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The weird world of sports

Life is weird right now, and I’m acutely aware there are far more important (and far more urgent) things to consider than sports.

**Scott Adamson’s sports column appears whenever he feels sporty. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl and Instagram @adamsons60**

But since sports have always been a big part of my life, I can’t help but marvel at how especially weird they’ve become in the era of COVID-19.

Last August no one would’ve thought the NFL would scrap its 2020 preseason and hope – hope – to play a 16-game slate.

Nor could we imagine Football Bowl Subdivision schools deciding to shorten and overhaul their schedules and some Football Championship Subdivision leagues opting to stay off the field completely in the fall because of health concerns.

I mean, everything is just so incredibly out of sync. It’s as though any competition held between now and whenever this pandemic ends is taking place in an alternate reality.

I had cooled on Major League Baseball for the past several years but decided I’d be excited about its return. That excitement waned when the decision was made to play outside a bubble, and now it’s pretty much gone.

With players testing positive for the coronavirus and placed in quarantine – and games having to be rescheduled – the whole idea of a shortened 2020 season now just seems like a mistake to me. When I wake up in the morning I no longer look for scores, I look to see if Commissioner Rob Manfred has pulled the plug yet.

The NBA and NHL are up and running again in hub environments, and as a big fan of both I’m in full watch mode this weekend. Thursday night the game between the New Orleans Pelicans and Utah Jazz had my complete attention, even though the “virtual” fans creeped me out.

And today I’m going to beat the heat by staying inside and watching the New York Rangers skate against the Carolina Hurricanes in a Stanley Cup Qualifier.

But professional basketball and hockey seasons should be long over by now. Even though neither has crowned a champion yet, restarting them as a way to wrap up unfinished 2019-20 business gives all the games more of an exhibition feel to me.

That was the vibe I got when the English Premier League and Bundesliga decided to play out the last few matches of their suspended seasons. The empty stadiums and canned crowd noise didn’t bother me so much as knowing they were closing out an old schedule at a time they should be playing friendlies and gearing up for a new one.

And don’t get me started about my beloved Canadian Football League, which should be nearing the halfway mark of the season but might not have any games at all in 2020.

Look, I understand why all the leagues are trying to salvage what they can, just as I understand why many fans are relieved they’re making the effort. Watching the NBA get back on the court and NHL teams hit the ice is like reconnecting with old friends.

Yet, I’m still unsettled by it all.

But here’s a twist I didn’t see coming. While I’ve had trouble adjusting to the Bizarro World of my favorite traditional sports, I’ve gotten hooked on other athletic events.

For example, I’ve enjoyed World Team Tennis for more than four decades, but I’ve never been as enthralled with it as I have been this summer. I found myself watching as many matches as I could, which was made easy since there were as many as four per day.

Its all-too-brief season ends tomorrow with the championship match at noon, and I’m truly going to miss it when it’s over.

After a long hiatus I was reintroduced to Australian Rules Football this summer, and I’ve enjoyed all the late night/early morning clashes on television. It’s a great hybrid sport for those of us who follow American football, soccer and rugby, and the combination of grace and brawn is quite impressive.

A new WNBA season – even though it’s scaled down from a 34-game regular season to 22 contests – has rekindled my love for women’s basketball. I’ve always said one of the best ways to learn the fundamentals of hoops is to watch an elite women’s game, and the WNBA certainly checks that box.

But there again, we’re dealing with a league playing in a bubble with all its games staged at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, so it’s hardly normal. Nothing is normal these days, though, so we do the best we can however we can.

Maybe this time next year Major League Baseball will be making its post-All-Star Game push to the playoffs, the WNBA teams will be playing home games at their home arenas, and the CFL will be wrapping up Week 8.

And perhaps in August, 2021, fans of American football can look forward to how their favorite team will do in the upcoming season instead of worrying whether or not there’ll even be an upcoming season.

Until then, we have to accept the fact that sports are weird – just like life.

Aussie Rules football growing in U.S.

