The receptionist's voice oozed deepfried Southern hospitality.

"Howdy, you've reached the Middle Georgia Heat Wave, Lars Anderson here," he announced. "What the hell can I do for you?"

"Uh, is there someone around who can get me some information about the team?"

"Absolutely not," Lars chortled. "Absolutely not."

Pause. Long pause. I managed a weak chuckle. The guy was nice, but he had a lousy sense of timing. Suddenly, he broke the silence.

"Why of course I can get you some information!" he roared. "I am the general manager of the durned club!"

When my editor informed me that I would be covering the Bay State Titans' opening game, I had only one question. Who the hell were the Bay State Titans? When my blushing editor admitted he wasn't sure, I had another question. Why me?

I already knew the answer to Question #2: Because I was the intern, and it is the intern's sacred duty to deal with events no one else would cover at gunpoint.

I soon found out the answer to Question #1: The Titans were an expansion team in the Minor League Football System, where the coaches are barely paid, the players aren't paid at all and the general managers answer their own phones. I was assigned to the Titans' first game ever.

Stop the presses.

Middle Georgia, Lars explained, was not a Soviet republic clamoring for independence. It was an expansion team that played games out of Macon, a small working-class Southern town.

"This league wouldn't fly in rich places," Lars said. Last season, the upper-class Fairfax, Va., franchise had folded. The blue-collar Scranton, Pa., organization had survived.

The Titans would hang their hats in Lynn, Mass. Lynn, Lars said, was another hardworking, football-crazed town in the Macon mold. Lars knew whereof he spoke--his father played for the Lynn Classical High School teams in the '40s and still lives there.

Lars wasn't the only Middle Georgian returning to Massachusetts. Heat Wave Coach Lou Saban, a legendary motivator who has coached three pro teams, seven college programs and served as New York Yankees president under George Steinbrenner, landed his first pro job in 1960 with the then-Boston Patriots, an expansion team in the AFL.

I called Saban up (at home, of course) and asked him about starting over again with a new team. Wasn't it all a bit familiar?