By Taylor Emerson ’18
Photos by Levi Sim

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Football is a game of noise.

As you approach a stadium on gameday, you’ll gradually experience the swell of sounds — beginning with the murmur of the crowd gathering to root for home or away. Depending on personal tailgate participation, the searing and sizzling of hotdogs and hamburgers can certainly be audible, as well as the pop and fizz of sodas and beer.

During the game, you’ll be well acquainted with the home team’s chants and cheers — though depending on current performance, the visitors may roar louder. Then, there’s the sound of play, the barking of cadences, the smack of shoulder pads, and the grunts of impact, which are all routinely interrupted by the PA announcer calling out plays, players, and yardage.

However, in some circles, there’s another noise nearly as synonymous with football — buzzing.

Specifically, a type of buzzing that may have been best categorized by author Stefan Fatsis in a 2014 article for Deadspin: “Lower in pitch than a barbershop razor, less frenetic than a blender, a cross between a vacuum cleaner and an apartment-building front-door buzzer.”

This buzz is the sound of 22 plastic football players, 11 for each team, vibrating across a metal sheet as they’re thrust onward by an electric motor. It’s the sound of Electric Football, a tabletop game by Tudor Games that’s been around in various iterations since 1949.As it turns out, Logan is home to not just a team, but an entire Electric Football league — the Northern Utah Electric Football League — first founded in 2014, and run by the self-titled Most Powerful Man in Miniature Plastic Sports in Northern Utah. As an addendum to that illustrious designation, also attach two-time world champion — though with an explicit caveat of it coming via the amateur division of the National Miniature Football Association. If curious, he took the Utah State Aggies to the top of the mountain on both occasions.

“[The] second time I won, I beat a 14-year-old,” says Jason Leiker, a principal lecturer in the School of Social Sciences. “So, I taught him a lesson.”

The Beginnings of Buzz

In their 600-plus-page book, The Unforgettable Buzz: The History of Electric Football and Tudor Games, Earl Shores and Roddy Garcia describe the somewhat unlikely origins of a game that, through cult followings, enthusiasts, and hobbyists alike, has endured for more than 70 years.

The two authors detail how, in 1941, Elmar Sas and Gene Levay of the Tudor Metal Products Corporation debuted a vibrating electric horse race game. Though ill-fated, as it only lasted in production for a year due to wartime metal shortages, the concept proved to be adaptable.

According to the book: “When the game was turned on, an electro-magnetic relay device — a repurposed doorbell ringer — converted alternating current (AC) into game-board vibrations. Once the metal game surface began vibrating, the horses ‘ran’ around the track thanks to a pair of copper reeds mounted on the bottom of each figure.”

Fundamentally, this was the genesis of Electric Football, and the idea was transformed into Tudor Tru-Action Electric Football Game Model No. 500by Norman Sas, then 24 years old and the newly minted Tudor president

Shores and Garcia say it was first showcased at the American International Toy Fair in New York City in 1949, and the game featured two 11-men teams, red and yellow, and a “Kicker-Quarterback with a spring-loaded arm to pass, punt, and kick a tiny felt football.” These gridiron warriors would do battle on a 28-inch by 16-inch field bordered by a red wall to ensure all 22-players stayed within the confines of the game.

From there the game took off, and in 1959 alone, the authors note that Tudor had sold more than $1-million worth of electric football games.

A Modern Take on an Old Classic

Leiker was first introduced to the game as a kid, though, it was an auspicious start for a man who would later become “Commish Leiker,” as his email signature, at times, denotes.

“It was a terrible game. It never operated worth a crap,” he says. “I don’t know why they kept buying them for kids — out of the box they’re just miserable. They’re loud. … so parents bought them for their kids ran them for like 5 minutes and then stuck them in the closet.”

Part of Leiker’s issue with the game, at the time, stemmed from the lack of control over player movement the older versions of the game had.

“The newer stuff that we have now is so much easier to get going in the direction you think it should be going,” he says.

The modern equipment features a roughly inch-and-a-half tall figurine attached to a small rectangular base. On the bottom side of the bases are prongs or wipers, and tweaking the direction, angle, and length of these encourage the player to move in different directions as the table vibrates. Some bases feature dials and pivot points, aiding in turning and looping around other players depending on the formation.

