WORCESTER — There’s big bear hugs, raucous laughter, and free pepperoni pizza in the Massachusetts Pirates locker room after they beat the first-place Arizona Rattlers, 68-44, in a recent Sunday matinee at the DCU Center.
It’s just a few yards to the Exhibition Hall, which served as a COVID-19 field hospital for 230 days before it closed in mid-March. Where there once was fear and sorrow, happiness now reigns.
The man with three Super Bowl rings takes it all in with a knowing smile.
“That’s four games in a row,” says a calm Patrick Pass, the Pirates’ head coach.
Pass, 43, is decidedly low key. He doesn’t really want to be photographed, nor interviewed. He says the story is about the players, not the coach.
His heart is in the right place. Pass says he does this as a volunteer.
“I’m not getting paid,” he says. “I love football.”
Does Pass invoke the words of his former coach, Bill Belichick?
“Yes,” says Pirates quarterback Sean Brackett. “It’s always, ‘The Patriots Way’ and ‘Do your job.’ Start fast, focus, and finish, and we’re trying to do all that stuff.”
Pass, who was the Patriots’ starting fullback in Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005, says he thinks about Belichick a lot.
“What would Bill do or what would Bill say?”
But he’s his own man.
“Oh, no, I don’t want to sound like my ex-boss,” Pass says. “He was always going 100 [miles per hour] straight forward. I’m still learning [coverages]. I have a good group of people that help me out every day, but at the end of the day, it’s still score, tackle, win.”
The Indoor Football League is not the NFL, but it’s fast paced and fun.
Its eight vs. eight on a padded hockey rink-sized field with two receivers allowed in motion, making the offense look like a slingshot before the ball is snapped. There is no punting and the goalposts are smaller and the crossbar higher.
Pass says that when he attended his first arena football game he was surprised.
“I was like, Holy Moly these guys would run into the wall trying to get the ball.”
He also liked that the price was right for fans.
“I saw how much fun the kids were having in the stands,’' Pass says. “I’m like, oh, man, this could be something that a family of five or six could enjoy football without having to go and file taxes just to get into the game.”
Tickets start at $15. A front-row luxury suite with oversized cushioned seats, and unlimited food and grown-up drinks for the first half, costs $200 a ticket.
In a genius marketing scheme, the IFL uses cheaper composite footballs and lets fans keep them as souvenirs when they go into the stands. They go through 40-50 balls a game.
In some respects the IFL is like a secondary minor league, after the college draft.
More than 80 IFL players have signed NFL or Canadian Football League contracts.
Pirate defensive lineman Willie Yarbury recently signed with the Los Angeles Chargers. Former Pittsburgh Steelers receiver Martavis Bryant had a cup of coffee with the Pirates in April.
Pass tells the players that game film can showcase them to the NFL, CFL, or elsewhere.
“We look at it like a second opportunity for these guys to get back to where they want to go,” he says.
It is possible for an arena football player to make it big in the NFL. Kurt Warner was undrafted and played quarterback for the Iowa Barnstormers in the Arena Football League before becoming the MVP of Super Bowl XXXIV with the Rams.
Pass was drafted in the seventh round in 2000, one round after Tom Brady. He says he tips his hat to No. 12 for his endurance.
“I do get a lot of people that bash him a lot,’' says Pass. “I’m like, dude you can’t get mad because his wife is beautiful and he makes more money than you and he has seven rings.”
The Pirates (11-3), wrapped up the regular season on an eight-game win streak with Saturday night’s 55-19 win at home over the Barnstormers. A second-place finish in the standings earns the Pirates a first-round playoff game against the seventh-seeded Bismarck Bucks on Aug. 28 at 7:30 p.m.
The playing field in Worcester looks like Boise State with its blue football field, albeit 50 yards long with 8-yard end zones. Players routinely interact with fans. There’s a lot more passing than running.
“It’s a lot faster [than the NFL],” says Martrell Spaight, a Pirates linebacker who played for the Miami Dolphins, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Washington Football Team.
“The field’s shorter and it actually kind of simplifies the game for us little bit.”
Players get a minimum of $250 a game, but the Pirates provide housing, meals, and transportation.
“I think the hardest thing is going from NFL money to this money,” says Spaight. “But I think the best thing is the camaraderie. I feel it’s less political, man. Everybody’s just coming out here and having fun just playing the game that we all love.”
There’s a renaissance going on in Worcester with restaurants and breweries and college kids returning. The WooSox and brand-new Polar Park have become a destination site.
The Pirates might be Worcester’s best-kept entertainment secret. The attendance for the Sunday matinee against Arizona was 2,000, according to the Pirates. But where else can you get a selfie with Captain Hook?
“We’re inching toward breaking even, and that’s all right with us,“ says team president Jawad Yatim, who played two years of arena and indoor football.
“We’re the second-best football team in New England. You have the New England Patriots and then it’s us. So if you want to see some competitive quality football this time of year, then check us out. We’re loaded with talent.”
Stan Grossfeld can be reached at stanley.grossfeld@globe.com.
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