A non-traditional look at football

Corey Costelloe.

Football season is starting and many immediately draw their thoughts toward and attention to the National Football League, NCAA or high school football. While the game is played on several different levels across the country and in some cases, the world, some folks forget just how many leagues there once were and variations of the game ... unless you lived through one, like I did.

As many of you are aware, I used to travel the country covering various sports via radio broadcasts, mostly at the college level but on occasion, I would be asked to fill in a professional league. This was the case back in 2007 when the Bakersfield Blitz asked that I fill in for a few weeks for some radio broadcasts.

The Bakersfield Blitz were part of the Arena2 League, back when Arena Football was so big they decided to start a league for teams in smaller markets. So, Bakersfield was one, and for the first few seasons it was pretty popular. But football is an expensive sport, and by 2007, the Blitz had undergone a couple of ownership changes. Matter of fact, the franchise was sold once, moved to Fresno and then a new group started another version of the Blitz in 2006, similar to what was done to the Cleveland Browns in the NFL.

But by 2006, the franchise was struggling, mostly with finances. They solved their problems by attempting to split shares of the team and sell a new stake every time they needed an influx of cash. It was an odd arrangement, even for a 27-year-old radio announcer who at the time was just beginning to understand the business side of sports.

I was asked to call a few games that summer and both being on the road, in consecutive weeks. I learned right away that the term "professional" football was used loosely. These players were paid about $200 a week and $250 if they won. I had two trips, one was to Huntsville, Alabama, and the other to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in what was then the brand-new Ford Center (now the Paycom Center) which I would return two about a decade later to call Cal State Bakersfield's only NCAA Division I Tournament game.) I was excited to take that long of a trip, but quickly realized this was going to be different than being with college kids.

Most of the players were nice enough guys. Some had other full-time jobs and just played football for fun, others were hanging on to this illusion that they still had a chance to make it in the NFL. It was a social experiment for sure. When we first arrived to the airport everyone was issued their per diem cash for the weekend trip, which was Friday travel, Saturday game, Sunday return. I watched as several players took their roughly $80 in cash and handed it over to their wives or girlfriends who then got in the car and left. The struggle was real. I watched one player not only hand over his money, but travel through the airports with a chocolate cake in a travel container, he ate that and only that all weekend.

The first trip to Huntsville was actually pretty entertaining. One, I learned that the players were fined $5 each time they were either late or didn't do what they were told. That money was kept by one of the assistant coaches and used on Saturday night after the game for beer purchases, which I joined the coaches in partaking with, along with a few players that evening after the win. Two, I learned that drugs in sports were not necessarily limited to the performance enhancing kind, given the amount of smoke in the hotel hallway and the nervous looks several players had on their faces when the K-9 units at the airports walked by.

Three, I learned that money was in fact a motivator for these lowly-paid athletes, so much so that coaches would pay $10 bonuses out of their own pockets to guys who recorded things like interceptions or tackles inside the 5-yard line on a kickoff. Back in those days I did not make more money than many people, but those players were certainly an exception.

The following week in Oklahoma City we landed under a tornado warning, so that was a fun night. The next evening the Blitz lost when the potential game-winning field goal was determined to be wide-right by the referee, but since it went above where the hanging goal posts were suspended, it was very tough to tell for sure.

We accidentally started a small incident that evening when a few staff members and I took one of the team vans out. Apparently the staffer who had the keys failed to return the van that evening at a decent hour, which the next day turned into a nearly-violent altercation in the airport between he and an assistant coach. Welcome to the big time.

The following season it was announced that the team was folding, to which I wasn't surprised. They had also fired the head coach after an embarrassing criminal incident involving some players that occurred on another road trip, which thankfully I was not part of. One of the assistants was given the temporary job. I traveled to Fresno to cover the final game. That interim head coach told me before the game that he had his travel trailer hooked to his truck in the parking lot and once the final whistle blew, he was disappearing in the Sierras for a few weeks.

I called the final game, and the final play for the embattled franchise. I packed the team broadcast gear away and left. The following week, several of us contractors who were owned money showed up for payment just to find the doors locked and naturally, nobody answering the phones. We were all stiffed. Luckily, I still had the radio gear, which then became my payment. I still use some of it today.

Arena football still exists on a small scale. They have tried reviving it several times, I believe their championship game this past season was played in a shopping mall. It was a fun game to watch, high scoring, hard hitting. If you take any sport and shrink the field down to the size of a cul-de-sac you will be at least entertained.

So, as this football season begins, I am reminded about those players, struggling to make it all happen in their own unique way. Given the challenges I saw first-hand on the road, and the others I could see from the broadcast booth, there was both a beautiful and an ugly side to each game. Part of me hopes to see a resurgence of Arena Football again in the future, but realistically, costs just don't seem to pencil out for the fledging sport. Meanwhile our eyes are diverted to other-more traditional forms of the game, and having been a part of both, I'm okay with that, too.

Corey Costelloe has covered NCAA, professional and local sports for more than 20 years as a reporter, broadcaster and athletics administrator. He advocates for the value of athletic competition and serves as the President of the Tehachapi Warriors Booster Club. He can be reached at [email protected].