UNSUNG AND UNBEATEN IN AUBURN

AUBURN'S SEMI-PRO TEAM SETS RECORD PACE

By Bill Plaschke P-I Reporter

FRIDAY, August 22, 1986 <

Section: Sports, Page: B1

Many of them look like they just lost a fight with their closets. There

are old silk sweat suits, stained shirts, torn shorts that could be

washed and sold as underwear.

Their coach wears a painter's hat and hightops. Their wives,

seated on blankets and old blocking dummies, wear unusual smiles.

They began two hours ago as 55 strong, dressing in their cars

and taping their ankles on card tables. But now they are 55 scraped

and stepping carefully. It is dark over the unmarked, uneven field

as the Auburn Panthers football team huddles for their post-practice

lecture.

39 Listen up.

Dave Hardy, chiropractor and team doctor: "Since the start of

the season I have handed out a dozen and a half Ace bandages. Guess

what? None left! If you're done using them, could you please bring

them back?"

Dave Highsmith, businessman and team secretary: "I got a call

today from the Auburn High athletic director, and he's very upset

with the way we've used his field. Remember the rules: Number one,

no chewing tobacco on the sidelines.

"Number two, no breaking the locker room toilets or destroying

the cabinets."

Rules, rules. They are here to legally break the rules, to escape

the rules, to find that part between the lines that lets them be foolish

again.

They shake their heads at these rules, and untape themselves

so their pads and helmets fall at their feet in a heap. They drive

a block to a bar. A VCR is warming to show a tape of their last game,

a 43-0 victory over a team from Salem, Ore.

Rules, rules. The only thing that rules right now is them, the

Auburn Panthers, maybe one of the best semi-pro (unpaid) football

teams in history.

A victory this weekend against Snohomish County at Mariner High,

will give them 33 straight wins. That's a national minor league record.

It will break the one set by a now defunct team from the same area,

the Pierce County Bengals of 1979.

They have outscored their four Northwest Football Alliance opponents

this year by 132-14. They have not allowed a touchdown in 14 quarters.

Still not impressed? The Auburn Panthers, in their third season,

have never lost.

Excepting, of course, the occasional fashion show or busted plumbing

or, well, what's a little emotional release among friends?

"I come home in the winter and yell at the old lady and the

kids," said Ayers, a county worker. "In the summer, I come out here."

Unlike most other football teams, where players are listed by

position, the Auburn Panthers are categorized by shift.

Sima Memea, Tacoma Dome maintenance, graveyard.

Twice a week after the Panthers' two-hour practices - and sometimes

after their weekly Saturday night games - Memea goes to work. Eleven-thirty

p.m. to 8 a.m.

"Sometimes I come to work half-dead, and the guys there think

I'm crazy," said the 27-year-old starting center. "I always tell

my wife that after this game, I quit. Then I come home and say no,

not yet.

"I can't keep this up for very long. But I can't quit."

Fred Orns, construction in South Everett, days.

The 25-year-old drives 110 miles round trip for each practice.

He comes home to a wife, two kids and eight hours of work less than

eight hours away.

"Anybody ever tell me I'm nuts?" he asks. "Yeah, just 10 minutes

ago. I'm always tired as hell. But I have to prove to myself that

I was good enough to make the big-time.

"I can't go on the rest of my life wondering. It's hard to quit.

It's hard to stop following your dream."

It is a dream not shared by everyone in this league. While some

of the skills may be comparable to the NFL's, the speed and quickness

and strength are not even on the same ruler. Everything in the seven-team

NFA is relative. Even the Panthers' success.

Auburn is actually worried that the other teams (Seattle, Eastside

of Redmond, West Seattle, Snohomish, Skagit Valley, Salem) are getting

tired of their domination. What the heck, those guys could just form

a new league next year and deny Auburn admission.

Funny? It's happened before, to that powerhouse Pierce County

team in 1980. Put them right out of business.

"I honestly don't know how much longer we can survive," said

Panthers' President Phil Pompeo.

They've shortened their path to doom, in their three years, outscoring

their opponents 591-178. They have committed the cardinal sin of a

minor league football team. They have tried to be something more.

Already they're the only available team for players from the

football-stacked corridor between Seattle and Tacoma. More than 75

guys tried out this May, and although only 48 are eligible each week,

as many as 60 practice.

"Then once they get those players, they keep them, which is

unusual for this league," said Eastside General Manager Tony Softli

Sr. "Last year they went through two quarterback injuries and still

had a good quarterback against us. I don't know where the heck these

guys come from, but they never leave."

That's because once Auburn gets those players, they treat them

like no sandlot you've ever known.

Funded by money from program ads, tickets (about 1000 per game)

and even a hot dog stand at a recent Auburn parade, they buy everything

for their players but the insurance. In their only overnight road

game, in Salem, they exhibit the ultimate decadence by paying for

the players' hotel room.

Last season they produced their games on KJUN radio in Puyallup,

paying for everything including $135 a game for the announcers. This

season KAMT in Tacoma has approached them about doing the season's

second half.

There have been NFL players pass through this league between

teams, including current Auburn star receiver Harry Washington (Minnesota,

Chicago). But from here to there is a step no player in recent memory

has taken. Several have received small college scholarships. But the

roster of pro role models is smaller than their halftime shows.

"One thing I would love to see happen," said Michael Highsmith,

the Panthers' secretary and, not coincidentally, league commissioner.

"I would love for Mike McCormack (general manager) to come out once,

just once, just to tell us they know we are here. That would mean

so much."

However, letters from both Highsmith and head coach Terry Dion

(former Seahawk) have gone unanswered.

"It's something you have to accept," said Dion, a psychology

major at the University of Oregon who now makes yogurt. "More than

anything, this league fulfills a physical and emotional need the players

have. Compared to how restrained the rest of their lives are, this

is their outlet.

"It's important that most of the players realize this is the

level that is perfect for them."

And after all, this is still a league where last year two players

were banned for fighting. Players on the same team fighting each other.

Fighting with a crutch.

Another time last season, a game was canceled because one of

the stadiums claimed to need the day for resurfacing. He-haw. Just

kidding. They never did the work, and they never played the game.

How about the highlight of the last Panthers' season, when

they took their NWF title to California to play its semi-pro champs

from San Jose. Auburn won 14-7. Oops. Sorry. Immediately afterward

the entire California League, including San Jose, disbanded.

Or take their star linebacker that first season, former UCLA

starter Brad Plemmons. He was so excited about playing for the Panthers,

his pregame rituals would include cold showers. In his first outing

he made 15 tackles and intercepted a pass to win the game.

Four games later he was gone, vanished, archives, visible only

through phone calls from angry business associates.

It seems as Auburn has gotten better, and the league has gotten

more upset about it, problems have gotten worse. Finally last week

their 22-0 win over West Seattle was called with two minutes left

because of four personal fouls within a 35-second span. Mutt Haugen

doesn't fight that much in 35 seconds.

Washington, 30, the league's MVP in 1984 and offensive MVP in

1985, spent the day after last year's championship game in a hot tub,

draining the water when it cooled and filling it up again. He was

sore and suffering from two weeks with the flu. He stayed in the tub

only because it hurt too much to get out.

"But you know, I felt like a champ," he said. "And I could

have just won the flag football title. But I was a champ. And you

never forget that feeling." "Sometimes when I stop a guy cold in his tracks, and I hear the crowd cheer, I get that NFL kind of feeling. It's like yeah, I did something great. I say yeah, I wish those scouts were out there tonight! "Then I leave the field. I take a shower. I get on home. It's just another night." - Ben Ayers, 30-year-old nosetackle, Auburn Panthers semi-pro football team