Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Those who haven’t witnessed an arena football game may not be prepared for the fast-paced intensity of this potboiler sport. The field is only 50 yards from end zone to end zone, so breakaway runs and long bombs often result in touchdowns, running up the score. At the inaugural game played by the Missouri Monsters (uiflmonsters.com) at The Family Arena in St. Charles in March, there were four scores in the first few minutes, including back-to-back runbacks for touchdowns. (The final score was Corpus Christi Fury 74, Monsters 37.) It’s football on speed.
Each team fields just eight guys, and the offensive line is a paltry three-man formation. From a strategic standpoint, it’s a fascinating set of variants on what we’ve come to expect from the rules of normal football. And then there’s the tackling. Players are often knocked into the padded walls that form the field’s perimeter, not unlike checks in hockey.
Because the field is so small, footballs (which are striped red, white, and blue) continually fly into the stands, and nobody seems interested in heaving them back onto the gridiron. The savvy souvenir hunter will hightail it to just behind the goal posts during extra points. The Family Arena is small enough that every seat is a good seat—and who knows which future NFL star you might be watching in the Ultimate Indoor Football League? In the mid-’90s, a certain fellow by the name of Kurt Warner got noticed while playing arena football.
