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In the 1980s, we got a glimpse of spring football in New Jersey with the formation of the USFL and the New Jersey Generals. It proved there was a place in our souls for football other than the NFL. And that was good. But alas, the Generals and the USFL folded. Was it better to have loved spring football and lost, then not to have ever had loved it at all?
We didn't have to wait that long for an answer, for with the start of the 90s, New Jersey got its second spring team in the Meadowlands, the NY/NJ Knights of the WLAF. They drew crowds of 40,000 football fans a game in a stadium that was a mile down the Turnpike from the Vince Lombardi Service Station. Some of us had season tickets. It was fun to tailgate in the spring. But like the Generals before them, the Knights were disbanded when the WLAF became NFL Europe leaving us football fanatics with that Football Void again. Little did we know that there was an indoor football league that had been growing in the mid-west since 1985.
It was in May of 1996 when we saw our first Arena Football League games on espn2. It was indoors and on a smaller field, but that didn’t matter. It was fast paced and high scoring. It was a lot like the sand lot ball we played as kids. We liked what we saw and soon found out that there was team called the Connecticut Coyotes that played not too far away. So Brian Agront, Todd Freitag, Steve Cafone and Americo Lopes went to Hartford to see the Coyotes play the Albany Firebirds. It was an awesome time, and we were really hooked, but we were disappointed to hear that the Coyotes were to fold like the Generals and Knights before. However, this time there was good news. The Arena Football League announced that they would establish a team at the Meadowlands Arena, right in our backyard!
As soon as tickets went on sale, eight of us called this new New Jersey team for season tickets. Good seats were expensive ($100 a game!) so eight of us; Americo Lopes, Don Mergner, Brian Agront, Todd Freitag, Bruce DiBisceglie, Steve Cafone, Bob Beyer and Dom DiBisceglie split three season tickets and rotated going to New Jersey Red Dog games. By the end of the season, we all started going to any game we could, regardless of our ‘ticket rotation plan’.
The games were fun and high scoring. We saw the Red Dogs win their first game ever against the Iowa Barnstormers. We saw them set a pro football record by scoring 91 points vs the Texas Terror. The fans in the stands got to know each other and the games became a social event. Then on Friday night, July 11, 1997, Steve Cafone innocently brought to the game a white helmet, with red and black tape and a Red Dog sticker on the side. It was too small for his head and had no face mask, but it looked wild. The helmet look was born. With wacky headgear on, Steve was a possessed man that night. He even rushed another Red Dog fan and took a bite from their styrofoam bone.
The inaugural season was a lot of fun, much more than we had expected it to be, so we decided to buy more tickets for the second season in 1998 and upgrade to Section 123. We had quickly become as big a fan of the AFL as we were fans of the NFL. In fact, it was a little hard to watch the slow NFL game after a season of in-your-face football.
During the 1998 season, we all wore the white helmets to games. Bob got us going at the beginning of the season with the chant of D-O-G-S Dogs! Dogs! Dogs! following each Red Dog touchdown. At some point during this second season we became rabid. We donned Section 123 “The Kennel”. Since the spring/summer schedule offered better weather that the NFL season, tailgating became a regular thing. On Sunday, July 26, 1998, for the Arizona game, Steve brought a big mannequin dressed in full Red Dog garb to the tailgate and into the Arena. The mannequin's name was Ike and he received a lot of attention. Ike and Steve were caught on camera by the ESPN crew and mocked by announcer Mike Adamle. Adamle questioned on the air, "which on is the real dummy". Adamle called the mannequin a dummy! That was no dummy, that was IKE! After that game (in which NJ won in OT), Ike came to every Red Dog game.
In that same month, Bruce called the Red Dogs to set up a flag football game at the Arena the afternoon of the home finale vs Portland. The rep on the phone said, “oh, it’s for you guys… the Helmet Heads.” And a name was born.
The Helmet Head legend grew during the Red Dog playoff game in Albany. Ike led the insanity as the New Jersey fans who had road-tripped for the Firebird game cheered in the streets outside the Pepsi Arena. Saint Don, MC Lopes and Bruce D. represented the Helmet Heads well along with the Cigar Boyz from P'burg. It was a great time and many friendships were made that day.
In September of 1998, the Red Dog brass wanted an official fan club for their team. They didn’t need to look much further then the lunatics in Section 123. So using the phone number from the flag football game arrangements, the team contacted the Helmet Heads. The seven nut cases led by a mannequin immediately accepted the offer to start the fan club. What the hell, we were going to go crazy anyway, so a little company would be nice. The Helmet Heads formed The Kennel Club, the first and only official fan club for the New Jersey Red Dogs in December 1998. And the rest, as they say, is history…