Iron wins a new fan with "football for the everyman"

Now, this is the kind of fun that everybody ought to experience.

The Milwaukee Iron. Football. Not hockey or soccer. Football! An American game. Up close and personal. You can see the ball and the missed blocks, the dropped passes, the stand-up tackles (there are lots of those).

It's football for everyman (and woman). It's cheap. It's loud. It's raucous. It's everything that football ought to be.

I love the NBA. But I didn't play basketball. I played football. Lots of football. I was still playing fast-rush flag football with guys half my age just a couple of years ago. I always had a gun for an arm.

And somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind, after watching the Milwaukee Iron play Friday night in an arenafootball2 showdown at the Bradley Center, I think I could play in this league. Even now. And so could my daughter, Alli, who knows the difference between a post and a fly pattern and has soft hands.

That's a big part of the charm of the Iron. They aren't all that good. Not much better, in fact, than you and me and your girlfriend or wife and the guys you played with in your backyard. Watch them and you'll think you might be able to play with them.

God, it's fun.

I love the Packers and I love the NFL. But those guys are created by God and there's no relating to them. The guys on the Iron could be the accountant at your office, the cop on the beat or the guy who takes your cash at the convenience store. Despite the dreams and big talk, the odds that any of these guys is the next Kurt Warner is beyond astronomical.

Don't let that stop you. There's a lot to like at the games.

One of the top reasons to check out the Iron is the Platinum Dance Team. This is the best-organized team on the field. The dancers have more discipline, better moves and more focus. Two hours before kickoff, they were on the field with a very cute field marshal with a Mr. Microphone shouting at them: "Five, six, seven, eight. You girls on the 15. Watch your line!"

The Platinum Dance team is spectacular. One guy who remembers the old Milwaukee Mustangs said, "The slut factor has gone way down with this team, but they're much better looking." He might be right, but they are still very, very sexy and I'd think about bringing very young kids to a game.

I was struck by a couple of other things that were overwhelming.

There are minor league teams that have products I don't much care for but that have great, great organizations. The Admirals and Wave come to mind.

Then there are minor league teams that have an outstanding product and an organization that just gets in the way. That's the Milwaukee Iron.

The Iron seemingly has dozens of employees walking around with matching shirts and those little radio things that Secret Service guys wear. Yet they can't get even the simple things right.

First of all, I asked one of the staff guys about the team's lease at the Bradley Center. He told me to "go ask the owner in his box, but wait till he's all liquored up and he'll tell you anything you want to know." Huh?

Then came game time. More problems.

They had a gorgeous Marine Corps color guard, but whoever had the job of getting some light on them missed his chance so the flag and the fighters were in total darkness.

Then, the public address announcer introduced "one of the best guitar players in Milwaukee," Robert Allen, to play "America the Beautiful." It sounded gorgeous, but, again, no light, so it could have been a recording, for all we knew. Nobody could see this guy.

I understand the economic imperative for sports today. But the Iron carry it to an absolutely ridiculous extreme. Throughout the game, the public address announcer reads commercial message after commercial message after commercial message. You'd have to go to a game to truly understand how utterly interrupting this is.

I wanted to know which opposing player broke up that pass play or who made that tackle. But he never, ever told us about that. Instead we heard about Usinger's, or Open Pantry, or Hal's Harley-Davidson or chicken wings, on and on, ad nauseum.

They've got tricycle races and people getting dizzy and then trying to walk and parachutes dropping from the rafters. And all this junk gets in the way of the real fun on the field.

There's an air of pandering about all the doo-dads at an Iron game. It's as if they're saying, "If you don't like this, just wait a second and maybe you'll like what we've got next."

Having said all that, I really think that anybody who likes football ought to go see the Iron. The show on the field is just so damn much fun.

These guys try the way we all tried when we played. They don't always hustle back to the huddle. The head coach stands on the field and the quarterback goes over to him before every play. There is hardly any running. The Iron has a guy who plays running back and linebacker. He's 6 feet tall and weighs 305 pounds. Jerome Bettis was The Bus. This guy, Tyre Young, is a fleet of buses.

The Iron has a chance to carve out a reputation for a good use of your discretionary entertainment dollar. Ticket prices are very reasonable. And watching these guys play is a thrill. Sure, arena football doesn't seem to be a growth industry, but this version ought to be.

If I were running the team, I'd tell the public address announcer to put a cork in it and stop acting like a shill outside a circus tent trying to get us to stop in and see the fat lady and the guy with a beard made of snakes.

Just give me some hot dogs, a beer and some football and get out of my way. Nobody buys a ticket to see indoor parachutes drop with free T-shirts attached.

They buy tickets to see football and / or the Platinum Dance team. Both very good values.