The UFL: Marching Onward

They put a team in Hartford.

That was really all the United Football League had to do to gain my support. The team could have been the Hartford Hitlers; their symbol, a boot stomping a kitten, and I probably still would have been a fan. Months before the season opened I had declared that I’d be happy if the team—the former New York Sentinels, who went 0-6 last year— won just a single home game (I now retract that statement and hope for a more positive outcome on the season). I bought a pair of season tickets in May and I’m glad I did.

As a season ticket holder and a regular watcher of the UFL games (online, as the league streams all of its games through its own website) I have not been disappointed. The first half of the 2010 season is behind us, and I don’t think anybody could be disappointed by the product out there on the field. You’re not getting the NFL, no, but what you’re getting is close enough that any football fan should be happy. Big plays abound, such as Lorenzo Booker’s eighty-yard touchdown reception in week one, or the Tim Rattay to (wide receiver) Tab Perry to DeDe Dorsey trick throw in week four, that went for sixty yards and nearly netted the Las Vegas Locomotives a touchdown. Gameday atmosphere at Rentschler field has been great, with cheerleaders and Revolutionary War re-enactors mingling with the tailgating fans before the game.

  

The big question mark is now not if the team is any good (as of week five, Hartford has proven they have the talent, though perhaps not the discipline) but can the UFL succeed. I think that for now, to be a fan of any UFL team is also to be a fan of the league. Connecticutians have to support the Colonials—Connecticut’s only pro sport’s team—under the assumption that the entire organization isn’t just going to just fold up and disappear. It’s a bit of a catch twenty-two for the average fan: you don’t want to get behind a team that may not be there next year, and yet, if you don’t get behind them, you may actually be the cause of the problem. So I root not only for the Colonials, but for the success of the league itself. So while I feel like a schill saying this, plunk down fifteen bucks and catch the team’s last home game against the Locomotives in November, or at least check out the team’s away games online at www.ufl-football.com. You’re bound to see a great game, and years from now you can tell your bandwagoning friends that you were a fan way back when.