hours of sunlight. That was really tough to adjust to because you literally lose track of time. You’ll literally think it’s the afternoon and look at your clock and it’s midnight and it looks like it’s high noon outside,” Romain said.
I felt like James was teaching me an entire lesson on science I’d never received during my years of public-school science classes. How was it not mentioned that in Alaska the sun happens to be out for three hours some days and twenty-four on others? Seems like something Bill Nye should’ve mentioned. Maybe he did and I just wasn’t paying attention, anyway,
James Romain’s Alaskan adventure story gets even more interesting:
“Tyron Hurst and I actually saw a UFO. We were going to get something to eat, the team gave us cars out there and I was driving. We had the radio playing but when we pulled up to the light the radio started getting staticky, and you could hear something talking through the radio but it’s not English. It was a weird noise and I’m banging the radio like, ‘what’s wrong with the radio man?’”
“Then in front of us was like this weird light hovering over a tree probably like a hundred or two hundred yards away from us. I just stopped and I’m looking at it, then I could see Hurst, he was on his phone and then he looked at it also and he was like…. ‘What the f**k is that?’ As soon as he said that the light stopped, it got bigger, and then it pulled off into space in 0.2 seconds and disappeared,” Romain said.
If those aliens out in Fairbanks were building an arena football team in space, they’d have been smart to grab James Romain to come and play the middle-man position for them. Romain’s been covering the high motion in Philadelphia since 2015 and while I’m not sure about the talent of those space martian football players, I doubt any of them could get open on Romain.
Jokes aside, Romain’s speed and quickness out of his breaks have made him a dominant middle-man in the AFL. He’s had that speed and quickness his entire football career, but what didn’t come naturally for Romain was the mentality it took to be a defensive back in Arena Football. The sport is designed for the offense to score quickly and frequently, which is awesome for quarterbacks and receivers who light up the stat sheets.
But defenses in the AFL are much more handicapped by the rules, limiting them in what they can do. Jack linebackers can only go so far outside of their “box” to help in coverage, and the defensive back covering the motion is covering a receiver running at him with a full head of steam.
While he’s made countless highlight plays including two pick sixes’ in week one of this season, covering the motion on almost every play is not an easy task. Every middle-man in the AFL will allow multiple touchdowns during a season, and Romain isn’t immune to that.
“It was really tough at first, coming from the outdoor game and not getting scored on much and taking pride in that. If you’re a shutdown corner you don’t give up many big-time plays. Coming into the indoor game and having to adjust to that was more of a mental thing, not necessarily a physical thing. I knew what I could do and what I could possess as an athlete and as a corner,”
“My first year in the IFL I had a pretty successful year, I had twelve interceptions, I got scored on a couple of times, but the vets would always tell me you’ve got to live and forget. Whether you get scored on or make a big play the person is coming back for revenge or to do the same thing they just did to you. I had to get that mindset of the next play, whatever happens, happens,” Romain said.
Romains rookie year in Philadelphia came at the height of the Arizona Rattlers versus Philadelphia Soul rivalry in 2013, a year in which the Soul’s roster was loaded with talent. The Soul lost the Arena Bowl that year, but the experience Romain gained from being a member of that team was extremely valuable. During his first two seasons with the Soul he played frontside corner, but covering the motion always caught Romains eye.
“Frontside corner was like home to me, it was like outdoor football. I was able to read three-step or five-step and basically play regular cornerback football. After a while it became boring to me because I saw that all the action goes to the safety. I wanted to play safety and coach would have me play scout team safety in practice. I started to learn and understand the game and understand angles and how to play the position,”
“I want action, I want to be able to run with the fast guys, I want to cover the motion, I want to be known. You can make a name playing frontside corner, but everybody remembers the safety’s in this game. I feel like I’m a dominant athlete, a game changer, a playmaker, I would say an impact player,” Romain said.
Romain didn’t have the opportunity to immediately begin his AFL career in the middle because the Soul had Arena Football great Rayshaun Kizer covering the motion. Kizer will be most remembered for his time in Orlando, including the 2011 season in which he set and still holds the AFL’s single season interception record with sixteen. After that season Kizer signed with the Soul and spent three seasons in Philly, including two with Romain.