**The USAFL fields amateur clubs all across the country./photo courtesy of the USAFL**

Those of us who are men and women of a certain age remember ESPN before it came of age.

**Scott Adamson writes about alternative football leagues because it makes him happy. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl and Instagram @adamsons60**

When the fledgling network went on the air in 1979 it had no rights to major American sporting events, so there were tractor pulls and talk shows to fill up airtime. However, it was the broadcast of Victorian Football League matches that opened up a whole new world for fans like me.

Australian Rules football (now playing under the Australian Football League umbrella after abandoning the VFL brand in 1989) is a wonderful hybrid of American football, Gaelic football, rugby, soccer and bar fight. After being introduced to the game by the “Worldwide Leader In Sports” I remained interested even after ESPN shifted its attention to what United States fans considered more traditional athletic competition.

Still, I often wondered how “footy” might be received if there were clubs not just in places like Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide but New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Philadelphia.

Turns out there’s no need to wonder.

Although currently sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic like many other sports, the United States Australian Football League has been around for 25 years. Introduced in 1996 and featuring amateur clubs from coast to coast, the USAFL helps coordinate men’s, women’s and junior programs across the country.

“2021 will be the USAFL’s 25th season, and we’ve gone from six teams in 1997 to 46 this year from Maine to Hawaii, with a couple in development hoping to join the league in the next few months,” USAFL media manager Brian Barrish said. “In the league’s early days, there were a lot of clubs in the Midwest and in California/Arizona. The upper Midwest is probably the most active, with clubs in Columbus, Cincinnati, Chicago, Indianapolis, Louisville, Madison/Milwaukee, Minnesota, and Des Moines thriving. The game has also grown in Texas (Austin, Houston, Dallas), and in the Pacific Northwest (Seattle and Portland). Recently, we’re starting to see a big push to get clubs started in the Southeast, which only had three or four clubs for the longest time.

“New teams have sprung up in Savannah, Jacksonville, Tampa, Rome (Georgia), and Richmond, to go with our established clubs in Atlanta, Raleigh, and Ft. Lauderdale.”

At first glance Aussie Rules football seems like organized chaos, but the basic rules of the pro game aren’t that difficult to follow.

The field is a huge oval (between 148 and 202 yards long and 120 to 170 yards wide).

“Finding spaces for us to play has its challenges; essentially you need to find an open space that is big enough for us to build a field that doesn’t have too many holes or baseball diamonds surrounding it,” Barrish said. “I’ve called matches and played on everything from polo grounds to public parks to the infield of a harness track (Rosemont Raceway in Maryland, to be exact). For regular season play, we just set out cones (they call them witch’s hats in Australia) for the field and the squares, and then make posts out of PVC pipes fitted over metal stakes. That last part is a bit of a complication sometimes as some parks don’t like you making holes in their field, even if they’re small and manageable. But, most teams usually have two or three places to play in case of scheduling issues and last-minute issues such as weather.”

Games are contested by teams made up of 18 players per side and a match is divided into four 20-minute quarters.

Four posts are located at each end of the field; a kick between the two taller middle posts scores a goal – worth 6 points – while one that goes between the two outer and shorter posts scores 1 point, known as a behind.

Single points are also scored if a ball goes through any of the posts without being kicked by the attacking team (say it comes off the hands of a player on either team or is kicked by a defender) or if the defense forces the ball between the posts it’s defending.

In terms of advancing the ball, teams do so by kicking or hand-passing, and players with possession of the ball and can run no more than 16 yards while holding it before bouncing it off the ground.

OK, now that I’ve written it down it does look difficult to follow, but if you familiarize yourself with the rules and watch a few matches, it all starts to make sense.

