Charles "Charley" Puleri (born March 1, 1969) is a former

professional football In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larg ...

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Am ...

Career

Puleri signed to the

Sacramento Gold Miners The Sacramento Gold Miners were a Canadian football team based in Sacramento, California. The franchise was the first American team in the Canadian Football League. The Gold Miners inherited a home stadium, front office staff and much of the rost ...

in 1993. He spent the vast majority of his career in the

minor league Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in No ...

s, playing at various points in his career with the

Miami Hooters Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at th ...

, Texas Terror,

Iowa Barnstormers The Iowa Barnstormers are a professional indoor football team based in Des Moines, Iowa. They are currently members of the Indoor Football League (IFL). They play their home games at Wells Fargo Arena, known in indoor football circles as "The ...

Detroit Fury The Detroit Fury were an arena football team based in Auburn Hills, Michigan. History The team was a member of the Arena Football League from 2001 to 2004 and played at The Palace of Auburn Hills, also the home of the NBA's Detroit Pistons. The ...

, Buffalo Destroyers,

London Monarchs The London Monarchs were a professional American football team in NFL Europe and its predecessor league, the World League of American Football (WLAF). The Monarchs played their final season in 1998 as the England Monarchs. In 1999, they were re ...

and, during the 2000 preseason, the

Dallas Cowboys The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divis ...

. Unusually for a quarterback, Puleri played

ironman Iron Man, Ironman or Ironmen may refer to: *Nathaniel "Iron Man" Avery (1939–1985), American caddie for Arnold Palmer *Travis Fulton (1977–2021), American mixed martial arts fighter *Gunnar Graps (1951–2004), Estonian musician * Mick Murphy ...

in arena football, seeing limited playing time on defense and special teams. Puleri is best known for his time with the New York/New Jersey Hitmen of the XFL. In 2001, Puleri, a native of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, signed with his hometown team. Puleri would be the starting quarterback in the XFL's first game, leading the Hitmen against the Las Vegas Outlaws on national television. Puleri's tenure as the Hitmen's starting quarterback proved to be a disastrous embarrassment for both him and the league as a whole, as he was repeatedly sacked and turned the ball over numerous times, making the league's level of talent look bad and partially prompting the mass decline in viewers as the season progressed. After a short quarterback controversy, Puleri was benched in favor of

Wally Richardson Wallace Herman "Wally" Richardson (born February 11, 1974) is a former American football quarterback. Professional career Richardson played college football at Penn State. He was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the seventh round of the 199 ...

(a former NFL backup for the

Baltimore Ravens The Baltimore Ravens are a professional American football team based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Ravens compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The team plays its ...

and

Atlanta Falcons The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta. The Falcons compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) NFC South, South division. The Falcon ...

) during the second week of the season. (Puleri's struggles were later attributed to the ball's slippery texture, which was later solved by using

sandpaper upright=1.35, Sheets of sandpaper with different grit sizes (40 (coarse), 80, 150, 240, 600 (fine)). Sandpaper and glasspaper are names used for a type of coated abrasive that consists of sheets of paper or cloth with abrasive material glued to ...

and wirebrush to roughen the surface. (excerpt from ''This Was The XFL'') )

References

1969 births Living people New Mexico State Aggies football players Miami Hooters players Texas Terror players Iowa Barnstormers players New Jersey Red Dogs players Detroit Fury players Buffalo Destroyers players New York/New Jersey Hitmen players London Monarchs players Sportspeople from the Bronx Players of American football from New York City Sacramento Gold Miners players American football quarterbacks {{Quarterback-1960s-stub