Stock Up on Ear Plugs, Arena Football Is Here

By BILL PLASCHKE

April 21, 2000 12 AM PT

And we were all so worried about Al Davis.

We should have been guarding against two fans slugging each other in oversized gloves on the 10-yard line on behalf of an anti-fungal spray.

We should have been wary of the pregame cherry bombs, the halftime hypnotist, the all-game rock music.

We were so concerned that the return of professional football to Los Angeles would involve a wacko franchise, we forgot all about a wacko sport.

Too late. It’s here. The Arena Football League. The Los Angeles Avengers.

Opened their regular season Thursday night at Staples Center.

I have just now recovered my hearing.

This is, perhaps, more than one could say for Avenger quarterback Scott Semptimphelter, who said that sometimes his most difficult opponent can be LL Cool J.

“With the music going between plays, sometimes it’s difficult to hear in the huddle,” he admitted.

So maybe that, then, is what the Avengers are avenging? Industrial ear plugs?

“I don’t think we’ve avenging anything,” said team owner Casey Wasserman, who is younger than some of my socks. “It was just a name that sounded good. We wanted something that goes with the area, and, you know, you couldn’t do the Los Angeles Smog or Los Angeles Riots.”

After being infiltrated with the X-rated billboards approved by 25-year-old Wasserman, we should be thrilled that he didn’t name his football team after a female body part.

The Avengers’ home debut, a 58-50 loss to the Carolina Something-or-Others, was pleasantly not as obscene as some of those signs.

It was, however, every bit as distracting.

The ball is a regulation football. The uniforms are those worn by regulation football players. The green carpet has yard markers.

Beyond that, though, what is being played is anybody’s guess.

“This is football in a blender,” said Rob Stanavitch, an Avenger tight end and defensive end.

For first-time fans Thursday, understanding the game might also require topping that blender with large amounts of liquor.

Sure, the league is in its 14th year and going strong. OK, so even Orange County had a team a couple of years ago.

But this being mostly a sport of medium-sized markets, with mostly players who fall under the NFL radar screen, one tends not to notice.

At least, not until it pulls up outside your house, opens its windows and turns up the volume.

So it went Thursday, when the return of professional football to Los Angeles included a guy who attempted a field goal from his team’s 15-yard line.

A guy whose touchdown dance lasted longer than his run.

Sixty-two points in the first half.

“If you’re a defensive guy, maybe you’re not going to like this,” said Stan Brock, the former NFL lineman and good guy who coaches the Avengers.

If you’re an 11-on-11 guy, you might not like it either.

Same with all you 100-yard field guys.

It’s eight on eight, 50-yard field, nearly everybody plays both offense and defense, with a typical possession that goes like this:

First Down: Long pass to a short receiver who gets hammered into a padded auto parts advertisement.

Second Down: Short pass to a fat receiver in the stands.

Third Down: Long run by a guy who gets tackled on the sidelines in front of a spike-haired youth who points down at him and repeats stuff he learned from those billboards.

Fourth Down: If you don’t score here, everybody gets fired.

The good news is, there is no punting, which means there is no punter. The fewer guys who stand around doing nothing, the better.

The bad news is, nobody will get to be the first to bounce one off Jerry West’s jersey.

I wouldn’t know a good Arena league player from a good usher--I didn’t truly believe in Kurt Warner until he hooked up with Isaac Bruce on a 73-yard pass last January--but Thursday’s most valuable player was obvious.

Guy by the name of Sam Lagana.

Yep, the executive director of the Los Angeles Athletic Club.

He is moonlighting as the Avengers’ public address announcer.

He makes Michael Buffer sound like Shaq.

A league that sells violent hits should be thrilled with the way this guy grinds his Rs.

The 10,718 fans bought it big.

“We’re trying to get everyone involved,” Lagana said.

That part, they got right.

For $110 a game--with the cheap seats going for $8--you can sit close enough to slap your favorite player on the shoulder pads.

After a kid made a great catch of a deflected pass Thursday, the Avengers’ Larry Thompson patted him back.

Then there was the scene you will not see in any sporting event not being choreographed by Kevin Costner.

After a kid caught a kick in the front row of the end-zone seats--a nice $20 ticket--a ballboy took the ball from him.

Brock immediately left the bench, ran down the field, and handed the boy another ball.

The best part of this experience is indeed also the purest part.

It’s that ball. You catch it, you keep it, a value of at least $40.

In the Avengers’ only home exhibition game, they gave away 36 of them.

Wasserman offered this stat. Unlike any other owner in town, he was smiling when he said it.

However, he was unapologetic about his not-so-family-oriented billboard campaign, which was discontinued with the start of the season.

“If I was the Dodgers, I would never do that, but I needed to make people aware of what we did and how we did it,” said the grandson of entertainment mogul Lew Wasserman. “This edgy campaign achieved those goals.”

It’s all in the way you look at it.

On one hand, former hero Todd Marinovich is playing for a local team again.

On the other hand, former hero Todd Marinovich is playing for a local team again.

On one hand, pro football is back in Los Angeles, with interesting rules, and fan-friendly players, in a nice building, with lots of music and entertainment and all the footballs you can catch.

On the other hand, one might actually start missing the Raiders.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: [email protected].