Voodoo And A Prayer

Michael Brick: NEW ORLEANS — The season is lost. The numbers don't lie: Defeats to teams from Georgia, Oklahoma, Illinois, Arizona, two places in Pennsylvania and three in Florida, one of them twice. Shut out at home, in The Graveyard. Yes, there have been turnovers. Yes, there have been injuries. Yes, there have been transactions. Lord have there been transactions. On the active roster of 24 players, 11 remain from training camp, some of whom joined through open tryouts at City Park, paying $60 for the chance, which was all they were ever promised, a chance, that and a T-shirt. The latest addition is 37 years old. He's a skill player: A defensive back.

Maybe these are just the breaks of Arena Football, the bouncehouse sport of also-rans. Maybe this is just the function of a bankruptcy reorganization designed to concentrate power in the league office. Maybe this is just the fate of an expansion team, even one with a venerable name bought and paid for. These men earn $7,200 for the season — $3,690 below the federal poverty level — plus any treatment that counts as sports medicine from Tulane and complimentary lodging at the Magnolia Ridge Apartments between I-10 and the Causeway in Metairie. Their coach, Derek Stingley, still in the game despite what it takes away from his family, or maybe because of what it already has: He rides the sleeper bus too. Their quarterback, Danny Wimprine, the hometown ace out of John Curtis Christian School, a minor folk hero in a town with more of them than it can use; he gets $400 a game too.

But who among us isn't making a last stand?