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From Page B-1
warming to show a tape of their last game, a 43-0 victory over a
team from Salem, Ore.
.....Rules, rules. The only thing that
rules right now is them, the Auburn Panthers, maybe one of the best
semi-pro (unpaid) football teams in history.
.....A victory this weekend against
Snohomish County at Mariner High, will give them 33 straight wins.
That's a national minor league record. It will break the one set
by a now defunct team from the same area, the Pierce County Bengals
of 1979.
.....They have outscored their four
Northwest Football Alliance opponents this year by 132-14. They
have not allowed a touchdown in 14 quarters.
.....Still not impressed? The Auburn
Panthers, in their third season, have never lost.
.....Excepting, of course, the occasional
fashion show or busted plumbing or, well, what's a little emotional
release among friends?
....."I come home in the winter
and yell at the old lady and the kids," said Ayers, a county
worker. "In the summer, I come out here."
.....Unlike most other football teams,
where players are listed by position, the Auburn Panthers are categorized
by shift.
.....Sima Memea, Tacoma Dome
maintenance, graveyard.
.....Twice
a week after the Panthers' two-hour practices - and sometimes after
their weekly Saturday night games - Memea goes to work. Eleven-thirty
pm. to 8 a.m.
....."Sometimes I come to work
half-dead, and the guys there think I'm crazy," said the 27-year-old
starting center. "I always tell my wife that after this game,
I quit. Then I come home and say no, not yet.
....."I can't keep this up for
very long. But I can't quit."
.....Fred Orns, construction
in South Everett, days.
.....The 25-year-old drives 110 miles
round trip for each practice. He comes home to a wife, two kids
and eight hours of work less than eight hours away.
....."Anybody ever tell me I'm
nuts?" he asks. "Yeah, just 10 minutes ago. I'm always
tired as hell. But I have to prove to myself that I was good enough
to make the big-time.
....."I can't go on the rest of
my life wondering. It's hard to quit. It's hard to stop following
your dream."
.....It
is a dream not shared by everyone in this league. While some of
the skills may be comparable to the NFL'S, the speed and quickness
and strength are
not even on the same ruler.
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Everything in
the seven-team NWF is relative. Even the Panthers' success.
.....Auburn is actually worried that
the other teams (Seattle, Eastside of Redmond, West Seattle, Snohomish,
Skagit Valley, SaIem) are getting tired of their domination. What
the heck, those guys could just form a new league next year and
deny Auburn admission
Funny? It's happened before, to that powerhouse Pierce County team
in 1980. Put them right out of business.
....."I
honestly don't know how much longer we can survive," said Panthers'
President Phil Pompeo.
.....They've shortened their path to
doom, in their three years outscoring their opponents 591-178. They
have committed the cardinal sin of a minor league football team.
They have tried to be something more.
.....Already they're the only available
team for players from the football-stacked corridor between Seattle
and Tacoma. More than 75 guys tried out this May, and although only
48 are eligible each week, as many as 60 practice.
....."Then once they get those
players, they keep them, which is unusual for this league,"
said Eastside General Manager Tony Softli Sr. "Last year they
went through two quarterback and still had a good quarterback against
us. I don't know where the heck these guys come from, but they never
leave."
.....That's because once Auburn gets
those players, they treat them like no sandlot you've ever known.
.....Funded by money from program ads,
tickets (about I000 per game) and even a hot dog stand at a recent
Auburn parade, they buy everything for their players but the insurance.
In their only overnight road game, in Salem, they exhibit the ultimate
decadence by paying for the players' hotel rooms.
.....Last season they produce their
games on KJUN radio in Puyallup, paying for everything including
$135 a game for the announcers. This season KAMT in Tacoma has approached
them about doing the season's second half.
.....There have been NFL players pass
through this league between teams, including current Auburn star
receiver Harry Washington (Minnesota, Chicago). But from here to
there is a step no player in recent memory has taken. Several have
received small college scholarships. But the roster of pro role
models is smaller than their halftime shows.
.."One
this I would love to see happen," said Michael Highsmith, the
Panthers' secretary and, not coincidentally, league
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commissioner.
"I would love for Mike
McCormack (general manager) to come out once, just once, just to tell
us they know we are here. That would mean so much.".....However,
letters from both Highsmith and head coach Terry Dion (former Seahawk)
have gone unanswered.
....."It's something you have to
accept," said Dion, a psychology major at the University of Oregon
who now makes yogurt. "More than anything, this league fulfills
a physical and emotional need the players have. Compared to how restrained
the rest of their lives are, this is their outlet.
....."It's important that most of
the players realize this is the level that is perfect for them."
And after all, this is still a league where last year two players
were banned for fighting. Players on the same team fighting each other.
Fighting with a crutch.
.....Another time last season, a game
was canceled because one of the stadiums claimed to need the day for
resurfacing. He-haw. Just kidding. They never did the work, and the
never played the game.
.....How about the highlight of the last
Panthers' season, when they took their NWF title to California to
play its semi-pro champs from San Jose. Auburn won 14-7. Oops. Sorry.
Immediately afterwards the entire California League, including San
Jose, disbanded.
.....Or take their star linebacker that
first season, former UCLA starter Brad Plemmons. He was so excited
about playing for the Panthers; his pregame rituals would include
cold showers. In his first outing he made 15 tackles and intercepted
a pass to win the game.
.....Four games later he was gone, vanished,
archives, visible only through phone calls from angry business associates.
.....It seems as Auburn has gotten better,
and the league has gotten more upset about it, problems have gotten
worse. Finally last week their 22-0 win over West Seattle was called
with two minutes left because of four personal fouls within a 35-second
span. Mutt Haugen doesn't fight that much in 35 seconds.
.....Washington, 30, the league's MVP
in 1984 and offensive MVP in 1985, spent the day after last year's
championship game in a hot tub, draining the water when it cooled
and filling it up again. He was sore and suffering from two weeks
with the flu. He stayed in the tub only because it hurt too much to
get out.
....."But you know, I felt like
a champ," he said. "And I could have just won the flag football
title. But I was a champ. And you never forget that feeling."
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