Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 8, 1991 TAG: 9104080020
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK/ SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: RALEIGH, N.C. LENGTH: Long
The World League of American Football promised to be a lot of things, including different. At least it has succeeded on one count.
A.J. Greene wondered about this World when he stepped from a Barcelona airport jetway toward his first days as a Dragons' cornerback.
"The strangest thing was walking into that airport and seeing people walking around carrying machine guns," said Greene, a former All-ACC defender at Wake Forest. "With the Olympics coming there and the threat of terrorism in Europe, guys with machine guns are everywhere."
Not long after Greene was in Spain, he walked into a store to buy a Coke.
"Nine dollars for a Coke," he said. "Beers are $10. You don't drink much, you know?"
The World arrived on Tobacco Road on Saturday night, when woeful Raleigh-Durham made its home debut in a 26-14 loss to unbeaten Barcelona at Carter-Finley Stadium. The winless Skyhawks replace the NBA's Charlotte Hornets as the worst team owned by George Shinn.
Welcome to a World where everything seems to be in quadruplicate. With 10 teams spread over five countries, the signage outside locker rooms is in English, French, German and Spanish. It's like seeing double in bilingual Montreal.
On a wall outside the Skyhawks' locker-room door, one sign - presumably for the consumption of the Frankfurt Galaxy - screamed "ACHTUNG!" Another page was headed:
"DROGENBEKANNTMACHUNG"
In case you haven't run across that one in The New York Times crossword lately, it's German for "DRUG NOTICE."
There are a lot of reasons to call this NFL brainchild the "W-Laugh." The concept isn't one of them. The NFL thinks spring football will work. The USFL showed that, until Donald Trump and his buddies tried to turn the USFL into a fall challenger for the NFL.
The NFL also realizes there's a European market for its product. NFL preseason games across the pond have sold out for several years. In 1990, the NFL sold $50 million in merchandise if Great Britain alone.
WLAF President Mike Lynn said the league projected an average home attendance of 15,000 for the three European teams. It's still early, but the average after three weeks for foreign clubs, including Montreal, is 35,650. For the six U.S. franchises, the average is about 23,000. Lynn said the league's break-even attendance average is about 25,000. The league is averaging about 28,500 to date.
A charter WLAF franchise sold for about $10 million, and 26 of the 28 NFL clubs kicked in $500,000 for starters. The original investors figure to get back their money within a few years in expansion fees, because the WLAF is sure to grow, primarily outside the U.S.
The plan is for at least 16 teams, and growth also will help alleviate some of the current travel difficulties. This is a league that nicknaming Chris Berman could really love. The Brussels Sprouts. The Finnish Product. The Bonn Jovis. The Roman Gabriel. The Baghdad Bunkers. The Gaza Strippers. The Kuwait City Slickers. The Norwegian Cruise Line. The Seoul Train. The Zanzibar Flies. The Burma Shave. The Bern Ewerts.
San Antonio is building a new stadium - the Alamodome - for its team, the Riders. The U.S. figures to get at least a couple of more expansion franchises, too. Maybe Roanoke should go after one. How does the the Victory Stadium Racers sound?
Raleigh-Durham opened before 17,900, probably about what North Carolina State will attract for its spring game at the 47,000-seat stadium in a couple of weeks. Ticket prices were $9, $17 and $25. The Skyhawks tried to boost the crowd with a Jerry Lee Lewis concert before kickoff. Neither he nor the home team was great balls of fire.
"We've got to learn to win," said Gabriel, the Skyhawks' coach who's first head coaching job is in his alma mater's yard. "It's not like we lost to a terrible team out there."
He was right. Barcelona, somehow in the socialist state that is the WLAF, has cornered a ton of talent comparative to the rest of the WLAF. The Dragons got 133 yards on 28 carries from ex-Temple and Kansas City Chiefs running back Paul Palmer, who is sure to be in some NFL training camp in a couple of months. Former NFL lineman Bruce Clark heads the defensive front for Barcelona coach Jack Bicknell, who would still be at Boston College if he had recruited another Doug Flutie.