“Me looking up to Kizer, I still believe Kizer is one of the greatest to ever play the game and the position. I still feel like there’s things that I’m catching up to him on. When I came in Kizer knew so much, he taught me the game of watching film and how to critique a certain athlete when you’re going to play against him. How to study and become a defensive coordinator instead of just a player,” Romain said.
Quickly Romain went from Kizer’s understudy to the defense’s leader, starting his career in the middle with ten interceptions and first team All-Arena awards in 2015. He manned the middle during two title runs in 2016 and 2017 and won the Defensive Back of the Year award in 2018.
“As a youngster I always said, ‘Yo I wanna stick around, I wanna be around.’ Playing in Alaska and in Green Bay, my family didn’t get to see me play much. They couldn’t just say oh we’re coming to the home game this week. I always said I’m going to do what I’ve got to do to stay close to my family. Work hard, dominate, and make my plays here with the Soul so I could be around,”
“By the grace of God, I’m happy that I have had a long career and coach Dolezel and the organization kept me around. There’s not a lot of guys who get to stay with one organization for so many years,” Romain said.
The year it all started to really click for Romain was that 2015 season when he moved from frontside corner to playing the middle. That was the first season he was named to the first team All-Arena list, an achievement he also accomplished in 2017 and 2018. Despite his first mentor Kizer leaving Philly, the Soul added a new legendary defensive back in the AFL to the organization, Derek Stingley.
“When I first started playing the middle we had coach Stingley. Coach Sting instilled something into me and every other DB that was here at the time, that we were like the greatest in the league. If you come to Philly, you're considered a great DB. He always would tell us like, ‘Yo dude, you’ve got that quick twitch, can’t nobody run with y’all,’”
“That put us in a mindset like, if you come to Philly somebody has to get DB of the year, and it’s a competition between us. Like I’m going to try and get more picks than you this game bro. I’ve got two picks, Hollis has one, and they’re trying to catch me now and I like that,” Romain said.
Stingley left after just one season and coach Bernie Nowotarski has done a great job as the defensive backs coach since. The last three Defensive Back of the Year awards have gone to the following players:
2016: Tracy Belton Philadelphia Soul
2017: Dwayne Hollis Philadelphia Soul
2018: James Romain Philadelphia Soul
“We run man coverage a lot, most teams don’t play as much man as us. Just that alone, teams have to scheme against playing man coverage. You’ve got to take pride in that, and we take pride in that. We feel like if you’re not getting picks in man you can’t be the best in the league. One-on-one, who's going to win? Here in Philly we play man, so if you can’t play man and you want to come to Philly it’s going to be bad for you,”
“There are things that I want to accomplish in this league. I think the way I’m playing, the way I’m moving, and my mindset I think these things are going to be very accomplishable within the next few years. With age I just have to keep maintaining my body, and I’ve just got to watch more film and believe exactly what I see,” Romain said.
The Soul haven’t started 2019 like they’d hoped currently sitting at 2-3 and on a three-game losing streak. Despite this skid there’s a core group of veterans on the Soul’s roster that have everyone’s expectations high in Philly. There’s a long road ahead but having the two-time champ Romain covering the motion and leading the defense is a huge advantage for the Soul.
“Come together, believe, and just go hard. You’ve really got to believe that you want it, when we won those championships we really believed that we wanted it. I’ve been there three times and I’ve won two. I’m trying to get another one. I want a whole jewelry case full of rings,” Romain said.
Harrison Brown is a college student who has been covering Arena Football since he was 12 years old and has been with ArenaFan since 2014. Harrison was a captain of the varsity football team during his senior year of high school and went on to play one season of Division III football in Massachusetts. Harrison has worked for two indoor football teams, in 2018 he was the Director of Player Personnel for the Jersey Flight and in 2016 he was the Color Commentator for the Philadelphia Yellow Jackets. You can follow Harrison on twitter @HarryBrownRusso.
