| World Bowl: Building a History
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DATE: June 23, 2000
PUBLICATION: NFL.com
For the competing franchises in World Bowl 2000, the game is nothing new. For the head coaches, it's also old hat; both the Rhein Fire's Galen Hall and the Scottish Claymores' Jim Criner have been in the championship game — and come away victorious.
And while the match itself is familiar, the face of the nine-year-old World Bowl has changed as the league evolved through both of its incarnations as the World League and NFL Europe League. In fact, both Hall and Criner were on the sidelines in the second World Bowl, contested between the Orlando Thunder and Sacramento Surge in 1992.
In the mind of Hall — then the head coach of Orlando — the difference between that game in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and Sunday's meeting in Frankfurt lies in the evolution of the atmosphere surrounding the duel.
"I thought in Montreal they tried to do a pretty good job (promoting the game)," Hall said. "But probably there's much more awareness of the game now than there was back then."
Since that evening at Olympic Stadium — when the Surge, with an offensive line coached by Criner, won 21-17 — Hall and Criner have been to three World Bowls combined. But the coaches are only part of the histories of the two entrants in World Bowl 2000.
THE HOMETOWN HERO
Qualifying for the World Bowl in 1996 as the game's host, the players and coaches of the Claymores were naturally ebullient with excitement over the event, especially after it came on the heels of a disappointing 2-8 campaign in the franchise's inaugural season.
But for wide receiver Scott Couper, the Claymores' first appearance in the championship game meant something far more.
"It was a dream come true," Couper, the Claymores' lone native Scotsman, recollected. "The thing I remember most is a couple of days before the World Bowl, I went in the ticket office and found out there were going to be 30,000-35,000 people.
"I just remember sitting in my hotel room the night before the game just absolutely shaking at the prospect to come out at Murrayfield (Stadium) and play in front of 40,000 people."
It was an experience that represented the culmination of 12 years of aspiration for Couper, who took football up at the age of 14 after watching games on television and proceeded to spend a decade playing with the Glasgow Lions, an amateur flag football club, before getting a tryout with the Claymores upon their birth in 1995.
Couper — who caught two passes for 25 yards in the 1996 World Bowl and was named the to the All-NFLEL team for the 2000 season — has developed into a consistent, sure-handed receiver. But when he tried out for the team, he was far from the prototypical pro football player.
"In the beginning I remember this tall, skinny drink of water that was awkward when he ran, and he had never touched a weight in his life," Criner recalled. "Starting that first year, we got him in a weight program and also put him on a running program."
Couper didn't need too much work on his hands; the 10 years of flag football turned his fingers into glue. But after an offseason of working out, he went into the 1996 season and World Bowl still looking to refine parts of his game.
"I still remember the big game in '96 when we asked him to block on a naked bootleg that our quarterback ran," he said. "The quarterback came out and he wasn't able to remove the guy, but he stuck to him like flypaper. Nowadays, in the same occasion, he'll put that guy on the ground."
When he makes his blocks, he does so for more than just his teammates. To Couper, the Claymores' cause — which will be supported at Walstadion by 500 fans commuting in for the contest — involves national pride.
"We're the only franchise that actually represents a nation," Couper said, a thick Scottish accent underlying his words. "The Scottish people are a very proud nation, and … it meant a lot to me, as a Scotsman, to actually be a part of it and give something back."
WHEN RAIN DIDN'T PUT OUT THE FIRE
When the Rhein Fire last burned on the World Bowl stage, they couldn't be doused — not by the opposing Frankfurt Galaxy, not by the hostile crowd at Frankfurt's Walstadion, and not by the drenching rains that fell during the game.
"The rain didn't affect our strategy," Hall said. "It rained so hard, that you couldn't really think about it."
Unconscious of the elements, the Fire claimed their first championship, defeating the Galaxy 34-10, overcoming both the conditions and the loss of starting quarterback Mike Quinn, who was replaced by Jim Arellanes, making his first NFLEL start.
"I prepared all week like I was going to be the starter but didn't hear about it from the coach until about six o'clock," Arellanes said after the game. "It was tough to hang on to the ball on those conditions. I fumbled quite a few times - that was the first time I had ever played in rain like that."
As a veteran of that championship squad, Fire linebacker Jamie Baisley earned a championship ring for his efforts. And while he didn't have a prominent place on the roster, serving as a backup that season, the Rhein Fire's lone title still stands out as the sweetest memory of his career, and the accompanying championship ring is a prized possession.
"It's the closest thing to a Super Bowl ring you can get, so it's nice to have," he said.
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