Thrill of Football Beckons Men of All Ages to Play in Semipros : Cardinals: The county team fights loss of members, but the die-hards, some still dreaming of turning pro, refuse to quit.

The quarterback didn’t show up again.

In fact, with fewer than two dozen players in uniform, the Ventura County Cardinals barely had enough warm bodies to field a team against the visiting San Diego Jaguars.

Not that it mattered. By this breezy October afternoon, the Cardinals--the closest thing to professional football in Ventura County--had nothing left to lose in another losing season.

And there were only a couple of dozen fans who cared.

As the enemy’s hardy 40-player squad limbered up with calisthenics on the Port Hueneme Navy base’s rutted football field, the Cardinals huddled in their locker room, a tattered old military building with broken windows.

Coach Curtis (Bo) Brooks was irritated. So were his players. The team was already facing expulsion from the Pacific Football League.

The Cardinals galloped onto the gridiron to a smattering of family and friends dotting the near-empty grandstand.

Usually a linebacker, Miller Aupiu heaved a couple of passes, took a handful of snaps from center and proclaimed himself ready to play quarterback.

The grown men bunched together, clasped hands and hollered “V-E-N-T-U-R-A: Cardinals! Cardinals! Cardinals!” before taking their positions to receive the opening kick.

There are men who cannot relinquish the thrill of strapping on the pads and hitting people once high school and college football have passed them by.

Most enter coaching, live vicariously through their children, or stare into a television every fall Sunday. A few try semipro ball.

The Ventura County Cardinals are the local outlet for such men, a disheveled band of former high school stars and small college standouts who decided they did not have to hang up their jerseys after all.

Some of the team’s players--whose ages range from 21 to 60--still harbor dreams of celebrity in a true professional career, possibly in Canada or the Arena Football League, if not the National Football League.

Most, however, are just weekend warriors out to deliver a good lick, their thoughts temporarily removed from the construction sites and stale offices where they earn a living.

“There’s guys that don’t even work out,” said Derrick Means of Silver Strand Beach, the team’s star running back. “They just come out and play.”

Injuries are commonplace on the semipro gridiron, and the players’ wives and girlfriends say they often have a hard time rationalizing why their loved ones would want to risk their aging limbs in a maelstrom of trash-talking head hunters. But some say the allure is not too difficult to understand.

“The excitement, the cracking of the helmets--I think it’s the roughness of the game he likes so much,” said Michelle Ogan of Simi Valley, who attends every game to cheer on her boyfriend, Ken Healflinger of Thousand Oaks.

*

“He could have quit after Sonoma State, but he just loves it too much. It’s all he talks about.”

The Ventura County Cardinals are known as a semipro, or developmental football team, but both designations are misnomers.

Everything about their games--from the volunteer paramedics who walk the sidelines to the players who don’t always show up--reveals an amateur spirit.

Instead of receiving some small amount of money for their exploits, players actually pay $20 per game to compete. And although some Pacific Football League players have gone on to the World League of American Football and the Arena Football League, most Cardinals reach the end of their playing days right where they started.

Brooks, a husky, imposing man who played on the team until a few years ago himself, has a large Cardinal logo tattooed on his right calf. He argues that many Cardinal players would be in the pros if only they were an inch taller, a foot faster.

Well, maybe a couple of inches taller, a few feet faster and several pounds trimmer. But one thing is beyond question: Cardinal players love football.

“If the Cardinals had a game tomorrow in Pueblo, Colorado, I would be there,” said James Hickenbottom, a 27-year-old truck driver from Fresno who drives to Ventura County for every home game. “Football is my life. TV is secondary.”

There are no flashy, high-stepping types on the Ventura County Cardinals. The team is mostly made up of hard-charging tough guys, former high school and community college linemen and linebackers who long for action in the trenches.

*

Indeed, the Cardinals have had problems attracting men brazen enough to stand behind a semipro offensive line and play quarterback. The team’s two most recent bona-fide passers left the field hobbling with injuries.

“The last guy blew out his knee during his first game,” said Peter Butcher of Tarzana, the Cardinals’ 37-year-old tight end. “That was the end of him.”

There is more profanity in the air during a Cardinals game than on any gangsta rap album, and braggadocio runs amok.

But the player teammates respect most--the veteran to all veterans, the dean of semipro ball--eschews all such conduct. He can even get the guys to pray after games.

Bob Blechen, a 60-year-old offensive lineman from Agoura Hills, is the Cardinals’ spiritual leader. He is also the oldest tackle football player in America, according to semipro football hall of fame officials.

Blechen could have quit playing football in 1956, when the 21st-round draft choice out of Whittier College was one of the last five players cut by the Detroit Lions before the season began.

Instead, the lean, 6-foot-4 offensive lineman--a throwback to the days of leather helmets--is still butting heads 39 years later.

Sure, some of his opponents are young enough to be his grandchildren. And it’s true, he has had to endure a tiring season playing both offense and defense because the Cardinals are short on players.

But Blechen, who turned 60 earlier this month, said there are still a few ticks left on his game clock.

“There was a time when I thought playing to 50 would be something,” said Blechen, an assistant football coach for Agoura High School. “Then I got past that, and I still enjoyed playing. So I kept going.”

*

To his teammates, many of whom feel like outcasts for yearning to play football beyond college, Blechen has been an inspiration.

“Usually, I’m the oldest guy on a team,” said 45-year-old Jim Gonzalez. “But with that guy out there, I feel like a youngster.”

