Fassel refuses to treat UFL like a punch line

The football practice field adjacent to Sam Boyd Stadium isn’t what you find outside Raymond James Stadium — unless there is an NFL team in Tampa running plays amid swirling clumps of dust and the sounds of cement trucks churning away — but never accuse the man in charge of devaluing any opportunity to win a championship.

Fassel brought the New York Giants to Super Bowl XXXV in Florida and will deliver the Las Vegas Locomotives to the Virginia Destroyers on Friday in search of a third and perhaps final United Football League title, the Locos being the only team ever to lift a William Hambrecht Trophy at season’s end.

This is what you get when you lose $90 million on a deal. An award named in your honor. Bill Hambrecht was hoping for more.

Fassel gathered his team following practice Tuesday and scolded it for sloppy play, for not being as focused as a group with a three-peat on its mind should.

I respected the heck out of Fassel before and even more now.

The UFL has since its inception offered more one-liners than any stand-up comic could imagine, from its funky scheduling to limited teams to the fact it has lost money by the truckloads.

Practices were delayed this season when there weren’t enough helmets to go around, and ultimately the game schedule was cut short as a way to slow the bleeding of funds.

You get the idea.

But through it all — through the league’s awful and mostly nonexistent television deal and lack of corporate sponsors and daily struggle to convince the public that good football still exists in Las Vegas and is worth paying to see — Fassel hasn’t wavered one ounce in his commitment and passion. He has never treated it as the joke many perceive the UFL to be.

“I’ve coached this team the way I have any team I’ve ever been around,” Fassel said. “I’m not a guy who walks around and accepts when things get sloppy. I don’t allow things to slip by.

“I’ve got a lot of time and effort invested in this. I want to see it work. I do. I’m more pioneer than historian. I like building things, getting control of something where I can make a difference. I’m as driven and as enthusiastic and as energetic doing this as any guy coaching an NFL team.”

He is 62 and didn’t need to accept the job of coach/general manager/president/No. 1 promoter of the Locos, didn’t need the money, didn’t need to walk away from a comfortable radio broadcasting gig that had him spending Sunday afternoons analyzing NFL games.

He didn’t need any of it.

The coach in him did.

It took 20 years for Fassel to make any real money coaching, so a handsome annual check from the UFL wasn’t going to sway his view either way. He made $18,000 a year as an assistant at Stanford in the early 1980s. He has always been about something more than a bottom line, which is perhaps why he turned down an offensive coordinator’s job in the NFL last year to remain on the unstable vessel that has always been the UFL.

Some get into coaching today for different reasons than when Fassel began, because the wealth one can realize if fortunate enough to advance quickly now is exorbitant.

Fassel has enough money. He doesn’t need to work another day should he choose. He has discovered a home in Las Vegas, where he will remain whether the UFL holds a fourth season or not.

Some guys are just wired to compete, no matter the circumstance. The guy yelling after practice this week thinks his team is preparing for the biggest game in the world, and regardless if the final gun on Friday indeed signals an end to the latest venture seeking successful pro football outside the NFL, Fassel will treat every second with the focus he did a certain game 12 years ago in Florida.

That’s what makes him different than most.

“I’d be lying if I said there haven’t been moments of feeling defeated about (the UFL),” he said. “But they never last long. That’s my nature. That’s me. When frustrating moments come, I’ve always said, ‘I’m going to win this battle.’ The people who drive me most are the ones who say we can’t get it done.

“(Broadcasting) was great. I was loving life. I was comfortable enough to where I controlled my own destiny. But I wanted to do this. I wanted to coach.

“It’s what I am.”

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 3 to 5 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday on “Monsters of the Midday,” Fox Sports Radio (920 AM). Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.