That said, when asked if success comes down to a coach’s strategy or if it’s all just dumb luck, NUEFL’s Cleveland Browns head coach Stephen VanGeem certainly didn’t take too much credit.

“You may have answered your own question,” says VanGeem, an assistant professor in the School of Social Sciences.

Cleveland’s coach was in the middle of challenging for the NUEFL championship against the Green Bay Packers’ Ryan Knowles when asked. Upon his answer, another coach nearby chimed in: “I like that you think we would know,” to which the gathered group laughed.

But through the chaos, patterns can form.

“If you get to know the players and you start to design plays around what they do, whether they go straight, right, left, loop around, you can be very effective,” says Nick Roberts, associate professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and NUEFL’s Georgia Tech head coach.

“I’ve got this little wristband that I wear, kind of like a quarterback would have, that basically has some notes on what all my players do.”

Those notes come in handy because as an Electric Football coach, you can dictate your plays, formations and motions pre-snap. But there’s a play clock both prior to play and while underway, so those choices must be decisive.

A simple handoff and rushing play is a fairly straightforward endeavor — the coach identifies a ballcarrier, and the play continues until an opposing figure touches it. Quarterback-option plays are also on the table, though they’re considered a two-part play, where the table will buzz, stop, and buzz again after a brief selection and adjustment, or pivot, period. Any player not touching an opponent can pivot — meaning it can be rotated to face toward the ballcarrier or otherwise to block.

Another example of two-part plays can be found in the passing game, where much of the complexity in Electric Football lies. As with the origins of the game, some coaches play with tiny felt footballs and a spring-action arm that tosses the ball across the field.

“It’s a very highly skilled endeavor to try to pass a little felt football,” Leiker says. “There’s a lot of felt footballs lost, and you can’t tell half the time if it hit the guy.”

Instead, the Northern Utah Electric Football League uses passing sticks to gauge a completion or not. Essentially, a passing stick is a measuring stick that’s placed in front of the player they’re hoping to pass it to. There are three different lengths, and the selection and use of each depends on the distance from the quarterback to a selected receiver. At the other end of the stick a magnet is placed, and once play resumes, if the player touches it, that’s a completion.

“The guys who’re really good at the felt footballs dislike the passing sticks because it evens the playing field,” says Knowles, an associate professor of social studies education.

“Those are kind of two different religious beliefs, almost,” jokes Roberts.

Logan’s Homegrown League

Headquartered in Leiker’s two-car garage, the Northern Utah Electric Football League usually holds its in-season games in accordance with the NFL Thursday Night Football schedule.

At a given time, there can be up to three different boards running simultaneously, with at least a couple decked out with NUEFL logos and decals. Leiker has another custom board he’s created that’s Utah State Aggie themed.

Up for grabs is the NUEFL championship belt — similar in style to a WWE title belt — which, like a boxing title, can be challenged for in a king-of-the-hill style tournament each week.

The champions take it seriously.

“One of the highlights of my life, for sure,” says a sarcastic Knowles, the current championship-belt holder. “When I beat Nick Roberts, his line was, ‘Appreciate it,’ because losing it hurts more than winning it feels good.”

The league doesn’t follow the bounds of delineation that the NFL and NCAA do, meaning unconventional matchups are likely. For instance, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets could take on the Denver Broncos, or the Dallas Cowboys could match up with the Wyoming Cowboys. In fact, for a one-week period, the London Union Jacks, a team seemingly only of Electric Football-origin, was active in the league.

But that doesn’t mean conventional matchups aren’t in play, and in fact, a rivalry familiar to USU fans is reflected in the league — the “Bridger’s Battle” between the Utah State Aggies and Wyoming Cowboys.

“We made a Bridger’s Battle trophy with a little fake rifle on it, [so] that whoever won the last game gets to hold on to for the next year,” says Steve Lucero, a psychologist for a national telehealth company and head coach of NUEFL’s Wyoming Cowboys. “I’ve actually got the Bridger’s Battle trophy right now and will hope to defend it against Jason again.”

While the league does have an official rulebook, adapted from a national set, it’s not necessarily always in strict use.

“I just make up shit half the time,” Leiker says, “I tried to write all the rules down. Knowles is the only person that’s ever read the rule book. I just stopped. … They always claim I make it up, and I do.”

