Who Needs <i> Indoor </i> Football League When You Live in a Place Like This?

I don’t mean to get you stirred up or hopeful, but reports have been circu lating that the WIFL is coming to San Diego.

WIFL?

That’s short for World Indoor Football League. I guess it is pronounced “wiffle.”

The WIFL, which presumably will set up shop either in the Sports Arena or Rocky’s Balboa, is expected to announce at a news conference in the near future that it will do business here this summer.

This surely will have widespread appeal hereabouts, attracting folks who abhor hot, sunny days and warm, starlit nights. The stands will be populated by people who hate golden sunsets, freshly mowed fairways, blooming flowers, sizzling steaks or any form of seaside recreation.

There must be dozens of such people in San Diego.

World Indoor Football?

Maybe it should stand for Why Indoor Football.

Frankly, I have not heard any clamoring for an indoor football league to help while away the summer months. San Diego deserves to be represented in the National Basketball Assn. and the National Hockey League, but instead it gets the WIFL.

Is this our curse for living in a metropolitan paradise?

It’s my understanding that former Charger owner Gene Klein would be the proprietor of the WIFL franchise.

Why, Gene? Why Indoor Football?

Klein was a booming success in business, at least a moderate success with the Chargers and an almost overnight force in thoroughbred horse racing.

And now this?

If he wants to be part of a circus, he should buy either Barnum & Bailey or Sail America.

And what of suggestions that Don Coryell might be the perfect coach for a San Diego entry in the WIFL? (This theory, I guess, is based on the proposition that WIFL teams will line up eight players on offense and seven on defense, a prospect that might be expected to appeal to such an offense-oriented genius.)

I would submit that Coryell has too much dignity to involve himself with such an aberration of real football. It would be like asking Sinatra to sing at Diego’s or hanging a Van Gogh in the Beachcomber.

And how could you ever put a roof over Air Coryell? You don’t film “Top Gun” in a hangar, at least not when the top guns are firing.

Obviously, there are a lot of questions about playing football, even in mutant form, in an arena fit for basketball or hockey. Soccer works, because the smaller surface takes a tedious outdoor game and accelerates it.

Football on a field 150 to 200 feet long? There are professional golfers who wouldn’t three-putt from that distance.

I understand that arena football can be very high-scoring, teams scoring in the 50s . . . and losing by 20. Why bother hiring Don Coryell? Why not just hire Pat Riley? You want to race up and down the field, give ‘em showtime. Maybe Magic Johnson would like a hobby, a la Bo Jackson. Make him a quarterback during his leisure months.

Of course, an arena football quarterback must have a good arm. He is expected to be able to throw from one end zone to the other without bouncing the ball off the roof . . . unless maybe the roof comes into play.

My understanding is that nets draped behind the goal posts do come into play on missed field goals. What they do, I guess, is keep the ball in play, though I am not sure in what way. I mean, will a wide receiver be able to retrieve a missed field goal for a touchdown? If so, you want Manute Bol at wide receiver and the worst kicker you can find.

And none of the kickers will be punters. No one will ever be out of field-goal range.

Lengthy scoring drives will be rendered impossible by (a) the postcard-sized field and (b) the fact that there are no first downs. It’s four downs and out . . . or rather three downs and attempt a place-kick, apparently either for a field goal or a touchdown.

There are many other questions . . .

Is WIFL two-hand touch below the waist? Or maybe flag?

Do the players wear shorts? Is it shirts vs. skins?

Where will the players come from? Frat Row at SDSU? UCSD intramurals? The Jai Alai Fronton? Central Casting?

Is it co-ed? If not, maybe it should be.

You want a playmaker or a quarterback?

A wide receiver or a rebounder?

Is the center eligible?

Naturally, a dwarf version of football probably would be most at home in cities other than San Diego. It should play real well in Less Angeless, Dalless, Baltiless, Ft. Worthless and, of course, Mini-apo-less.

How will it play here in San Diego? I suspect it will depend upon how much inclement weather we get this summer. It will take a lot of rain to make the WIFL grow.

Given one of those boring summers with sunny days and pleasant nights, I fear WIFL will whiff hereabouts.