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Long gone but never forgotten, Friday is the 20th anniversary of perhaps the best non-NFL game in American football history. Arena Bowl X pitted a pair of quarterbacks who would move on to bigger things, trading scores throughout the night in a tiny auditorium filled with 11,411 fans dressed as farm animals in Des Moines, Iowa.What was it like to play Arena League football, and that game in particular? ESPN.com has the video and spoke with the quarterbacks -- Jay Gruden of the Tampa Bay Storm and Kurt Warner of the Iowa Barnstormers -- for details. (Theyre now known as Washington Redskins coach Jay Gruden and surefire Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner, but youve probably made the connection already.)On this particular day, Grudens Storm held off Warners Barnstormers with a late goal-line stand to win 42-38.Warner: Jay was the best Arena quarterback up until that time. Im not sure what has happened since then, but I consider him the best Arena quarterback ever. He was a smart guy that maybe wasnt the most talented physically, but he had that intelligence and the ability to put the ball where he needed to. He threw a very catchable ball, and, at that point in his career, he was like a coach on the field. People make such a big deal about arm strength, but that doesnt matter as much if you can throw the ball with anticipation and accuracy and make it catchable, and he had those skills and he did them so well. He was the model quarterback of the Arena League. He really was. We all wanted to be like Jay.Gruden: At the time, we were pretty damn good and we had a strong reputation. Had we known what Kurt was going to turn into, it might have been a different story. But we were the intimidators.Warner: It was a great back-and-forth game, very much like what Arena football was in those days.Gruden: I remember Steve [Houghton] hit me about six times, and one time he hit me in the end zone and I fell into the security guard back behind the wall. It was fun. Those were my favorite kinds of games.Warner: Ive always said, if everything was equal, from money to retirement to endorsement opportunities -- all that stuff -- if everything was equal, Id play Arena football over the NFL. It was built for quarterbacks. It was just backyard football. You ran the ball 4 or 5 yards per game. It was always a two-minute drill. There was always pressure on the quarterback to score. If you didnt score on one possession, you might lose. Those scenarios to me were so much fun.?(Note: Warner and Gruden combined for nine touchdown passes in the game.)Gruden: I loved the crowd. It was like 9,000 [actually, 11,411] people packed in this little barn dressed like farm animals screaming. I can remember Johnnie [Harris] fighting a fan who had grabbed him. It was so loud you couldnt hear from me to you. It was a blast. It was a lot of fun.Warner: It was a typical, last-team-with-the-ball-wins type of game, and thats exactly what we had the chance to do. We drove inside the 5-yard line.Gruden: [T]hey complained about their guy getting called out of bounds at the 3. They thought he got in. Oh, boohoo. But they had a first-and-goal at the 3 and we stopped them four plays in a row.Warner: We werent able to finish inside. We had the chance to win and I didnt make the plays to finish the deal. It was a classic Arena game where you were just going back and forth with guys making plays all over the place.Gruden: We had to get one first down, and I threw a pass out to Stevie Thomas on the left. Game time.Warner: I dont think theres any question that the Arena League allowed me to flourish. I played three years in a league where the quarterback wasnt supposed to be stopped. We never wanted to kick. When I went into the NFL, I had that same mentality. We were very good on top of that. But we had that mentality [with the St. Louis Rams]. We were not going to punt. We were going to score every time.Gruden: We were all young guys trying to get the chance Kurt got. I tell you what, he had a quick release and he was accurate. He showed no fear in the pocket. For quarterbacks, say what you want, you learn a lot about the position playing Arena ball as far as anticipation, timing and getting the ball out of your hand. That was a different era. We had defensive linemen playing offensive line, so the pressure was a lot different as far as the pass rush was concerned. It was a great experience making the tight window throws on the goal line, anticipation