NUEFL does, however, employ a replay system to verify calls in controversial or otherwise crucial plays, and has, a number of times, had to refer to that system to correct or confirm a decision.

“My favorite thing is when one of us will have to pull out our phones when it looks like it’s going to be a real close, bang-bang play,” Lucero says. “We’ll record it in slow motion so that we can go back and watch the replay just like you would on Fox or CBS.”

Thursdays, and Thursday Night Football, aren’t a requirement to get teams together. Leiker also hosts parties around other big sports events or interesting matchups. Also, the commissioner oversees a few different annual contests for best chili, salsa, and cocktail. Coming out on top in those competitions earns the winner a $5-limit D.I. trophy typically painted by Leiker.

“Last year, we missed the chili contest because my dog ran away, and we had to go look for my puppy,” Leiker said. “I think we still had it, but it was a week later, and the chili wasn’t as good.”

Within NUEFL, a passionate few have even decided to venture into the national-level of Electric Football competition –— the Miniature Football Bowl Championship Series. The MFBCS is a nationwide collection of Electric Football enthusiasts that collectively play in nine different divisions — each symbolic of a real college football conference, like the SEC and Big 12.

Playing within an adapted Mountain West Conference, Leiker captains the Aggies, Lucero the Wyoming Cowboys, Knowles heads the University of Hawai’i, Roberts coaches the Weber State Wildcats, and Autumn Durfee is in charge of the University of Utah.

Among that bunch, NUEFL has become less of a place for trash talk and competition — though there’s certainly still plenty of that — instead, it’s more of a place where they can practice and talk strategies.

“It’s almost like we’re a team together,” says Durfee, a local nail technician and NUEFL’s head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals. “Then when we go to the bowl games, we’re competing, obviously, but we kind of help each other out.”

The big enemy, of sorts, come from competition outside the Logan league — predominantly “the Las Vegas guys.”

Last season, Lucero claimed “the Utah guys’” first victory against their Nevada foes, marking a somewhat significant milestone for the group.

“It just happened to be kind of a combination of good luck, and I think his board was running a little slower than what he used to be. And so, I took advantage,” Lucero explains.

“It took us years to get here, so hopefully we’ll see some more victories in these next coming years.”

Not Just for Love of the Game

As is the case with sports and sporting events, the test of might and mettle is an immense draw, both to those involved and to those looking on. Certainly, NUEFL isn’t immune to that same allure. Though the football may be electric, the competitive nature of the game can be much the same.

But there is another charm to the league that’s a bit more powerful — camaraderie.

“In this day and age, it’s hard to find groups of guys who just want to hang out,” Durfee says. “There’s the community I like even more than playing the game. It’s just going and bringing a bag of chips and a case of beer and just hanging out.”

Admittance into the league doesn’t require a coach’s mindset, nor does it necessitate an understanding of football itself. And, maybe even more paradoxical to some, it doesn’t even demand that you play Electric Football at all.

“A lot of people just show up, have a drink, have a beer, talk to some people and leave,” Leiker says. “You know we’ve got guys that’ve been coming for years and never played.”

Though if you express interest in playing, the welcome mat is rolled out.

“You could just tell Jason, like, ‘Hey, I want to play,’” Durfee says. “And he’ll say, ‘Oh, I have a [New York] Jets team that I just got done painting, do you want to be the Jets?’ And then you could just join.”

At risk of offending those with ties to East Rutherford, New Jersey, though, not many people like the Jets — but even that doesn’t matter.

“If you have a team you like that’s not spoken for, then he’ll set it up for you,” Knowles says. “And so you just pick up a team, and that’s your team. And you can start kind of fiddling with the bases to make them do what you want to do and start running plays.”

Leiker says he does recruitment tours around campus at times to drum up interest, which amounts to him putting on his baseball cap and wandering around to talk with people. Durfee notes many of the current NUEFL members have a tie to Jason, whether directly or just through working at USU.

But however they may have come to the league, those who stay share a similar sentiment as to why.

“I would say probably the most enjoyable part for all of us is just the camaraderie,” Lucero says. “There’s a part of it that’s getting us back to those parts of ourselves that we used to love when we were little kids — whether it was actually playing Electric Football or just playing other sports. “That competitiveness, the fun, the kind of joking around and trash talk is all part of it that kind of makes it an unforgettable experience.”