2005 Washington Post Electric football article

[WEIRDWOLF]

A Baby-Boomer Icon Returns to the Playing Field

By Jeff Turrentine
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 3, 2005; Page H01

It's possible that Sunday's Super Bowl between the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots will be almost as hard-hitting and realistic as "Madden NFL," the video-game breakthrough that dominates the field of computer-generated pummeling, pulverizing and Hailing Mary.

But for (mostly) males of a certain age, who grew up with the buzzing, stuttering, decidedly low-tech game known as electric football, "Madden NFL" is no great shakes.


In one of the greatest comebacks in simulated sports history, electric football -- a game that was actually discontinued 17 years ago for lack of any discernible market -- has defied the oddsmakers and now dances triumphantly in the end zone of renewed popularity. Leagues all over the country organize weekend tournaments. Players from opposing teams taunt and gibe one another in chat rooms. There's even an electric football Super Bowl held every year, on the weekend before the real one.

It's a Cinderella story for a game that, in its earlier incarnations, was as famous for its lumbering pace and wobbly results as for its entertainment value. Even grown men nostalgic for its heyday in the 1950s and '60s sound ambivalent when describing its allure.

"The thing I most remember is the tremendous anticipation that would surround getting the game out of the box," says Ken Rudin, political editor at National Public Radio. As a 12-year-old boy, Rudin was ineluctably drawn (as 12-year-old boys still are) to the combination of electronics, sports themes and the chance to tromp friends in virtually any competition.

But, says Rudin, actually experiencing electric football often proved less exciting than pulling the board out from underneath a friend's bed and setting it up. Somehow, the game never quite lived up to the "Tru-Action" intensity promised on the box.

"We couldn't wait to play, but then when we actually played it, everybody was like: 'What was that all about?' " And yet, Rudin says, "we would do it over and over again. We just didn't know any better."

Electric football has been around since the late 1940s, when it was introduced by Tudor Metal Products, a Brooklyn-based company that had already had a hit with a horse-racing game in which tiny equestrian figures raced one another on a vibrating board.

The football spinoff worked in much the same way: Players would set up inch-high figures representing offensive and defensive formations on a green metal board, then flick a switch that set the whole thing vibrating. Over the board's signature buzz, the figure with the ball -- a tiny piece of white felt -- would jitter his way toward the opposite end zone, until he was "tackled" by bumping up against a defensive opponent. (Though a passing game was technically possible, it usually proved so difficult that most kids gave up and concentrated on their running game.) After each play, the switch would be turned off, new formations set up, the tiny felt ball re-tucked beneath the quarterback's arm and the next play set tottering in motion.

The game approximated the experience of real football about as much as throwing a paper airplane approximates piloting an F-16. But that didn't stop kids from begging their parents to plunk down a five-spot to bring it home from the toy store.With the advent of arcade-style and hand-held video games in the late 1970s, electric football seemed destined to become just another icon of boomer nostalgia. By the late 1980s, you couldn't find the game on shelves anymore. The people at Tudor, reading the computer code on the wall, must have been as surprised as they were relieved when Michael Landsman, president of Chicago-based Miggle Toys, offered to buy the company in 1992.

Landsman, quick to acknowledge that electric football was his "all-time favorite game," immediately set about renewing the game's lapsed license with NFL Properties, giving him the right to use team names, colors and logos as well as to market a "Super Bowl" version.

He believed that even in the era of Super Nintendo, the game deserved another chance, but he wasn't sure how to spark a revival. Strange as it may seem, however, the game's renaissance came about thanks to one of its most maddening drawbacks: the way the bitty little football-player figures get lost under carpets and sofas, in backyards and toy boxes.

"We'd get these calls from all over the U.S. -- 'I've had the game for 20 years, I lost this part, I lost that part,' " says Landsman, recalling the steady stream of customer-service queries. "And I started to think: Gee, all these guys think they're the only ones in the world who are playing this game. Why don't we try to find some way to communicate with them, and get them together?"

