Making the Transition
April 21, 2003 - Arena Football League (1987-2008) (AFL I)
San Jose SaberCats News Release
If you don't believe that working hard will get you places, take a look at SaberCats' FB/LB Matt Kinsinger.
The All-America defensive lineman from Pennsylvania's Slippery Rock University is the only arenafootball2 alum to play for the SaberCats, and he got here with plenty of hard work, a little luck and the ability to adapt.
The road to San Jose for Kinsinger was bumpy at times. A year in Augusta, Ga., with the Stallions of af2 and a season traveling the country as a member of the Houston ThunderBears' road show. But nothing seemed to derail him from playing and competing.
"All I wanted to do was play football," Kinsinger said. So he worked hard at the game that would ultimately become his livelihood.
Kinsinger credits his upbringing in Western Pennsylvania for his toughness and staunch work ethic. "You have to be tough to grow up in that area. There was no timeout in the corner; you were going to get your butt beat if you did something wrong. You had to work. No one had a lot of money so you worked hard for what you had."
Four years playing nose guard for The Rock also toughened up Kinsinger. "The Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference was primarily a running league so you had to be physically and mentally tough to play in a league that was a smash-mouth league," he noted. "I think that correlates with arena football, it's also a smash-mouth league."
Introduced to arena football by following a couple of former Slippery Rock players, Kinsinger's interest in this different kind of game piqued. "I heard about arena football before I actually started playing because there were a couple of guys from Slippery Rock that were playing for Albany," noted Kinsinger. "I knew it was a legitimate league because those guys are good ball players and if they could play there I knew I could play there."
It so happened that the former Slippery Rock athletes were current Los Angeles Avenger WR/LB and 2002 Ironman of the Year Greg Hopkins and Indiana lineman John Sikora.
So, is it a coincidence that three former Slippery Rock players are now legitimate stars in the Arena Football League?
Not so according to Kinsinger. "We're all from Western Pennsylvania," he noted. "Everybody worked for what they had. So that's basically all you knew what to do was just the blue collar stuff."
A try out with the Arena Football League's Orlando Predators after college didn't net immediate results, but Kinsinger made enough of an impact on head coach Fran Papasedero that he called a year later with an opportunity in the upstart arenafootball2 league.
"I was back home working and training for any opportunity that might arise," noted Kinsinger. "Once I heard about this chance I pretty much packed my whole life up and moved to Augusta"
And thus began Kinsinger's arena football career.
He spent the better part of his first season as a lineman with the Augusta Stallions, but realized if he were to make it to the Arena Football League things would have to change.
"Knowing how football is, you have to be a certain height and weight for a position, I knew if I wanted to move to Arena one (AFL) being 6-2, 260 just wasn't going to cut it playing the line."
So Kinsinger drew on his experiences as a fullback in high school and talked to the Augusta coaching staff about making the transition to the fullback/linebacker position.
"I had talked with the coaches all season long about getting the opportunity to try fullback/linebacker," stated Kinsinger. "I played fullback in high school and felt comfortable at that spot and the linebacker in arena football is just a fourth blitzer so I knew I could handle that."
As luck would have it, the Stallions experienced some injuries near the end of that season and Kinsinger got his chance at the fullback/linebacker spot. He played the final five games at his new position and in his own words felt he did pretty well.
Luck remained on Kinsinger's side in 2001 when Houston ThunderBears' head coach Steve Thonn saw game film and liked what he saw. "He (Thonn) out of the blue gave me a call and asked if I'd be interested in playing. Of course I was all over that, that was pretty exciting for me.
"We did a lot of cutting (blocking) actually in Augusta and that's what they did there. That was one of the big attractions in bringing me to Houston."
So it was off to Texas for the kid from Western Pennsylvania. But he would never play an Arena Football League game in Houston. The franchise was purchased by the league office and used to showcase the game of arena football in different cities across the country.
"The experience there was unbelievable because we got to travel every week. We went to the major cities and the smaller cities but we traveled every week," said Kinsinger of his stay with Houston. "It was difficult traveling all the time and only win three games on top of it. But being it was my first year in the league I was willing to do just about anything I had to do to get my foot in the door. Whenever I got my chance to play I did the best that I could."
After the Houston franchise folded, Kinsinger's football future was up in the air. Not a star player by any means after playing in just five games, the SaberCats gambled and selected him in the fourth round of the 2001 Dispersal Draft.
"I was sweating bullets when the Houston team folded because it wasn't up to me where I was going to go," he noted. "I was willing to go wherever I had to and when I found out San Jose picked me up I was elated. It was like going from the outhouse to the penthouse."
The SaberCats had built a reputation around the league and Kinsinger was well aware of that. "That was a team I was so jealous of when I was with Houston because they were so well taken care of and they had a lot of big name guys on the team and they had been so successful for so many years."
Kinsinger wasn't guaranteed a roster spot when he reported for training camp in 2002, but the work ethic he embraced and the desire to be the best gave him an opportunity to succeed.
Also, playing alongside Bob McMillen, one of the best fullback/linebackers in AFL history, in 2002 didn't hurt either. "Bob really helped me out," Kinsinger said. "He helped teach me some of the finer points of the fullback/linebacker position."
Kinsinger capped his first season with San Jose by helping the team to its first league championship. "There's nothing you can compare it to, nothing at all," he said of winning the title. "To go from winning three games one year to winning all but one the next is a dream come true. It was amazing."
It's not a meteoric rise, but for the 26-year-old from Western Pennsylvan ia, who played high school ball at Meyersdale Area High School, enjoys riding Harley's and who loves to hunt, it's pretty darn close.
"I just hope to replicate what we did last season," said Kinsinger. SaberCats' fans wouldn't mind at all.
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