My two sports reporting worlds collided the past two weeks. I run Dfwfootball.net which is mostly about semi pro football in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and I cover college football for Pegasus News in the DFW area as well as run this college football blog.
Fort Worth Avengers semi pro football team
Fans of major college football program do not think about semi pro football. I don’t think there is any disagreement to that, but fans of semi pro football usually watch all football. And, for a few players, there is the hope that he will one day play big-time football, whether it is in the NCAA or the NFL.
Rarely, however, does this move actually happen. Mostly, the best these guys will do is move up in to a league that has a little more status. Maybe they can get in to an indoor league where they might actually get paid something to play the game. Thus, semi pro football has its pay-to-play leagues and the play-for-play leagues. Even the play-for-play leagues pay very, very little.
The chances of making the NFL is so slim that it prompted one semi pro football owner to tell me that guys looking to get to the NFL should just go to college. They should walk on if they half to, because, as he said, “If they have it, they will make the team.” Nevertheless, there are the rare exceptions of guys moving up the ranks because of their play in semi pro football. Oklahoma linebacker Mike Balogun is one of those exceptions.
Balogun played in the North American Football Leauge (NAFL), which is one of the largest semi pro football leagues in the country, although, it appears he may have played in another league as well. I am unsure of the entire story, but the question is whether or not Balogun played past his 21st birthday in semi pro football. That will cost a player elgibility.
I first learned this back in the Spring when it happened to a player at Florida State, who as turns out, seems to have blown the whistle on Oklahoma. How nice of them!
So, normally, the college football fan wouldn’t think twice about this vagabond existence of traveling football with little money involved, but this year, when Florida State and Oklahoma take the field, it will most likely be on the minds of their fans and the college football community as a whole.
For you college football fans, when the Spring rolls around, and it’s “off season” time, look up the local semi pro football team, and go make a game. The team in your area might just be really good. You might enjoy the football. They still wear helmets, not leather, and they still play on a football field. Some even have dancers!
Most of these teams have websites, Myspace and Facebook sites and Twitter accounts. The owners are usually local, and they are not looking to build a $2 Billion dollar facility on your dime!
It has been said that, “any news is good news.” This might be true for semi pro football, and most likely, the NAFL.
