Saturday, March 28, 2009

Arena Football - part 2 - * updated *

Last Saturday night I attended the inaugural football game of Greenville's new Indoor Arena football team and I told you about it on Sunday here. Tonight, they play their second game, but it's in Reading, Pa, so I won't attend. But they will be playing without the benefit of their head coach, Bubba Diggs. After a poor showing in game 1, he was dismissed.

Now I don't think Coach Diggs made as much as Alan Fishman, CEO for Washington Mutual (WaMu) who made $18 million in 3 weeks (see here), but I suspect he had a contract that allows him to pay for food and shelter while he looks for his next job. But it seems a little harsh to dismiss a coach after a single game.

It seems Tony Wells, general manager for the team thought "for the direction that the team wants to go in, we needed a change." Diggs wasn't the only one let go, "the Force's director of game day operations, Jonathan Clark, was also dismissed." Now if this was the guy who was in charge of the carpet, he did deserve to leave after the fiasco last week. We waited an hour while they found AstroTurf for the field. I mean, those guys knew all week that the field wasn't complete, why didn't they fix it sooner?

Well, with or without Coach Diggs, I'll go see the Force play again. Maybe they can keep the players around a while. (Reference for quotes here).

*Update

Details on last night's game were hard to fine. The Greenville News seems to have written the team off already. I did find the scores and a write-up online at the Reading Eagle's website. Sounds like the SC Force had a better evening by leading "1-0 when Jed Dean (former Clemson kicker) opened the game with a rouge and again 8-7 when Mitchell, a former starting quarterback at the University of South Carolina, threw the first of his four touchdown passes."

Alas, the SC Force may have started in the lead and and led once later, they didn't lead when it counted, at the end of the game. They lost 47-27. Next home game is April 11 (just before my birthday if anyone needs hints).

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