Kuharich Makes No Excuses for Opening Defeat
Andrew Mason
Sunday April 15, 2001
It`s hard to blame him. His re-christened New Jersey Gladiators had just seen their first game under a new identity slip away in the second half, as a six-point halftime deficit mushroomed into a 31-point loss.
If there was anything beneficial to come out of the setback, Kuharich didn`t see it.
"I don`t think so," New Jersey`s head coach glumly assessed when asked about whether he would take any positives from the 52-21 season-opening defeat to the Carolina Cobras in front of 3,542.
On can never accuse the ArenaBowl VII-winning head coach and veteran of seven AFL seasons of being anything less than honest. But his honesty is bolstered by the fact that his standards, along with those of quarterback Connell Maynor and leading receiver Lawrence Samuels, remain high.
All have been integral components of ArenaBowl-winning clubs: Kuharich as the coach of the 1993 Tampa Bay Storm, Samuels as a key contributor to Tampa Bay`s 1995 and 1996 title-winners, Maynor as last year`s ArenaBowl MVP. They are surrounded, however, by a team as green as the Gladiators` brand-new turf field -- an active roster that includs more Arena Football League rookies (eight) than members of last year`s Red Dogs squad (seven).
Making matters worse is the fact that the Gladiators` 11 penalties seemed to come at the most inopportune times -- none worse than when Maynor`s touchdown pass to Samuels in the last minute of the second quarter was overturned by an illegal shift infraction on rookie Asa Francis.
The touchdown, plus a successful extra point by reliable kicker Steve Videtich, could have given the Gladiators a 28-27 lead going into halftime. Unfortunately, the ensuing third-down pass fell incomplete, and Videtich, returning to New Jersey for the first time since 1999, missed a 29-yard field goal try to squelch New Jersey’s momentum.
"When you`re not good enough, you can`t give away points that you attain because you make errors," Kuharich said. "Then it gets out of hand, and it`s a question of when the bubble bursts, and that`s what happened."
On the plus side, the Gladiators demonstrated an opportunistic streak, scoring one touchdown on a missed field goal and nearly setting up another by recovering a Cobras fumble late in the second quarter. Additionally, their intensity didn`t wane even as the deficit climbed, as evidenced by the scrum that ensued on a Cobras possession late in the final quarter.
The sum of those hustle plays just wasn’t enough to overcome 11 penalties and a brutally efficient performance by the Cobras` Fred McNair, who shredded the Gladiators defense for 254 yards and six touchdowns while connecting on 83.9 percent of his passes.
"It`s a tough loss," Kuharich concluded. "But clearly, we`re not good enough -- it`s that simple."
BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE: A side note: Although the Gladiators weren`t burning up on the field, I was doing so behind the dasher boards -- literally.
Oblivious to the heat coming from my right shoulder in the moments following the national anthem, I worked on getting my digital camera powered up to shoot the night`s action. Approximately 35 seconds after the fireworks had gone off, I glanced to my right and saw a tiny flame spewing from my sweater vest, a fallen remnant of the fireworks from the rafters that had properly accompanied the Star-Spangled Banner.
In a lifetime in which I have played many sports poorly, it gave me a chance to accurately say "I`m on fire!" for the first -- and only -- time.
Andrew Mason was at the Tampa Bay Storm`s first home game on June 1, 1991 and has followed the game ever since. While in college, he served as content editor and co-founder of The Storm Shelter, a Web site which covered the Tampa Bay Storm on the Internet from 1996-99. He also volunteered with the team`s media relations department in 1998 and currently contributes to ColoradoCrush.com. He's covered the NFL for various on-line outlets since 1999.
