Columnist John Katsilometes: She’s not a typical Outlaw

Monday, Dec. 4, 2000 | 8:27 a.m.

John Katsilometes is the Sun features editor. His column appears Mondays. Reach him at kats@lasvegassun.com or 259-2327.

So it was that we converged on Studio 54 at the MGM Grand last week. The event was the "unveiling" of the leather-enveloped cheerleaders for the Las Vegas Outlaws. Yee haw.

The Outlaws are our entry in the XFL, the new professional football league founded by Vince McMahon of the World Wrestling Federation. As is customary for any professional sports team, cheerleaders ring the sidelines and cheer, dance and jiggle their stuff about.

Perhaps coincidentally, their glee usually bubbles over after a positive development for the home squad.

The male-dominated audience fairly salivated over the Outlaw cheerleaders, decked out in sadistic, cleavage-boosting black outfits and a healthy slathering of makeup. Each member was introduced to the throng as strobes flashed the Studio 54 stage. The group performed a rollicking dance number and dutifully posed for photos with the assembled VIPs (which, in some cases, stood for Very Intrusive Perverts).

The Outlaw cheerleader I found most intriguing was Paola Armeni, who is in her first year of law school at UNLV. She's also the daughter of Southern Wine & Spirits of Southern Nevada Executive Marketing Director Rino Armeni, a proud papa who made certain that piece of information was noted when he abruptly joined in our conversation.

Armeni said that law is her professional dream, but dancing remains her "passion." She graduated from Cimarron-Memorial High School in 1994, where she was a member of the school's dance team. She also appeared on MTV's "The Grind" and the TNT program "Rock 'N' Bowl," and cheered for the Las Vegas Silver Bandits pro basketball team last season.

While a student at Arizona State University, Armeni was part of a unit called the "Hip Hop Coalition" and worked for four years at that famous breeding ground for aspiring litigants, the Beach. ("I strongly object to the spraying of whipped cream on a bartender's bare chest!")

Armeni carries herself admirably, a smart and funny woman fully aware of the conflicting images of a would-be lawyer firing up a wild crowd at an XFL game at Sam Boyd Stadium. It's about as plausible as F. Lee Bailey donning the Boom-Boom outfit for the Las Vegas Stars, or Greta Van Susteren high-kicking in a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader getup.

"It's not normal, I know that," she said, laughing. "People find it funny that I was a dancer on 'Rock 'N' Bowl.' "

Armeni's school schedule only allows her to work 20 hours a week. She's taken out a student loan and concedes that, fun as it is, her dancing "won't pay for everything."

Armeni's intermediate goal is to cheer for any professional team that makes its way through Las Vegas.

"It's all about entertaining the crowd, having fun with them," she said. "We're a bunch of outgoing girls."

With that, Armeni was called away to snap on a smile and pose with one of the hovering VIPs.

Whether Armeni is able to balance her love for dancing with her pursuit of a law degree is still uncertain. Here's hoping that, years from now, when men speak of her briefs they won't be doing so while yukking it up over Coors Light at an Outlaws game.