Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 2, 1993 TAG: 9308020032
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRIS BACHELDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LYNCHBURG LENGTH: Long
The 29-year-old Rustburg High School graduate yearned for the real thing - the glare of the lights, the crash of the pads, the cheers and jeers of the stadium faithful.
So instead of pining away in his home - watching ESPN and reliving past glory - Riley did what he had to do to get his feet back in cleats.
He started his own franchise, the Lynchburg Jaguars of the Mason-Dixon Football League.
One of Riley's first moves as general manager of the minor-league team was to place himself on the 55-man roster as a defensive back.
"I just wanted one more shot," said Riley, who may be the only football GM in the country who mows lawns during the day to make ends meet. "I've got a couple of years of playing left, at the most. Then I want to get into management and coaching."
After graduating from Rustburg in 1981, Riley moved to Florida. He responded to a newspaper ad and played a couple of seasons with a semipro team in Florida.
He returned to Lynchburg in 1985 with the idea of catching on with a Virginia team. But he found out the closest team was the Mason-Dixon's Richmond Ravens, so he went to work putting his own team on the field.
Riley mustered the $800 league dues, assured league officials his team could travel to Connecticut (which was then the longest road trip on the schedule) and rounded up about 30 players to compete as the Lynchburg Jaguars in 1987.
The Jaguars' first run lasted two seasons. Riley was a free safety on teams that won the Southern Division with a 6-4 record in 1987 and finished 4-3 in 1988. The Lynchburg team packed it in when the money ran low.
But Riley's football fever never broke. After a 14-month stint in Virginia Beach, where he worked and observed the operations of the Mason-Dixon League's Tidewater Sharks, Riley returned to Lynchburg to resuscitate the Jaguars.
His tireless efforts appear to have been successful. Lynchburg is set to open its 1993 Mason-Dixon schedule at 7 p.m. Aug. 14 with a game against Tidewater at Liberty University, the site of all Jaguars home games.
Riley spread the word about tryouts in the spring, and that brought a marked improvement in numbers and talent. Head coach Dan Wells and his staff of five assistants pared the roster to 55. The average age is about 23, and the oldest player is 36.
"On past teams, we had 30 or 35 guys at the most," Riley said. "And we'd have about 10 or 12 show up for practice. Now we've got 35 or 40 at every practice."
Under the guidance of Wells, the Jaguars have been working out at Dunbar Middle School three times a week throughout the summer.
Wells moved to Virginia about a year ago from Atlanta. He is originally from Texas, where he played 11 seasons in a "barroom league" and later coached. He had been out of football for five years when Riley discovered him and pestered him to come on board.
"I had decided I was out of football and I turned him down several times," said Wells, who owns and operates a landscaping company in Wintergreen. "But he kept pounding and making it sound like something I'd want to do.
"I saw that Pat was committed, and I saw the potential to make it work. Then I saw the talent and I thought, `Now, wait a minute. If you ever want to coach again, now's the chance.'
"We have a lot of talent and the guys' hearts are in it. They're football players. They have the quirks that make you scratch your head and wonder how they get from one side of the street to the other, but they're good people. I couldn't pass it up."
There's no questioning the dedication of the players, who will play by NFL rules but will not see NFL paychecks. The Jaguars will not be paid at all for playing football. The team pays for equipment, transportation and room and board on overnight trips.
Wells singled out quarterback Chris Merritt and defensive tackle Rep Lampman as examples of the team's talented, experienced and enthusiastic players. Neither Merritt nor Lampman has missed a practice this hot summer.
Merritt, a supervisor for Lynchburg Asbestos and Renovation, was the Jaguars' starting quarterback in 1988. He played football and ran track at Altavista High School and St. Paul's College in Lawrenceville.
Merritt, 27, said he is "trying to get the feeling back" after a long football layoff, which included a tryout with the Canadian Football League's Toronto Argonauts at a free-agent camp in Norfolk. He jumped at the chance to rejoin the Jaguars and has his hands full trying to master Wells' 82-page play book, which outlines an offensive system that Wells calls "explosive" and "basically impossible to defend."
"It's going to be fun," Merritt said. "There are a lot of options. It's a quarterback's dream."
Merritt said the '93 Jaguars are much more talented than past Lynchburg teams. He called the group "an area all-star team," and said that an offensive line that averages 280 pounds will afford better protection than the undersized 1988 front.
This will be Lampman's first season with Lynchburg. The 6-foot-3, 310-pounder went to Heritage High School in Lynchburg and was a two-year starter at VMI, where he graduated in December 1990.
Lampman, 25, is working at a Lynchburg restaurant and attending classes at Liberty to get his teaching certificate.
"Like anybody else, I would have liked to have played pro ball. But I was realistic about it," said Lampman, who wants to coach high school football. "I missed playing, and when this came along, I thought I'd give it a try. It's been four years since I've played, so I'm ready to go."
The 13 teams in the Mason-Dixon League, one of the country's largest minor leagues, play 10 regular-season games on Saturdays. The top two teams in each division advance to the playoffs. The teams don't have big-league affiliations, but Riley hopes it won't be long before the NFL sponsors an organized minor-league system.
The Mason-Dixon champion will look for one of four invitations to the minor-league national championship in Orlando, Fla., in December.
Gearing up for the '93 season, Riley has been involved with "a little bit of everything and anything," including ticket sales, publicity, promotions, sponsorships, game-day stadium operations - even recruiting cheerleaders.
All this while keeping up with his day job and scrapping for playing time - not even the GM is a guaranteed starter - on muggy Tuesday and Thursday nights and Saturday mornings.
The general manager/defensive back of the Lynchburg Jaguars says there are "a lot of headaches" to his job.
But for a guy with a pigskin passion, it's the life of Riley.
by CNB