NFL Films, the legendary documentary crew that chronicles the careers of pro football’s greatest, recently shot a Cardinals game for a piece on Blechen. Interest in his football achievements is growing.

But Blechen himself doesn’t see any big deal in what he has done.

“Hey, I’m just a guy who plays football,” Blechen said. “I don’t think I’m deserving of any special honor. I just love to play the game.”

Love of the game--it’s an oft-repeated cliche among Cardinal players.

Means, a 6-foot-2, 240-pound fullback, watches “Monday Night Football” every week at Hudson’s Grill in Ventura while knocking back a few.

The burger joint’s bar is his hangout after long work days as an engineer with Taft Electric. His name, DERRICK, is etched in brass on the bar itself, next to his favorite stool.

And everyone, from the waitresses to the other regulars, knows that the cousin of San Diego Chargers star Natrone Means plays semipro football.

Means, 27, has been a Cardinal since the team’s inaugural season in 1989. Brooks spotted the former Seabee playing flag football on the Port Hueneme Navy base, and asked him if he had enough guts to try the real thing.

“It was a chance to make it to the pros,” Means said, watching football at the bar. “When we started out, a lot of scouts would go to the games. It was exciting.”

The scouts advised Means, who entered the Navy straight out of high school, to join a small college team and accumulate experience. But by that point in his life, Means said, he had too many bills to pay. There was no college football in his future.

After a few seasons with the Cardinals, Means said he realized Ventura County was probably the last place he would ever play football. But that hardly tempered his enthusiasm for the sport.

Means enjoys the small-time celebrity of being an all-star in the Pacific Football League. Local newspapers have profiled him. Friends and work-mates have seen his exploits. The waitresses at Hudson’s grill have heard about his jukes and spins on the field.

“I’ve signed autographs since I’ve been playing,” Means said. “Probably a couple hundred.”

*

But he insists he hasn’t let the star runner image go to his head. Means plays for fun, he said, and he will play until he stops enjoying himself.

“As soon as I get caught from behind,” he said, “I’ll quit.”

John Skidmore, the Cardinals’ 21-year-old cornerback, is still young enough to believe in the big dream.

The former Oxnard High School star is one of the most promising players on the team. Several more-successful semipro teams are trying to recruit him. He has a shot at Arena ball next year. And he is thinking about going up to Canada for a tryout.

“I’m still trying to keep the football thing alive,” Skidmore said. “I still see myself getting better every year.”

*

One of the Cardinals’ most reckless hitters, Skidmore played briefly at Ventura College. But his heart was devoted to ball, not books. He dropped out after one semester and joined the bricklayers union. He also joined the Cardinals.

During the Jaguar game, Gail and Bill Skidmore sat under a parasol and watched their son do battle, as they have been doing since he began playing in the sixth grade.

“I have all these scrapbooks full of his football pictures,” Gail Skidmore said between plays. “I always said, ‘If he makes it to the NFL, I’ll have this for him.’ ”

Skidmore is playing the season with broken ribs. Making matters worse, he also is playing offense and defense because so few players bother to show up.

But he is hoping for another big hit, like the one he had earlier in the year against the Fresno Bandits, the reigning U.S. champions of semipro football. All the Cardinals are still talking about it.

A Fresno player had broken away on a long pass play and was about to score when he began taunting a Cardinal defender several yards from the end zone.

Big mistake. The player didn’t see Skidmore, who viciously laid him out with a loud, jarring crack. He fumbled and the Cardinals recovered.

Even the opposing coach complimented Skidmore on the hit after the game, which the Cardinals were forced to forfeit when they ran out of healthy players. The Fresno coaches tell Skidmore they have it on tape, if he wants a copy to show scouts.

Skidmore wants a copy for his mom’s scrapbook.

The more recent Jaguars game was extremely rough and physical, with more than a dozen fumbles and countless late-hit penalties. The Cardinals held a 2-0 lead at halftime on a safety, but the game turned in the final quarter. The Jaguars scored one touchdown, then another.

Brooks pulled his defensive tackles in favor of offensive linemen, hoping they could make a stand.

“Number 90 and 97--jam and jelly,” he said derisively, as the defenders slumped their heads and left the field.

Ron Dean, 29, a friend of Brooks who drove up from Orange County in case players were needed, was carried off the field on a stretcher. His mother, the league publicist, wept and squeezed Brooks’ arm. Neck injury. It later turned out to be minor.

*

The Cardinals lost, 16-8. But most players said they felt good about the effort, considering the game was a near-forfeit.

While the Jaguars talked about reviewing mistakes on “film day,” the Cardinals discussed plans to meet at a local sports bar for a few drinks before the soreness kicks in. The soreness always kicks in.

Butcher, a postal carrier in Northridge, was part of the three league championships the Cardinals have won. He said Monday mornings after a game become more painful with every year, every loss.

“I’m so sore I can barely make it to work sometimes,” Butcher said. “They [co-workers] think I’m crazy. They make jokes about it. They ask me why I do it to myself.”

Butcher can’t explain it. He can’t explain why he returned to football after he broke his collarbone twice in the same spot, and doctors warned him never to play again. Or why he likes to go over the middle for passes when he knows he’s going to get nailed.

He certainly can’t explain why he’s already thinking about next season.

“I’d like to get one more championship ring,” he said. “It ain’t going to happen this time, but maybe next year. I still got faith in my Cardinals.”