LA KISS Arena Football Team Opens Training Camp

LA KISS opens its inaugural training camp today at Whittier College and will conduct its first practice Saturday, with 35 players beginning to compete for the 24 spots on the Arena Football League team's regular-season roster.

The team will conduct meetings today, according to a spokesman.

The KISS was built through an expansion draft, trades and finding players from other AFL teams or who used to play in the NFL who would then sign contracts with the league and be assigned to the KISS.

Under the AFL's single-entity business model, players negotiate contracts with teams but formally sign contracts with the league and are assigned to the team seeking them.

The best-known KISS player is quarterback Colt Brennan, a standout at Orange County's Mater Dei High School and Saddleback College who went on to set 31 major college records at Hawaii and finish third in voting for the Heisman Trophy in 2007.

Brennan was chosen by Washington in the sixth round in the 2008 NFL draft and spent two seasons with the team, but never played a regular-season game. He later spent time in the training camps of the Oakland Raiders and Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League.

The KISS announced on Thursday it had been assigned receiver Samie Parker, a former Long Beach Poly High and Oregon standout who played for the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs from 2004-2007.

The team will open its season March 15 at San Antonio, play at Orlando March 21, then face the Portland Thunder in its home opener April 5 at Honda Center.

The KISS is owned by Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of the rock band KISS, their manager Doc McGhee and Brett Bouchy, who had spent 17 years in various front office roles with the AFL's Orlando Predators.