IN A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN : A Love of Football Is the Sole Prerequisite for a Place on the Roster of Ventura County’s Semipro Team

The victim is lying on his side, hands quivering and legs stiff. He struggles as he rises, falls, then returns to his feet and stumbles toward the sidelines. His state is the result of a jarring blow delivered by a Ventura County Cardinal.

“That dude was bacon, man,” one player says. “He was a piece of Sizzlean, just lying there shaking in the frying pan.”

Another player is talking with his young daughter on the sidelines. “I know you’re hungry, honey. How does pizza sound after the game?”

One player is lying on his stomach with a cramp in his calf. A trainer is applying ointment and massaging the muscle.

“Ouch!” the player screams. “Why do I do this?”

Late in the fourth quarter, the game is delayed five minutes so officials can determine the score, and when the Cardinals’ starting quarterback is injured, the team’s 34-year-old coach grabs a uniform, collects various pieces of protective gear from his teammates and begins tossing footballs along the sidelines to warm up.

Welcome to High Desert League football.

The Ventura County Cardinals are a first-year team that has returned to Ventura County after a seven-year absence. The Ventura County Americans folded after the 1981 season and the closest teams to Ventura County thereafter were from the San Fernando Valley.

Now the Cardinals have emerged. They have their share of players with waistlines as large as their egos, but they also have added some quality junior college players and become a contender in the seven-team High Desert League.

“There are some outstanding athletes here,” said Curtis “Bo” Brooks, the team’s player-president. “You’ve got excellent, excellent football players who might be an inch short or a half-a-step too slow for the NFL, but they’re still great football players.”

They’re good, but not that good. The players range in age from 21 to 53. Some are former high school stars, some have competed at the Division I level in college. Others have had professional tryouts.

The Cardinals picked up John Guerrero, a second-team Pacific 10 Conference selection last season at USC, after he was released by the Cincinnati Bengals this summer. The team’s quarterback, Kevin Hicks, was a punter at Oregon who was released by the Dallas Cowboys in 1984. Thurman Beard, a wide receiver released by the Atlanta Falcons last year, is also listed on Ventura County’s roster.

Guerrero and Beard want NFL tryouts next summer. Hicks, before suffering a season-ending injury, consistently boomed punts of 40-plus yards and Tim Fahringer, from the University of Utah, also has a good leg--he kicked field goals of 42 and 51 yards during a 27-21 victory over Burbank on Sept. 9.

But they are the exception, not the rule. Most of the players are known for their talents off the field, where they are lawyers, physical education teachers, industrial designers, and parole officers. And it results in a quality of football somewhere between high school and an average junior college team.

“It’s all about how many beer stories they can tell after the game,” said Mark Anderson, who played semipro football in 1977 for the Glendale Bears. Anderson is a “football nut who will watch anything,” which explains why he is in the stands for a Burbank versus Ventura County game at Oxnard High.

There is Korey Stephens, a former Cal State Northridge standout who looks impressive with five catches for 51 yards. His 75-yard punt return accounts for the winning score in a sudden-death overtime period as Ventura County remains unbeaten. And Hicks completes 13 of 20 passes for 176 yards and two touchdowns.

And there are players such as Shannon Curtis, a 43-year-old who looks more like an usher than a player. Curtis should be helping the 100 or so fans find their seats, but he isn’t. He is standing along the sidelines in a Cardinal uniform and pads, his helmet dangling from his hand.

Curtis won’t play a down in this game, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He is sidelined because of an ankle injury but appears to be satisfied with reading his name on the roster. He calls himself the team’s prankster, “like Howie Long with the Raiders,” and asks defensive end Miller Aupiu for an order of french fries and a cheeseburger as Aupiu passes by.

“I enjoy the competitiveness,” Curtis said. “I don’t want to think I’m getting older, but I realize there comes a time to hang it up.”

Some might look at him and say that time has arrived. But that’s where semipro football comes to the rescue. Only in the High Desert League can Curtis continue--or begin--his football career.

“Some of these guys might be a little bit too old, but they haven’t lost the spirit,” said Stephens, who played at CSUN in 1987. “These are the true lovers of football. They aren’t getting paid for this.”

The love brings them to the field, but doesn’t help them make a tackle or a block.

It was a friend of Curtis’, Bob Blechen, the Cardinals’ 53-year-old starting center, who invited Curtis to practice. And Curtis surprised his fiancee when he accepted.

“I came home from practice one day all decked out in gear, and she about died,” Curtis said. “She thought I was playing touch football.”

If it was touch, Curtis said, he wouldn’t be playing.

“I love being able to hit someone,” he said. “I’ll probably be 80 years old and still want to hit them.”

It’s that type of attitude that pervades Oxnard High two nights a week. The players practice Tuesdays and Thursdays and play a 12-game schedule. The league uses NFL rules, from the type of ball to the length of quarters.

“They have football guts in their blood,” Blechen said. “It becomes part of their heart and soul.”

Jim Lott, 85, has been the league’s commissioner since 1936 and says that more than 7,000 players have played High Desert League football.

“It’s usually a guy with a big heart and a small body who loves to play football,” Lott said.

During the Sept. 9 league opener between Burbank and Ventura County, five players were ejected for fighting. Additionally, a number of cheap shots weren’t seen by the officials.

“You have your headhunters, that’s for sure,” said Alex Baca, an official. “It’s a different brand of football.”

A player is saluted more for knocking an opponent into a daze than for catching a 40-yard touchdown pass. There is more finger-pointing, taunting and verbal abuse than anything else, but Anderson enjoys it as he walks along the sidelines.

“That’s why I come out here,” he said. “I like the talking going on, the messing around.”

Last year Stephens was playing for the California Wolves of Van Nuys when he broke two long punt returns in one game. On his next return, the crowd screamed “Get 22! Get 22!” And they did.

“I went about 30 yards up the field and saw an opening, but somebody stuck their arm out and gave me a serious clothesline,” Stephens said. “I was pretty much annihilated. It was like somebody just grabbed my shoulders and yanked me back.”

Any penalty flags?

“No way, man,” he said. “They said ‘Hey, this is sandlot ball, man, the ref’s not going to care.’ ”

It was a similar cheap shot that knocked Hicks out for the season in the fourth quarter of the Burbank game.

Suddenly, Coach Joe Davis, who passed for 2,208 yards at San Diego State in 1977, became Quarterback Joe Davis. He traded his slacks and golf shirt for a defensive back’s jersey and collected pads from various players.

“Get Loren’s wife down here for a quick tape job!” he screamed as he began tossing a football along the sidelines, his paunch as prominent as his arm.

Davis never entered the game, though. Much to his pleasure.

“I was scared to death,” said Davis, who last competed in 1979 for the Americans. “I know I can line up and get the feel, but I don’t know how well I can compete.”

In this league, Joe, you fit in just fine. And, because Hicks is lost for the season, Davis has become the starting quarterback.

“I think the most humorous point is just realizing that some of these guys are pushing 40 and 45 years old and this is supposed to be a kid’s game,” Stephens said.

“Some kids are 16 and 17 years old and playing football somewhere and right across the street there are some 45-year-old men banging just as hard, if not harder, and having a good time.”