Although the WLAF was founded by the ultimate in capitalists, its chance to survive and prosper is based on its salary scale. The league pays the players, not the teams. Quarterbacks get $25,000, kickers $15,000 and all other players $20,000. There are bonuses available, too, based on starts, league leadership, all-star status, etc.
The most anyone could make - a running back with incentives - is $87,500. The difference between the USFL and the WLAF is you won't find a Herschel Walker or Kelvin Bryant in the WLAF. You will find players comparable to Flutie - such as former ACC quarterbacks Ben Bennett and Stan Gelbaugh - but they won't get his Trumped-up paychecks.
"Some guys will tell you that they're in this to get another shot at the NFL or a first shot at the NFL," said Skyhawks' starting linebacker Shawn Woodson, a Buckingham County, Va., native and former James Madison star. "But I think a lot of guys are like me. They just wanted to play football. They wanted to earn money for doing what they enjoy doing."
Sean Doctor was a Division I-AA All-America tight end at Marshall a couple of years ago. Released by the hometown Buffalo Bills twice, Doctor is a Skyhawks' standout at a position NFL teams call H-back. He already has a half-dozen offers to come to NFL training camps this season as a free agent.
"The No. 1 thing for most guys here is the opportunity to play," Doctor said. "There are 10 teams of 40 guys. That's 400 people who are employed who would be out of work. Just about every guy here has been in an NFL camp at one time or another, and some of us will go back and try again, and some of us will be back here again."
Doctor was so enthused when he scored the Skyhawks' first rushing touchdown of the season Saturday that he flung the ball into the stands. That's an automatic $100 fine, pretty steep at 5 percent of his paycheck for the night. Of course, in the NFL that move costs a player $500.
Another difference in this World is "Operation Discovery," a program that develops non-Americans in the WLAF. Each team has at least four "foreigners," and one of the Dragons is Barcelona's own Xisco Marcos, a 20-year-old wide receiver.
The Dragons went to Montreal and beat the Machine before moving to Raleigh-Durham, and Marcos, on his first trip to North America, was so taken with pancakes for breakfast that he ate them every day - seven pancakes a day.
The Skyhawks have two Soviet players, an Aussie quarterback and a Norwegian running back. Last week, Raleigh-Durham signed Joe Pizzo, a quarterback from Mars Hill College who now has collected checks from six different pro teams, including two in the WLAF.
So, the 'Hawks are the first team in pro football history with players from both Mars Hill and Moldavia.
Don't say the WLAF isn't big league, though. The World is getting about $16 million in TV money from ABC Sports and USA Network this season. Pro Set will produce WLAF trading cards later this month. Souvenir stands were selling WLAF and team shirts for the big-league price of $16 at Carter-Finley. The league has a 900 telephone "fan hotline" phone number. And sponsorship signage rings the WLAF fields, remindful of European soccer or Australian Rules Football.
There are rules you have to like, such as the two-point conversion option after a touchdown, the dare to return a kickoff because the ball only comes out to the 10 on a touchback, the discarding of the NFL's instant-replay officiating. Naturally, there are bugs to be worked out.
In a pregame ceremony Saturday night, five parachutists were to land on the Carter-Finley turf, with each skydiver wearing an insignia of a nation with a WLAF franchise. Perhaps in a payback for acid rain, the diver wearing Canada's colors landed in a clump of pine trees just outside the stadium. Then the Skyhawks, whose name is derived from North Carolina's first flight at Kitty Hawk, continued to have a tougher time getting off the ground than Wilbur and Orville.
"It's funny, some of the things that happen," said Barcelona's Greene, who was cut by Tampa Bay in Week 6 of the 1990 NFL season. "In Spain, they don't know much about football at all. At our first game, it poured rain but we had 20,000 people there and they cheered, but they don't understand.
"I think they think that every time we run or throw the ball, that we should score a touchdown, that we should get points, and then they seem a little disappointed when it doesn't happen. But they'll learn."
by CNB