“In terms of players, we have everyone from Aussie ex-pats to Americans who saw the game on TV years ago and wanted to try their hand at it,” Barrish explained. “Recruiting looks very different from club to club, depending on everything from the number of colleges to the bar scene and everything in between. There are a lot of Australians that are over here for work, school, or family. The Americans have come through word of mouth or having seen the game in Australia, among other ways. Just under 75 percent of our players, however, are American. Roughly 25 percent are Australian. And while we haven’t grown in the total number players as much as we would like, the fact that we’ve gone from a mostly ex-pat Australian league to a mostly American program is a big win in my book. Helping this is our rule that at least 50 percent of the players on the field for a USAFL game must be American (or ‘National’ players). This requires teams to actively recruit locally and help grow the game at the grassroots level and not simply ‘import’ Aussies.”

More Americans playing, of course, means more have the chance to excel at the game.

“It’s worth mentioning that we have at least one team – the Des Moines Roosters – that is completely American,” Barrish said. “Ninety percent of our women players are American, which is fantastic for the growth and helpful for growing a pathway to play at the AFLW level, as evidenced by Dani Marshall’s signing with the Western Bulldogs this year.”

Although the formation and function of clubs varies from town to town, a sense of community is a common denominator. The roots of the game and its history help bring the teams and players together.

In addition, the AFL provides the USAFL with a yearly grant that assists in operations.

“We are also in constant communication with them about our development and about promoting the game on both sides of the Pacific,” Barrish said. “The inspiration for club culture comes from the regional Aussie Rules clubs in Australia. Many of the teams were founded by Australians who played in those clubs and wanted to establish them under similar principles to what they had back home. I got the chance to travel with the U.S. teams to Melbourne for the 2017 AFL International Cup, and we were hosted by several local clubs during the two weeks we were there. There were post-training meals, pre-game gatherings, and a real sense of family there. In the mountain town of Montrose, for example, there were people who had been a part of the club in some capacity for 50-plus years, and whose children and grandchildren had grown up playing for the team. We’re talking the equivalent of AA or AAA baseball here, but there is a lot of local pride here.

“What I will say, having been around just about every club in the league, is that each one has a different dynamic. But, it’s all positive, and it’s all about growing something sustainable. We’re not like, say, softball leagues, where we get together once a week, play a game, have a beer and go home. We celebrate Australia Day, we have ANZAC Day commemorations, and many of our clubs have social and fundraising events throughout the year. And it is really like a family, both on the club and at the national level.”

So could there come a day when Aussies Rules clubs develop a pay-for-play model?

“I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility,” Barrish said. “The big issue would be finding facilities that could host full-on matches. I know there is talk of someone building a bunch of cricket stadia across the country and that would be a great way to add more events to those facilities. In the absence of that, it would need to be in a smaller format. The AFL tested something called AFLX over the last two years – it was played on soccer fields with modified rules, a la Rugby 7s. Something like that would work for a league or a touring competition here. What that would look like, I don’t know; do you have players at the top of their game coming over to live and play in the States? Do you bring over retired players a la the Big 3 Basketball and mix in American players who have come up through the USAFL, or converted athletes?”

As far as Barrish is concerned, the USAFL remains the best way to showcase a sport that features highly skilled athletes playing a crowd-pleasing game.

“I’m a big believer in the growth of the grass roots effort that the USAFL has laid down over the past quarter of a century,” he said. “It would be great if that got more attention on both sides of the Pacific before anything semi-pro or professional emerged. We need more people, specifically more locals, being involved in the sport in order to be successful, and the focus should be on that first.”

For more information on the league, go to www.usafl.com.

WTT still holding serve

As you know I have an obsession with alternative football leagues, and I’ll gladly own up to it. If I hear about a fledgling gridiron circuit, my Spidey senses start to tingle and I want to learn all I can about it.

**Scott Adamson writes about alternative sports leagues because it makes him happy. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl and Instagram @adamsons60**

But really, my love for outside the box sports goes beyond football; I laud most all attempts to present common events in uncommon ways.

That being said, World Team Tennis is one of my all-time favorite alternative to the ordinary. The league was a great idea when it was formed on March 14, 1973, and it’s still a great idea today.

