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Sherdrick Bonner was early in his three-sport college career at Cal State-Northridge in 1987 when the Arena Football League was established.
Do you think that at the time he was dreaming of a 15-year playing career with the Arizona Rattlers?
"I had no idea about it," Bonner said of the league. "I was planning on playing baseball. On a whim, I thought it would be fun and exciting. It worked out."
Rattlers coach Gene Nudo never figured the league would survive beyond that inaugural season, when he was part of a group of men who chose up sides during one large camp. Four teams - the Denver Dynamite, Chicago Bruisers, Washington Commandos and Pittsburgh Gladiators - came out of that camp and played a six-game schedule. The Gladiators, now the Tampa Bay Storm, is the last of the original four franchises still in operation.
Assistant coaches didn't know which team they'd be coaching until after the players were selected.
Nudo was an assistant coach of the Bruisers, whose backup quarterback was Sean Payton, now head coach of the NFL New Orleans Saints.
"Quite frankly, if you would have told me that we were going to be back the next year, let alone 21 years later, I would have told you you were nuts," Nudo said.
Even though it has vanished from network television after a failed three-year try with NBC, Arena ball, picked up this year by ESPN, is starting its third decade with average attendance exceeding 12,000. It is the second-oldest American pro football league, next to the NFL.
Since '87, there have been four commissioners, nine more indoor leagues, 14 franchise moves and 27 defunct franchises.
There are 19 Arena Football League teams and 31 af2 teams. Five NFL owners are involved in the league. Rock star Jon Bon Jovi (Philadelphia Soul), NFL Hall of Famer John Elway (Colorado Crush) and former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka (Chicago Rush) have ownership stakes, as do country music star Tim McGraw (Nashville Kats) and former NFL defensive back Deion Sanders (Austin Wranglers).
Ex-Arena player Kurt Warner became an NFL MVP and the face of an Arena video game.
Two years ago, the league set an attendance record with an average of 12,872 per game.
"It was a different game (in the beginning)," Nudo said. "We had 16 players. Everybody but the quarterback played both ways. It was a unique brand of football. There wasn't one team with a better system than the other. Everybody ran the same system.
"I'm very proud of where the league has grown to."
Pete Kettela, who has been the Arizona Rattlers' director of player personnel since the franchise began playing in 1992, said the league is attracting better players, even though it still competes with the Canadian Football League and NFL Europe for talent.
"The CFL, which used to be the answer if you didn't make the NFL, is not the answer anymore," Kettela said. "It's this league."
After players got more leverage to start this decade with the birth of collective bargaining and free agency, many players don't need to find full-time work in the off-season to supplement their income.
Each team has three franchise players who make close to $100,000. The Rattlers' three franchise players are Bonner, receiver Randy Gatewood and lineman Wendall Gaines, all of whom early in their careers brought in $400-a-week paychecks that got fatter with each win.
"Where it is now and where it could go, it's awesome to think about it," Bonner said.
Kicker Jason Cherry, who was with the Rattlers this week for a two-day tryout, would be happy just to make more than the $250 base pay he gets each game for the Johnstown (Pa.) Riverhawks in the netless (the Arena League has a patent on the nets) American Indoor Football Association,.
"Guys are just using this as a steppingstone to get up to this level," Cherry said.
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