ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - The morning of February 23, 2020, Kurt Hunzeker exited off I-70 onto Broadway and his eyes widened.
"The goosebumps I had, at 6:00 in the morning, seeing plumes of smoke because everybody's already started to tailgate," Hunzeker recalled this week when I asked him to describe the scene of the St. Louis Battlehawks' home opener that day.
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"That," he said, "is the most ridiculous day I've ever had in my life, professionally."
Hunzeker served as president of the XFL team, right up until the league ceased operations on March 12 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A year earlier, he had a different kind of challenge: Trying to convince St. Louis, a city that had two NFL teams taken away, to support another professional football team. Hunzeker and his staff attended high school football games. They mingled with fans at bars, community events.
"They're like, 'Hey, we just can't fall in love again, good luck, best wishes," Hunzeker said. "We had to flip that pretty quickly. And by really asking the St. Louis community to help us build this team, build the first homegrown football team in St. Louis history."
Hunzeker said that changed the narrative.
"We kept telling people... just go on one date," Hunzeker laughs.
28,000 people showed up for the first one, filling the lower bowl of the Dome at America's Center. Outside, spilling into the streets, were thousands more just there for the party. Music played, footballs whizzed through the air on a sunny, spring-like day.
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On his way to Ballpark Village, where he made an appearance on KMOX's pregame show, Hunzeker picked up Jeffrey Pollack, the president of the XFL.
"And Jeffrey's like, 'How did you do this?'" Hunzeker said.
It was a true team effort. The players, coaches, staff, front office ... and the entire league's support.
"And obviously the St. Louis community had a such a vital role in making that day what it ended up being," Hunzeker said. "We felt really confident going into that game, because we were delivering the experience that St. Louis fans wanted."
Six days later, the Battlehawks hosted another raucous home game. And they threatened to blow the roof off the Dome in Game 3, trending well over 50,000 tickets sold for a home contest against Los Angeles in March. Can you imagine what that scene would have been?
It's left only as a dream, because on March 13, a Friday, the XFL reached out to all eight of its teams to inform them the league could no go on with the pandemic looming ahead.
"It's the what-if that will drive you insane," Hunzeker says.
He's not associated with the new XFL, hasn't heard anything from Pollack or the new ownership group (led by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) on the planned 2022 rebirth of the league. But he says the good news is that there's still time.
"Things ramp up pretty quickly in Q1 of the year before you launch," said Hunzeker, who would know from experience. "If that holds true, I would anticipate fans seeing a lot more news coming from the new XFL ownership in the coming weeks and months. But as of right now, I have zero involvement with any of it."
Hunzeker accepted KMOX's invitation to go on the air for this interview just hours after Twitter poll results showed 50% of 3,231 votes picked his Battlehawks as the best sports story in St. Louis for 2020. Yadier Molina/Adam Wainwright moment (26%) and the NHL All-Star Game (21%) finished behind them.
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