Hopkins Keeps Life Hopping

Avenger receiver Greg Hopkins is not exactly your average Arena Football League player.

He’s a member of the all-time All-AFL team and has played in 138 consecutive regular-season games. He’s a professional model with an impressive resume of print work and runway fashion shows to his credit. And this week, he officially put his name on the Republican ballot for the state legislature in the 50th District in Pennsylvania.

But the struggling Avengers are Hopkins’ main concern right now. After losing five consecutive games heading into a key game at San Jose on Sunday, the Avengers are in danger of missing the playoffs.

“Injuries,” Hopkins said about the 1-5 Avengers, who are in last place in the Western Division, trailing Las Vegas, Arizona, Utah and San Jose by one game. No Western Division team has a winning record.

“It’s been hard for us to get a consistent lineup,” Hopkins added.

Losing has been tough for Hopkins, who before this season had not played in an Avenger game when the team was under .500.

“Are you trying to rub it in?” Hopkins joked when asked about playing on a losing team last week. “We started the season with a quarterback situation that had three guys taking turns.... It’s taking some time, but we’re slowly getting better.”

In 11 seasons, Hopkins has 9,858 yards receiving yards and needs 142 to become the fourth AFL player to reach 10,000. Not bad for a former standout at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania who was just glad to get a chance to be in the league when he was a rookie with the Albany Firebirds in 1996.

“I was fortunate to be around some guys who had been in the league for a while when I first entered the league,” said Hopkins, who suffered a broken hand and played in only two games as a rookie. “Eddie Brown and Mike Perez were my teammates and they are a couple of guys who helped build the league.

“At that time, you couldn’t see yourself being anything like them. I was only looking at the next week. At that time, I think the average [AFL] career was less than two years. That just wasn’t something you envisioned.”

At 34, Hopkins said being an “iron man” for so many years was taking its toll. As a true two-way player, he has delivered and absorbed more than his share of hits in the league. “The recovery time is not like it was when I was in my early 20s,” Hopkins said.

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The Avengers rank 15th in the 18-team AFL in scoring with 260 points.