THE LAST-CHANCE FOOTBALL LEAGUE : For Running Backs Who Have Lost a Step and Linemen Who Have Gained a Few Pounds, There Is a Final, Quiet Hurrah

Some guys would rather look down the barrel of a loaded shotgun than bite the bullet and admit that they’re not good enough to play in the National Football League--or even the United States Football League.

Take Brian McGregor. Nobody else would.

McGregor hasn’t been gunned down. He’s gotten one more shot at organized football as one of the hundreds of players in the High Desert Football League, a loose federation of runners-up and never-quite-made-its who would rather scrap it out on Sunday afternoons in the fall than watch NFL teams do battle. Some want to be seen by pro scouts, who are rumored to walk the sidelines. Others are just looking for a good time.

McGregor, who plays for the San Fernando Valley Freelancers, knows that the High Desert League probably represents his final stop.

“I’ve had my tries at the pros,” McGregor said. “But I gained the weight and never really worked hard on trying to get back into it.”

McGregor is a 6-foot, 240-pound defensive tackle who played at Pierce College in 1975. Now he coaches football at Monroe High. But standing on the sidelines isn’t enough for him.

“I see my guys mixing it up,” he said, “and I want to get right in there with them. Everybody keeps telling me, ‘Hey, you’re 30 years old, what do you keep playing for?’ I tell them that I just like to play football. I’m just playing for fun.”

McGregor is one of the realistic ones playing in the High Desert League. But there are those who believe it can act as a steppingstone. Some players and coaches from the minor league program claim pro scouts have roamed their sidelines on several occasions over the years.

“There have been a few players scouted and a few players signed,” said Mike McShane, a strong safety for the Encino-based California Wolves.

In recent years, McShane says that he has spotted scouts along the sidelines from the Kansas City Chiefs, the Rams, the L.A. Express and the Canadian Football League’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

None of the teams would confirm that claim.

Jim Lott, 80, founder of the High Desert League, dismisses the notion that the league he started 50 years ago was intended to train professional prospects.

“The main thing out here is to have fun,” said Lott. “Of course, if a guy thinks he can develop some more, this is the only place he has to do it. He’s out of school, you don’t pay him, you don’t sell tickets. There’s not thousands of people in the stands cheering for him. He’s out there on his own.

“They have aspirations, but they’re not going to make it because they’re not that good,” he added. “Some of them don’t believe it, but they’re not.”

Structurally, minor league football bears little resemblance to minor league baseball.

Even though the High Desert League bills itself as a minor league, no team or player is affiliated with an NFL or USFL franchise.

Players do not receive salaries, medical insurance or athletic equipment. They do receive broken bones, torn ligaments--and what they believe could be a chance at the pros.

“Some of the younger guys are looking at it, thinking and hoping they’re going to get a look and get discovered,” said Bill Bridges, a starting running back at Ohio State in 1976, who plays fullback for the Americans. “And the older guys may be playing for the love of the game or being silly enough to hang on and think they’re going to get discovered.”

Bridges, 32, got farther than most: He went to Seattle Seahawk training camp in 1976 and was invited to San Francisco camp in 1980. Few minor league players have lasted beyond NFL training camp.

Toa Saipale, a former fullback with UCLA and the Americans, made the Rams’ roster in 1984, but spent the season on the injured reserve list.

Before that, there was Fred Besana, the backup quarterback for the USFL’s Western Conference champion Oakland Invaders. In 1979, he played for the Twin Cities Cougars of the now-defunct California Football League in Yuba City, Calif.

Professional football rarely looks farther than the NCAA for talent each year.

Spokesmen for the Raiders, Rams, San Diego Chargers and San Francisco 49ers all deny hearing of the High Desert League.

“I didn’t even know it existed,” said Ron Wolf, director of player personnel for the Raiders, when asked about the league. “I’d like to know more about it.”

Playing experience in the High Desert league ranges from vast to minimal. To make the roster of the Freelancers, the oldest team in the 50-year-old minor league organization, all someone has to do is show up.

Some played in college; some did not. Some have NFL training-camp experience under their pads; some have played on other professional levels, but never attained much success.

Howard Brooks of the Ventura Americans--a team that went out of business last month--is a 6-5, 280-pound tackle who left a basketball scholarship at Wayne State (Mich.) University in 1973 to play for the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League.

