March 25, 2001
LA Xtreme 35 - Vegas Outlaws 26

Yes, I actually attended my first XFL game. I had a great time.

No, it wasn't the greatest football game of all time, but it was MY TEAM out there. For once, I had a sense of belonging while watching a sports team. Of the many sports out there, I enjoy baseball and football. I can appreciate an occasional game of basketball or hockey. I'll even watch rugby, soccer, or luberjacking of ESPN if it is interesting. But I'm kinda partial to baseball and football.

I went to a small engineering college in upstate New York. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute was the first engineering college in the country and is one of America's top 50 universities. However, you will never hear the RPI Engineers mentioned on ESPN highlights. Yes, the hockey team is Division 1, but the rest of the sports are Division 3. As a result, I have no college team to root for that I truly call my own.

In professional sports I am similarly screwed. In Los Angeles, my beloved Dodgers are owned by the anti-christ himself, Rupert Murdoch. He's not even an American! His management team has driven the team so full of talent into the ground at light speed.

Los Angeles has no NFL team. The fine city council is so caught up on paying back their big money donors that they can't agree on who should get the rights to even approach the NFL about a team. Morons.

Lakers, Kings, yah yah yah. Well, I dig me some Shaq, he got the kinda style I like, but without my beloved Dennis Rodman, it's fairly dull. When the Lakers are in the championship series, I'll tune in like any good bandwagon fan, but I still won't know the players... Nope, Lakers and Kings aren't really my teams.

So along come the Los Angeles Xtreme of the XFL. They are my team. Their quaterback, Tommy Maddox, went to UCLA. They play in the Coliseum. They have hottie cheerleaders. And best of all, they are top of their division and headed for "The Big Game at the End" for a chance at the $1,000,000 bonus.

They even have a sense of humor. Even my lunkhead brother knows of "He Hate Me", the phrase emblazoned on the jersy of Vegas Outlaw running back, Rod Smart. For Saturday's game, a LA player had his jersey reworked to "We Hate He". The crowd loved it and we chanted it over and over. When was the last time the prima donna athletes of the NFL showed an ounce of wit or humor? I think Tagliabue has specifically disallowed humor in the antiseptic NFL.

So I'm happy. I went, I drank beers, I at peanuts and tacos (we're in LA for chris'sakes), I oogled the cheerleaders, and cheered for my winning team.

Unfortunately, I won't be at the next game. Yep, I'll attend 1 of 5 games this season. It seems my wife has arranged for us to fly to Cincinnati during the same weekend as the Xtreme's last game. My lunkhead brother is laughing outloud at this point, but I don't care. There's still the playoffs baby!

Posted by michael at March 25, 2001 09:14 AM