X-CELLENT ADVENTURE MARGINAL BUT DETERMINED PLAYERS TAKE THEIR SHOT IN THE NEW XFL.

Byline: Rich Hammond Staff Writer

When Jose Cortez put down his hammer and picked up his cell phone on the afternoon of Oct. 28, he didn't exactly foresee the revival of his football career.

``When I got the call from (special teams) coach (Chris) Allen, he told me I was drafted and coming back to L.A.,'' said Cortez, a former placekicker at Van Nuys High and Valley College who now works in Corvallis, Ore. ``Trouble is that at the time, there was a lot of noise going on because we were tearing up a roof.

``So coach Allen says, `What in the world are you doing?' When I explained to him that I was a roofer, he told me, `Just don't fall off the roof.' ''

With that, Cortez became one of the original 70 members of the Los Angeles Xtreme, which will kick off in February as part of the eight-team XFL, the pro football league co-owned by NBC and the World Wrestling Federation.

The Xtreme picked Cortez in the 39th round, a move that didn't exactly spark a riotous celebration in Oregon.

``I stopped working for a little bit,'' Cortez, 25, said. ``I was excited, but I had to finish the job, you know?''

In Cortez, one can find many characteristics of the prototypical XFL player. He caught a barely detectable sniff of the NFL - one game with the New York Giants last year - and sees the new league not as a chance for instant fame but simply as a way to make a decent living by pounding footballs instead of nails.

The XFL players will be largely unknown to everyone except couch-potato college football junkies. They are players who enjoyed moderate success in college but didn't stick in the NFL for various reasons.

Former UCLA star Tommy Maddox is expected to battle with Keith Smith, formerly of Newbury Park High and Arizona, and Scott Milanovich for the Xtreme's starting-quarterback job.

Former Pac-10 Conference standouts Tony Hartley and Saladin McCullough (Oregon), Rashaan Shehee (Washington) and ex-USC linemen Chris Brymer and Jonathan Himebauch are some of the team's ``high profile'' players.

``These are quality football players,'' said head coach Al Luginbill, formerly of San Diego State and Pasadena City College, who has coached NFL Europe's Amsterdam Admirals for the past five seasons.

``A lot of these guys spent one to five years on a NFL roster, and they were what I like to call salary-cap casualties. They made a minimum salary for every year they were in the league and they got cut because it's cheaper for teams to bring in a rookie. Except for the NFL, this league will have more talent than any other league in the world.''

Luginbill will get his first look at his 70 players on Dec. 12, when the Xtreme begins its first full-team minicamp. The final roster will consist of 38 players, so many questions remain to be answered - not all of them on the field.

The involvement of the WWF and its owner, Vince McMahon, has raised a lot of eyebrows and prompted endless wisecracks, but XFL officials aren't laughing. The XFL will be run as a single entity, with the league controlling salaries. However, officials breathlessly promote the league as ``100 percent competitive sport,'' as opposed to the ``sports entertainment'' of professional wrestling.''

In other words, The Undertaker will not be playing for the San Francisco Demons, and Maddox will not hit a blitzing linebacker over the head with a steel chair while the back judge is distracted by the cheerleaders.

However, the league will attempt to liven up the sport with NFL Films- style, in-your-face cameras and microphone work and liberal rules, such as no fair catches on punt returns.

``I think a lot of the players had questions at first,'' said Maddox, who played in the Arena Football League this spring. ``When NBC came aboard, I think people realized this was going to be legitimate and there's a lot of high-class people involved.''

One of those people is J.K. McKay, who won two national titles as a receiver at USC under his father, legendary coach John McKay. J.K. McKay previously worked to bring an NFL team to the Coliseum but now serves as vice president and general manager of the Xtreme, which will call the Coliseum home.

Team officials say 3,000 season tickets have been sold. They're shooting for an average of 25,000 fans per game.

``My phone rang one day and this guy said, `J.K., this is Vince McMahon,' '' McKay said. ``I said, `Yeah, right,' but he was calling to ask me to run his team in Los Angeles. I said no. . . . We talked more over the next two weeks and eventually he convinced me that this would be a great opportunity, which it is.''

McKay then hired Luginbill, whose time in Europe exposed him to XFL- caliber players such as Cortez, his kicker in Amsterdam. Luginbill talks enthusiastically about Kurt Warner, the former NFL Europe and Arena League quarterback-turned-Super Bowl MVP, but most of the Xtreme think comparisons to Warner are a little, well, extreme.

``Maybe some of the younger guys still have that dream,'' Milanovich, 31, said, ``but for guys like Tommy and myself, we see this as a chance to make a living. Very few people get to make their living playing football.''

Smith, for one, couldn't agree more. The 24-year-old, 5-foot-10 quarterback was never invited to a NFL camp. He took a week off last month from his job at a Camarillo sales and marketing firm to attend the Xtreme's first minicamp, even though an ongoing contract dispute with the Canadian Football League prevented him from participating.

``Sports has always been a huge part of my life,'' said Smith, who still lives in Newbury Park, ``so to go from playing football every day to working at a sales and marketing place every day, that's tough for me to deal with.

``But I have to make a living, I can't just sit on my butt all day, so getting an opportunity like this is great, it really means a lot to me.''

As it does to so many others in the same position.

XFL AT A GLANCE

WESTERN CONFERENCE

L.A. Xtreme

Coach: Al Luginbill

Home: Coliseum

Las Vegas Outlaws

Coach: Jim Criner

Home: Sam Boyd Stadium (UNLV)

Memphis Maniax

Coach: Kippy Brown

Home: Liberty Bowl

San Francisco Demons

Coach: Jim Skipper

Home: Pacific Bell Park

EASTERN CONFERENCE

Birmingham Thunderbolts

Coach: Gerry DiNardo

Home: Legion Field

Chicago Enforcers

Coach: Ron Meyer

Home: Soldier Field

New York/New Jersey Hitmen

Coach: Galen Hall

Home: Giants Stadium

Orlando Rage

Coach: Rusty Tillman

Home: Citrus Bowl

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, box

Photo: (color) Jose Cortez, formerly of Van Nuys High and Valley College, has the opportunity to make a living playing football with the XFL's Los Angeles Xtreme.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer

(2) UCLA grad Tommy Maddox is resuming his career in the XFL.

Richard Haro/Associated Press

Box: XFL AT A GLANCE (see text)