Columnist Dean Juipe: ‘Who’s he?’ fans reply to XFL draft

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2000 | 10:16 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

This isn't 1994. It's 2000 and Las Vegas has grown immeasurably in the intervening six years.

But in 1994 the city welcomed a new professional sports team, the Las Vegas Posse of the Canadian Football League. In spite of numerous attributes, the team failed to complete its initial season in the league and the city's association with the CFL came to a quick and decisive end.

To the plus side, the Posse was joining an established league; it had a quotable owner in Nick Mileti and a successful and equally vibrant coach in Ron Meyer; and while its roster wasn't stocked, per se, with recognizable names, the Posse had an assortment of collegiate standouts as well as several decent players with local ties. It had a former NFL linebacker in Greg Battle, a former quarterback who had led his college team to the national championship in Darian Hagan, a clutch kicker who had excelled at Miami in Carlos Huerta, a star-to-be in receiver Tamarick Vanover, and familiar faces like Kalin Hall, Anthony Blue and David Hollis.

Did we mention the team never caught on and quietly succumbed?

Yet, in retrospect, the Posse had more going for it than the city's newest boy toy, the Outlaws of the XFL. If you have tried to follow the league's three-day draft that concluded Monday, you already realize that it would take an encyclopedic knowledge of college football to recognize more than 1 percent of the players who were allocated to the XFL's eight teams.

Each team's roster is identical to the others' and is loaded from top to bottom with names totally unfamiliar to even the staunchest football fan. Whereas the CFL tried to expand to the U.S. and failed in spite of having players such as Doug Flutie under contract, the XFL is saturated by anonymity.

Even Las Vegas' top pick, quarterback Chuck Clements, should have a question mark attached to his surname. In fact, if it wasn't for former UNLV receiver Todd Floyd -- who played for the Rebels from 1995-97 but might not be good enough to make John Robinson's current team -- there's nothing but head scratchers on the Outlaws' roster.

You know how college basketball fans will derisively shout "Who's he?" to opposing players as they're introduced prior to a big game? Well, in the XFL's case even the home fans, however few there may be, might be inclined to holler the same thing at their own guys, so innominate are the league's players.

Of course the Outlaws' coach, Jim Criner, has no choice but to exclaim how pleased he is with the players coming his way, yet how gullible can we be? (He did, however, get the beat writer at the other paper to proclaim in print that Chrys Chukwuma and Leroy Collins give Las Vegas "an enviable pair of backs," a statement that's absurd at face value.) If the draft was designed to create enthusiasm toward the league, which is a joint venture between TV network NBC and pro wrestling magnate Vince McMahon, then it failed miserably.

If anything, the XFL draft exposed the league as the undernourished, understaffed frivolity it looked to be when it crawled off the drawing board. With games to be played in cold weather by nondescript players, the XFL -- in Las Vegas at least -- can go ahead and reserve a spot at the Palm Mortuary. Devoid of star power, failure is assured.