Landsman decided to publish an electric football newsletter, Plugged In, and mail it to people who had called or written in search of replacement parts. Then, more curious than optimistic, he decided to throw an event for players in Chicago.

"We had no idea how many people would show up," he says. "And, my God, they just started to stream in. My wife looked at me and I looked at her -- we couldn't believe it. They came in from Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa. We even had people from Texas! They wanted to know who else was playing the game."

About 50 people came to that first gathering in 1995, Landsman says. At a second meeting the next year, the number increased sixfold. The game's fan base "has been growing and growing ever since," he says, thanks in part to a now-annual convention and electric football "Super Bowl." Last weekend, the 11th such event was held in Pittsburgh. More than 60 players -- or "coaches," in the parlance of league play -- showed up to do battle. Hundreds of their friends and family members, as well as the simply curious, attended the free event to watch the action.

Computers, which once threatened to consign the game to the scrapheap of history, have helped, too: The electric football chat room on Miggle's Web site (www.miggle.com) electronically links players from all over the world (including, Landsman says, U.S. troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan). Landsman estimates that the community of electric football fans who play the game more than occasionally -- the kinds of people who form leagues and attend the annual Super Bowl -- may be as large as 10,000.

To hear him describe it, the 110 volts required to set the game board shaking are powerful enough to overcome most of society's ills. Apparently, what the world needs now is buzz, sweet buzz.

"It's brought together people from every ethnic, social and economic background," he says. "And they're all buddies. They communicate by e-mail and phone -- people who didn't know each other before us. They get on the chat board, they exchange plays. They share rooms at the conventions, they go to each other's homes, they hold regional tournaments all over the U.S. They're all the best of friends."

Deadpan, he notes: "You should be there during the convention. The room just vibrates."

Last Sunday's Official Electric Football Super Bowl in Pittsburgh was both a shutout and an upset: Norbert Revels, a coach from the Great Lakes League, defeated the two-time champion Edgar Downs, from the Midwest League, 14-0. Though they didn't make it to the final playoffs, a group of local players from Prince George's County went to Pittsburgh and gave it their all.

Dearell Brevard, 36, of College Park, first played electric football when he was 7 years old. Like many electric football fans, he put away childish things only to return to them in midlife; he's now the "commissioner" of the three-year-old Beltsville Electric Football League, which boasts 23 coaches. Members meet every other weekend at the Beltsville Community Center or the Boys and Girls Club.

"We like to play in public, to attract others to the game," says Brevard. "People walk up and see us playing and say, 'I remember that game! They still make that game?' And then we take them in and walk them through the process.

"Slowly," he adds, with no trace of irony. "So they won't be overwhelmed."

The electric football that Brevard and his fellow Beltsville leaguers play is a far cry, he says, from the Sputnik-era model that Ken Rudin remembers playing as a boy. These days, player-coaches align themselves with real NFL teams (Brevard's is the San Francisco 49ers, though he insists that he's a Redskins fan at heart) and hand-paint their figures, then modify them by filing and shaping their bases to influence their trajectories. Miggle also manufactures and markets accessories -- including a stadium enclosure with a working scoreboard and even lights, for night games -- to enhance the experience. One man in Texas custom-builds replicas of real stadiums, so that you can have your tiny Denver Broncos defend their record in a miniature Mile High. The different versions of electric football that Miggle sells range from $50 to $150, and can be found at most large toy stores.

"It's a lot faster than when we were younger," says Brevard. Though the newer, more kinetic version of electric football inspires him and his league-mates to scream and yell just like any athlete in the thick of battle, Brevard says they try to keep cursing to a minimum -- they're playing at the Boys and Girls Club, after all.

Which doesn't stop them from engaging in a little trash-talking in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, especially in online chat rooms. "Oh, it gets crazy," he says. "We talk smack back and forth, especially with the guys from Detroit. But it's all in fun. When we're all done we sit down and break bread together."

[Coach K-LO]

i remember this article .....




our league will be doing the TV circuit this friday in 2 spots on FOX-TV morning show.....


K-LO