throws, fades, touch. It was good.Warner: When you think back to Jay in those days, you think about a coach on the field, how he handled things and managed things. The way he led his teams, to championships and just on the field, its absolutely no surprise the kind of offensive mind hes become and the success hes had as a head coach. He was a very fiery competitor, but a great leader and a very smart player -- you see all of that now in his current job. Yairo Munoz . Malkin got tangled up with Detroits Luke Glendening early in the third period and his left skate took the brunt of collision with the boards behind Pittsburghs net. Matt Carpenter .ca! Hi Kerry, Its another day and here we are looking at another dubious hit to the head. In this case Blue Jackets forward Brandon Dubinsky elbowed Saku Koivu in the head about a second after he dished off the puck to a teammate, knocking him unconscious. http://www.custommlbcardinalsjersey.com/custom-roger-maris-jersey-large-521q.html .7 million, one-year contract, a raise of $2.2 million. Wieters had asked for $8.75 million and the Orioles had offered $6. Giovanny Gallegos . -- When the Florida Panthers fell behind by two goals in the first period to the top team in the NHL, it appeared they were on their way to yet another loss. Red Schoendienst . Q: Team Canada announces their Olympic roster three weeks from today. Who is general manager Steve Yzerman watching? LeBrun: Over the last 48 hours, hes taken in the home-and-home between the Dallas Stars and Colorado Avalanche with Jamie Benn and Matt Duchene being the obvious targets. RIO DE JANEIRO -- Wu Minxia ended her record-setting Olympic career the way it began: with a gold medal.Shi Tingmao and Wu totaled 345.60 points to win the womens 3-meter synchronized title Sunday in the first diving event of the Rio de Janeiro Games. They led throughout the five-round competition and won by a whopping 31.77 points on an overcast day at the Maria Lenk Aquatic Center, where light rain briefly fell.We have a very high standard, Wu said through a translator.Wu claimed her fourth consecutive gold in 3-meter synchro, becoming the first woman to win four golds in the same event at the Olympics. She also won in 2004, 2008 and 2012, and has had three different partners.The 30-year-old Chinese also made history as the first diver to win five career golds, having won the 3-meter individual event four years ago in London. She wont defend that title in Rio.When I first got into diving, I thought it was a very exciting sport, Wu said. My personality, I always want to win.She also owns silver and bronze in individual 3-meter from the 2004 Athens Games and 2008 Beijing Games.Wu is the oldest female diver to win gold in the Olympics, a mark previously held by American Micki King, who won 3-meter springboard at 28 in the 1972 Munich Games.Shi and Wu routinely hit their dives for scores of 9.0 and higher, totaling 81.00 points on their final dive, a backward 2 1/2-somersault pike. They climbed out of the water and embraced, knowing the gold was secure with five other teams still to dive.Italys Tania Cagnotto andd Francesca Dallape took silver at 313.dddddddddddd83. Maddison Keeney and Anabelle Smith of Australia rallied from last to earn the bronze with 299.19, edging Canada by less than a point.We are used to diving against the Chinese, Cagnotto said. We dont even think about the gold. Gold is for China.Cagnotto finally won her first medal in her fifth Olympics. She just missed in London, finishing fourth in both 3-meter synchro and the individual springboard event. Her father and coach Giorgio Cagnotto owns four Olympic diving medals of his own. Cagnotto and Dallape held onto second through each round.We were still remembering when we lost the medal by less than two points, Cagnotto said. We just hope it would be destiny that today we get this medal.The Aussies were last after two rounds before coming up big on their last dive to hold off the Canadian duo of Jennifer Abel and Pamela Ware. Keeney and Smith scored 71.10 points in the final round, while Abel and Ware only managed 67.50.Abel and Ware anxiously waited in the water for their scores. When they saw the numbers, they were crushed. One of them sunk her head underwater.You know when you missed a dive, Abel said. You know when its pretty much going to decide the score. I kind of knew.Wus teammate, Chen Ruolin, could match her with a fifth gold in Rio. Chen is entered in 10-meter synchro, an event she has won at the last two Olympics. ' ' '