“The concept is solid for a number of reasons,” Philadelphia franchise owner Dick Butera told Associated Press during a 1973 interview. “Tennis is the only sport where people of all age groups can really identify with the game because everyone can play it.

“In 1965, there were five million people playing tennis. In 1972, there were 12 million.”

First, some background.

As a tweenager in the early 1970s I played quite a bit of tennis. I was never great at it, but I was adequate – and being adequate was enough to convince me to play as often as I could and get a bit more serious when I hit my teens.

By 1974 I was already a big fan of Jimmy Connors and Billie Jean King, but if there was any tennis match on TV I was down for watching it.

Enter World Team Tennis (co-founded by King and her husband at the time, Larry) which began play in the summer of 1974 with 16 franchises.

The original WTT logo from 1974.

The Baltimore Banners, Boston Lobsters, New York Sets and Philadelphia Freedoms comprised the Atlantic Section; the Cleveland Nets, Detroit Loves, Pittsburgh Triangles and Toronto-Buffalo Royals were in the Central Section; the Minnesota Buckskins, Chicago Aces, Florida Flamingos and Houston EZ Riders populated the Gulf Plains Section; and the Denver Racquets, Golden Gaters, Hawaii Leis and Los Angeles Strings made up the Pacific Section.

Connors played for Baltimore and King starred for Philadelphia, but there were plenty of other big names who signed up for the league like Evonne Goolagong, Ken Rosewall, Rosemary Casals and John Newcomb.

The format of the competition – whose regular season extended over a three month period – was quite simple but revolutionary in that men and women were equal partners on a team. At the start of the inaugural season a game featured two sets of men’s singles, two sets of women’s singles, and two sets of mixed doubles. Scoring was cumulative and each set had to be won by a two-game margin but there was no advantage point.

(Since matches were running too long the format was soon changed to one set each of men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles).

Individual stars had a chance to shine in a mixed-gender team setting, which I really enjoyed. Throw in some cool, multi-colored courts and I thought World Team Tennis was a can’t-miss proposition. I was even hoping it would become so elaborate that in coming years it would expand internationally, possibly featuring a French team with a clay home court and a British squad that played on grass.

However, by 1978 it had undergone several franchise shifts, had trouble hiring and keeping top players, and interest among fans was waning, so it closed up shop.

But …

It returned in 1981 as Team Tennis and reverted back to the original World Team Tennis brand in 1992.

The color-coded courts and novelty of the league are both gone, but I’m glad to see the league play on. Over the years participants have included Andre Agassi, Lindsay Davenport, Chris Evert, Steffi Graf, Martina Hingis, John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova, Andy Roddick, Pete Sampras, Maria Sharapova and Venus and Serena Williams.

Although a WTT “season” is now basically a three-week tournament each year, it’s something I always look forward to watching.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the 2020 home of all nine WTT franchises will be The Greenbrier at White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia. Play begins on July 12 and runs through August 2, and state health guidelines dictate that up to 500 fans can attend each match.

This year’s lineup features the Chicago Smash, New York Empire, Orange County Breakers, Orlando Storm, Philadelphia Freedoms, San Diego Aviators, Springfield Lasers, Vegas Rollers and Washington Kastles.

“Our player rosters are the strongest we’ve ever fielded for a WTT season and include players with multiple Grand Slam titles,” WTT CEO Carlos Silva said in a statement. “We have a sampling of current stars like Sloane Stephens, Sofia Kenin, Vegas Rollers teammates Sam Querrey and Mike and Bob Bryan, as well as a look at tennis’ future impact players with Brandon Nakashima and Caty McNally as well as tennis greats like Kim Clijsters and Mardy Fish.

“Tennis fans are starving to see some great action on the courts and that’s what we plan to deliver all season.”

Kenin is the defending Australian Open champion, while the Bryans are the sport’s all-time winningest doubles team. Although the one-site format will make for a different experience, I welcome the return of World Team Tennis.

It’s nice to know that after all these years a terrific alternative sports league is still giving me a summer viewing alternative.