By Max Sass, Assistant Sports Editor
The fall is football time in America, and the upper management of the new United Football League is well aware of that. The league plans to supplement the full complement of NFL action, with games on days of the week other than Sunday, believing that no football fan can ever get too much pigskin.
According the league's website, the UFL "will offer real, 11 on 11, outdoor professional football in NFL quality stadiums/venues." The "Premiere" Season, as the league has branded their first, will feature four teams playing a six game schedule. The season will conclude with a championship game November 27th in in Las Vegas.
The four teams are the New York Sentinels, California Redwoods, Las Vegas Locomotives and Florida Tuskers. The league brings credibility by featuring head coaches of all four teams with significant NFL coaching experience, including former New York Giants head coach Jim Fassel, now the man in charge of the Las Vegas Locomotives.
New York's team, the Sentinels, are owned by William E. Mayer, co – founder and partner of the investment firm Park Avenue Equity and coached by Ted Cottrell, the former New York Jets defensive coordinator. The Sentinels feature former NFL players Quinn Gray (Jacksonville Jaguars, Kansas City Chiefs) and Simeon Rice (Arizona Cardinals, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Denver Broncos, Indianapolis Colts).
Rice, 35, a 6' 5", 270 pound defensive lineman who played for 4 NFL teams over 13 seasons, declared himself "a superhero with no one to save" this past May while searching for an NFL city to call home, but has seemed to have settle down nicely in the UFL. "It was a good situation," said Rice. "It was a great opportunity for me. Though I had nothing but success, I had a lot of hesitation coming off my surgery and I felt the best way to show everyone I was 100% was to play [in the UFL]."
Rick Mueller, formerly of the Jacksonville Jaguars and New Orleans Saints, is the Vice President and General Manager of the UFL.
Mueller feels that the UFL, as compared to the NFL offered "a little more accessibility. You have an affordable ticket price. NFL games are expensive, our games are not." Mueller also confidently stated that, "We offer NFL caliber players. The normal person off the streets would not be able to tell the difference."
The Sentinels have no home stadium and will play games in Giants Stadium as well as Rentschler Field in Hartford, Connecticut. The New York-based team will also play one game this season at James M. Shuart Stadium. The game, to be played Wednesday November 4th at 7 PM, when the Sentinels host the Locomotives. The league is offering Hofstra students, with their student IDs, free admission to the game. "We would love to have all the Hofstra students," said Mueller. "Just as a kind of thank you for letting us use their stadium."
Jay Artinian, Associate Director of Athletics for Facilities at Hofstra was happy about the UFL's choice to play at Shuart Stadium. "I think it's a good fit for both [Hofstra and the UFL]," said Artinian. "I think it's a good location for the United Football League and it is good for the University to have a pro team play at our facility."
Rice, who had collected 122 quarterback sacks and three Pro Bowl appearances in his time in the NFL did not have an issue with playing in front of only the 13,000 fans Shuart Stadium can accommodate. "Game to game, if you are a football purist, football is the same," said Rice. "When you take all the glitz and glamour away from the NFL, you have the same kids who play this game because they love it and that is why I am playing this game."
"I checked the Pro Bowls at the door, a decade of diamonds and came in with the mentality," said Rice. "We will represent your city of New York the right way and number 2, I will give you a thrill." Rice and the UFL brass believe that UFL games are worth watching. Versus and HDNet are betting on that as well, signing a deal, believed to be for two years and worth $70 million, to televise UFL games. Hofstra students have the opportunity to test the product live and in person for free on November 4th; all they need to do is show up with a student ID.