Are You an AFL Employee? Take a Break.
Dan Ryan
Tuesday June 24, 2003
Don’t do much. You’ve earned the right.
You’ve been through two seasons in less than two years. Thirteen months, as the Fabulous Baker Boy corrected your humble correspondent in the end zone of downtown Tampa’s beautiful St. Petersburg Times Forum.
You’ve gone from a 14-game schedule to 16 weeks, with none of the convenient byes. You’ve had to deal with Las Vegas being in your Eastern Division and hoping the schedule powers work in a trip next season when the realignment goes proper. You’ve had to baby-sit NBC crews and lament that their catering budget is three times yours.
That’s okay. Relax. Well, some of you will. I’m sure Danny White’s scowering the rulebook to see if the league has a tuck rule, or the anti-Marcum secret combination is concocting legislation that prohibits the backup quarterback to be declared an emergency QB so an extra two-way player can slide on to the roster. Hunkie Cooper’s agent probably has a message or two on his machine.
Unless it has to do with unpaid bills, or if you don’t have a hometown AF2 team to support, do only what you have to that’s Arena Football-like the next few days or so. Sadly, we must mourn in Orlando.
Heck, it’s relatively quiet sports-wise, so make the most of it until that quaint 11-man outdoor version of gridiron reappears -- the one with all the money, fans and the Gruden that looks like a Chucky doll.
“I’m going to sleep for ten days,’’ Baker kidded.
Not a bad idea for the deserving.
Dan’s ArenaBowl Diatribes
Tampa Bay’s Kelvin Kinney nearly became the Leon Lett of Arena Football on his second quarter 26-yard fumble recovery. Kinney drew a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct call for throwing the ball into the nets, and he may have still been in the field of play when the toss occurred.
Needless to say, Storm coach Tim Marcum wasn’t all that pleased, even though it gave Tampa Bay a 20-10 lead.
“It was foolish,’’ Marcum said. “We had a penalty for something like that the week before. I actually said, `Is there any dumbass that doesn’t know that’s against the rules?’ No one raised their hands, so I assumed that was covered.”
I just don’t get to use the term ``dumbass’’ very often. Sorry.
Pat O’Hara said that Sunday’s game “wasn’t his first barbecue” when it comes to playing the ArenaBowl. But how does the game’s key player spend the day before a championship matchup? “Painting my girlfriend’s studio,’’ O’Hara admitted. “Must have been eight hours on a ladder.”
How about a former Orlando Predator quarterbacking for the hated Tampa Bay Storm?
“It feels strange -- in a good way -- every time I put on a Storm helmet,’’ O’Hara admitted. “When I played in Orlando, you hated the Storm. Hated them, but respected them. You especially hated this guy’’, pointing to Marcum. “Now it’s `How do you like Marcum? Perfect for a veteran like me.”
Kudos to Storm PA guy Paul Porter for changing the signature “a moment of a silence’’ to “a moment of calm” before the trademark REO Speedwagon blaring.
Regarding T.T. Toliver’s quest for a ring: Perhaps it’s fitting that he’s headed to Green Bay for a tryout with the Packers. Wisconsin has some great cheese to go with all that whine about his not getting a Super Bowl ring as a Tampa Bay Buccaneer practice squad member. Just kidding T.T., props to a fellow Daytonan
Marcum on Toliver: “He’s faster than a small town rumor.”
Dan Ryan has been involved with all forms of arena football since 1988, including writing for ArenaFan when Joe Kauffman and Tim Capper aren’t killing his columns because they don’t get his jokes or perspective. His day job is at Bethune-Cookman University, which has produced both an NFL Hall of Famer (Larry Little) and an Arena Football Hall of Famer (Stevie Thomas) and his hobby is tracking how many f-bombs Adam Markowitz drops in the chat room on game nights.