In 1982, the USFL’s L.A. Express signed him to a short-term contract, then released him in training camp. After that, Brooks should have come to one conclusion: Give up football.

He couldn’t. Unlike McGregor, he does not treat the outings like an afternoon softball game.

“It’s not recreational at all,” said Brooks, a science and physical education instructor at Portola Junior High in Tarzana. “It’s a very serious level of competition. It’s not the kind of ball a guy can play who’s interested in playing touch football. These are seriously trained athletes who do all the conditioning they did when they were in college.”

A Freelancer practice at Hjelte Park in Encino showed that not everyone is as intense as Brooks at High Desert League training camps, which opened three weeks ago. Practice was supposed to start at 7:30 p.m. It actually started when there were enough players for pre-practice drills, at about 8:30.

The tardiest loosened up their own, then caught up with the rest of the team when it split up for position drills. Offensive and defensive linemen went one way and the backs and receivers the other.

They kept going in different directions the rest of the night.

One Freelancer receiver ran a down-and-in pattern that called for a run of 25 to 30 yards. When the quarterback threw the ball, the receiver appeared lost. He turned left to look for the ball. It whizzed past him to the right.

There were a couple of receivers who looked as if they knew how to run a pass route properly. Others appeared to think a post pattern was something inscribed on the uprights in the end zone.

The only thing these guys seemed to do uniformly was come to practice late and leave early.

Minor league football teams and the prefix defunct go together.

The California Football League was organized in 1974 with six teams, four which had been in the High Desert League. More teams joined as the minor league Western and Southwestern leagues folded. The CFL was 10 teams strong when it folded in 1981.

The Americans and the Los Angeles Mustangs were the only survivors of the league. Lott said it collapsed when players and league organizers tried to turn a money-making venture out of what was supposed to be a purely recreational program.

“They wanted to be big-time big shots,” said Lott, whose personality is right out of the Gene Autry playbook. “One guy lost his business and about $50,000 when he tried to insure a whole team.

“You can’t look at this league as a money-maker. That happened to three or four people. When it gets any bigger than what we’re doing here, it’s not going to last. They just want to play football.”

Lott started the league in 1936 when an associate suggested that he launch a gymnasium or football team in the Canoga Park area to keep young men out of trouble during the depth of the Depression. That is no longer the league’s purpose, but Lott says the High Desert League only requires that players “have a lot of heart.”

He said Robert Redford played for him after graduating from Van Nuys High. “Redford played defensive back for me in the ‘50s,” he said. “Couldn’t play a lick.”

Lott also said Lee Majors played for him until about five or six years ago. “He was a split end--a good football player,” he said.

Redford and Majors declined to comment on the league.

Actor or bricklayer, athletes supply most of their own equipment.

Lott has bought surplus equipment at Los Angeles Unifed School District auctions. Although Lott doesn’t buy as much as he used to, he still will pick up a dented helmet or a pair of worn cleats--just about anything.

Said Lott: “I used to bid on a lot of it. I don’t buy it new. Sometimes a college might have some stuff that they’re phasing out. Might get 40 jerseys--and 15 would have tears or cleat marks in them.”

Lott has seen 30 High Desert League teams crowned as champion. Seven championships have gone to his Freelancers, one of the oldest minor league football teams in the United States.

The only fans at the gatherings they call games are families and friends of the players. Sometimes, a passer-by or two will drop in.

“This football is relaxed,” said Scott Bartrom, a former fullback for the Americans, who played at Agoura High and Pacific (Ore.) University. “You don’t worry about getting in the game because everybody plays.”

Said McGregor: “Every Sunday I get to take my frustrations out. After the game, we all go have a couple of beers.”

TEAM HOME FIELD Bellflower Bears Bellflower High Northeast Bengals Eagle Rock High Orange County Cougars Cypress College Ontario Crush Chaffey High, Ontario West L.A. Falcons L.A. High San Fernando Valley Freelancers Taft High, Woodland Hills Los Angeles Mustangs Crenshaw High Orange County Cowboys Cypress College Los Angeles Outlaws Marshall High, L.A. Lincoln Heights Rebels Wilson High, El Sereno Boyle Heights Renegades Roosevelt High, L.A. San Diego Sabres San Diego High California Wolves Birmingham High, Encino

All games are played on Sundays.