Surviving Chaos : Ex-CSUN Lineman Palamara Finds Pell-Mell Style of Arena Football Suits Him Well

Tony Palamara knew full well his chances of playing professional football were slim. But secretly, during his two seasons at Cal State Northridge, he hoped that he might get just half a chance to bang some heads around in the NFL.

He never got that half-chance. He did, however, get a full chance to play the game on half of a football field.

Palamara, along with former CSUN teammate Brian Clark, plays for the Los Angeles Cobras in the Arena Football League, which is to traditional football what miniature golf is to The Masters. It’s football with a windmill. It’s what the NFL would be if P. T. Barnum had become commissioner.

For openers, the game is played on a 50-yard field. Want a few comparisons?

How about the Lakers and the Chicago Bulls playing for the NBA championship on a court with 5-foot-high baskets? Might be fairly exciting to watch Michael Jordan snag his sneaker laces in the net, right? How about major league baseball in a park with the fences 160 feet from home plate? Even the Baltimore Orioles would hit a few home runs. Well, let’s say they’d at least loft some to the warning track.

Think Nolan Ryan is difficult to hit against from 60 feet, 6 inches? Try jerking one down the line on this guy from 30 feet, 3 inches.

From the assumption that reducing the size of the playing field and adding a few quirks enlivens the action, arena football was conceived in 1981 and made its public debut in 1987. With virtual nonstop action, length-of-the-field field goals, nets that launch an errant kick back into play and hockey-style checking into the padded sideboards of the arena, the game seems to be the ultimate blend of brilliant planning and unrelenting chaos.

“It looks like indoor soccer, even when you’re playing it,” said Palamara, who plays on both the offensive and defensive line in arena football’s scheme of eight-man teams in which players must play on both sides of the ball.

“At first it was hard to believe it was football. When we played our first exhibition game, the players didn’t even know all of the rules. I know I didn’t know that you could play the ball off the nets beside the goal posts. The first time I saw it happen and saw the free-for-all that erupted, I just stood there and said, ‘Whoa. What do we have here?’ It was banzai time. Kamikaze time.”

So who plays in this sort of human pinball game? Well, included among Palamara’s teammates is a fellow who worked as an E. F. Hutton financial analyst on Wall Street the past two years and also spent three months in Antarctica doing research on the ozone layer.

Another works at a preschool for underprivileged children. Another owns and operates a hair salon. And there’s a young man from Tonga named Yepi Pauu. And many, many guys who list in their biographies achievements such as, “In 1983 had free-agent tryout with the Cleveland Browns,” or “Member of the Frostburg State College Hall of Fame,” or “Played six USFL games with the Washington Federals in 1983.”

And mixed in among this cast of potential “What’s My Line?” game-show contestants is Cliff Branch, the 15-year Raider receiver who retired from football, more or less, in 1986.

The current 21-man roster, however, was culled from an original group of nearly 100 training-camp hopefuls, many of whom, according to Palamara, seemed to be hopeful only of getting to the front of the lunch line.

“Tryouts had some pretty weird stuff,” the 6-foot, 2-inch 250-pound Palamara said. “A lot of big guys. Really big guys. A lot of guys who had no business being out there. Big fat guys who weren’t even close to being in shape. It looked like the team found guys on the street and said, ‘Hey, wanna play some football?’ and invited them to camp.”

What was left, though, was a collection of very good athletes. The basic game of football, even on a 50-yard field, is a tough sport. And when you’re forced to play both offense and defense, well, the slow and fat need not apply.

“The athletic ability of these guys in arena football is different than in the NFL,” said Palamara’s former coach at CSUN, Bob Burt. “They have to be able to run better, especially the big guys, because it’s a pass-oriented league. Tony was really an excellent athlete here, and it shows in this league.”

Palamara is studying kinesiology and physical education at Cal State Northridge and said he’s about a year away from earning his degree. He was going to school and working in his family’s restaurant in March when he heard about arena football and the Cobras’ local tryouts. He decided that for the $1,000-a-week salary offered by the new league he’d investigate.

“I’d gone to a few local tryouts for the Canadian Football League, but those didn’t work out,” he said. “I first heard about arena football a week before the tryouts began. I had never watched it, never seen a game. But when I heard that you didn’t have to be 6-6 and 290 pounds, I thought, ‘This might be for me.’ ”

He made it through the initial tryouts and was then whisked off to Orlando, Fla., for the team’s training camp, which was not, Palamara recalled, located in the same part of town as Disney World.

“That was the worst part,” he said. “It was really bad. We stayed in a Motel 6 and most of us were afraid to go out. I’ve heard guys talk about training camp and how boring it was. Boring? Geez. I would have given anything to make this place just boring.”

Even though the taste of training camp still lingers in his mouth like the taste of a spoiled venison-and-cream-cheese sandwich, Palamara said he just might try it again next year-if he survives the league’s 12-game schedule.

“I’m still a bit nervous about training camp, but the games are a lot of fun,” he said. “It’s pretty good money for three months, too. I’ll most likely play again next year.

“I always felt that if I had gotten a chance to try out at an NFL camp I might have impressed a few people, but I never got the chance. Maybe playing arena football, I’ll get spotted by someone from the NFL and be given a chance. That would be great. I guess deep down inside I think that’s what might happen. But honestly, I’m doing this just on face value. This league is fun.”