Avengers Are on Fast Track as Training Camp Begins

Is Los Angeles ready for some football?

In the spring?

Into the summer?

Indoors?

The Avengers, one of two expansion franchises in the Arena Football League, took the first step toward answering those questions with the opening of training camp Monday.

Coach Stan Brock welcomed 28 players to the team’s facility at West Los Angeles College to begin preparations for the 2000 season, with more expected.

“I’ve got some guys [out of camp] for various reasons,” Brock said. “One is finishing up his engineering degree, another guy’s a school teacher. Guys who have different jobs will be coming in over the next month.”

Owner Casey Wasserman, awarded the franchise in November 1998, was on hand to watch the morning drills.

“I told the players last night, ‘This is the reality we’ve been working for the past 18 months,’ ” he said. “To actually see guys practicing and throwing footballs around is a total dream come true.”

But the Avengers have less than a week before their first exhibition game next Monday in Phoenix against the Western Division champion Arizona Rattlers. They will host an exhibition April 9 at Staples Center against the Oklahoma Wranglers before opening the regular season April 15 against Grand Rapids in Michigan.

That doesn’t give Brock and his staff much time to install an offense and defense, or develop a sense of how long it will take the players to jell.

Neither the Avengers nor any other Arena teams were able to conduct mini-camps in the off-season because the league and the players were involved in a labor dispute. It was not resolved until March 1, when a newly formed players’ union and league owners approved a temporary collective bargaining agreement.

“At one point we had talked of a 50-50 split of veterans and young guys,” Brock said. “We’d teach them in mini-camps and within the proper time of the off-season that you’d normally have. But we had to switch gears.

“So . . . we went after veteran players. Now we don’t have so much teaching to do about Arena football. But we still have a lot of teaching to do in that we may have a different philosophy than the places these veterans have come from.”

Brock said Scott Semptimphelter would be the starting quarterback. Semptimphelter was a backup the last two seasons in Nashville, but started 10 games for Orlando in 1997. He is one of four quarterbacks in camp, among them Todd Marinovich, formerly of USC and the Los Angeles Raiders.

“Scott will be the starter until someone beats him out,” Brock said. “He’s an experienced Arena quarterback, and that’s so much different than an outdoor quarterback. . . . It’s just a different game--the reads and the throws are all faster.”

Brock who coached the Portland Arena team before taking the Avenger job, said he has no illusions about how good the team will be. But he also said being an expansion team will not be an excuse for being a poor team.

“We expect to come out here and compete to win,” he said. “Otherwise we might as well just go sit down at the beach. We’re not out here working just to be with each other. We’re working to win football games.”

Wasserman--at 25, the youngest owner of a U.S. professional sports franchise--said he understands Los Angeles fans will not come out to watch a losing team.

“People have told me the best thing you can do is manage your expectations,” he said. “I’m notoriously bad at that. I’m very aggressive and I believe we should be the best at everything we do.

“Coach Brock knows we expect to win. I don’t think we’ll win every game this year, obviously, but I expect to be competitive. If we can win five, six games that would be tremendous to build on to go forward. We may not make the playoffs, but if we can put ourselves in the position to make the playoffs and get a couple lucky bounces, who knows?”

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Starting Off

A look ahead at the inaugural season of the Avengers:

Exhibition

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Monday at Arizona 7 p.m April 9 vs. Oklahoma 5:30 p.m.

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Regular season

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April 15 at Grand Rapids 4:30 p.m. April 20 vs. Carolina 7:30 p.m.

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