RIP Arena Football League

It's not nearly as funny but definitely very cool

 

I missed the early days of the AFL, when tickets were a value and the arenas were full of families. I always intended to grow up to be a fan, and it just never took.

In 1993, I fell in love with my hometown team, the Albany Firebirds. Albany had a Yankees farm team, an upset-minded Siena College basketball team and a CBA team (more notable for its coaches than players). Glens Falls, an hour north, had the Red Wings' minor league team. Schenectady and Troy nearby had Div. 1 hockey. But this! This was different. It was fast and loud, and the fairly new Knickerbocker Arena had lights and sirens and all kinds of bells and whistles. And the team was good. Antonio Brown's dad was catching touchdown passes off the net. Kickers were banging it through openings the size of a garage door. Players would get tossed into the wall right in front of you -- like hockey with no glass.

I entered and won the team's contest for high school journalists (profiling their placekicker, who nobody else wanted to interview, turning it into a story how kickers are unappreciated). The prize was four free tickets and a BOGO offer. I ended up bringing 24 people to the game, and we tailgated beforehand in a disgusting parking lot a block away (now a McDonald's).

I was always planning to be a season ticket holder when I grew up. But then I did, and I worked on Saturdays. Then the team left town. I did, too. Then I came back to town, and the team did, too -- albeit with a new name and new owners. This time with $40 cheap seats and a crowd of mostly drunk, rowdy adults. I figured, well, maybe next year I'll get more into it. And tickets got even more expensive. And then the team folded. And my indifference has grown.

 

Kurt Warner got his start but hundreds of others kept their dreams alive playing in the arena league