Ontario Warriors Quit AIF; AIF West Conf Dead

[Banana Cat]

This shocks no one. What was shocking is that many of the Western Conference teams joined the league and believed the sugary words coming out of AIF Owner John Morris' mouth (when he had an easily discoverable bad history of running scam leagues). Leaving the AIF is a smart decision on Ontario's part. I believe the league they are looking to join in 2013 is the IFL, but they'll need some investor help for that I think.

www.dailybulletin.com/ci_20651022/warriors-cease-operations

Warriors cease operations

Louis Brewster, Staff Writer
05/17/2012

ONTARIO - Add Tom Mitchell to the list of those who have covered Maria Mendez Grever's 1934 song, "What a Difference a Day Makes."

On Wednesday, the Mitchell-owned Warriors, an American Indoor Football team, were 7-0, looking forward to closing out the regular season with two more home games at Citizens Business Bank Arena. The team had already clinched a spot in the AIF title game next month.

On Thursday, Mitchell announced his team was ceasing operations and working on plans to join another league next year.

"The last 24 hours just reached a boiling point with the AIF," Mitchell said. "We can't move forward with the AIF so we're ceasing operations."

Due to the restructured financial obligations placed on Mitchell by the league, "we couldn't continue. It was all just starting to come together. Down deep, I sense there are ulterior motives at play," Mitchell said.

Attempts to reach the AIF front office on the East Coast were unsuccessful late Thursday.

Finances have been at the center of the league's operations throughout the shortened season. As of last Sunday, when the Warriors rolled past the Nevada Lynx, 76-6, the Ontario team was believed to be the only one with a home arena.

"When we first joined, there were five whole teams, with one traveling team (North Alameda)," Mitchell said. "But as soon as we paid the membership fee, (the Western Conference) started to change."

Arizona was evicted from its Prescott arena, Stockton reportedly folded and the Nevada team also became a traveling team. Ontario's remaining games would have been against North Alameda on Sunday and Nevada on May28.

"The final straw was an arrangement that we would have picked up the costs of two games and they could have picked up costs traveling to the championship game," Mitchell said. "They changed all that.

"The (league office) also said we hadn't fulfilled our contract by playing with a different ball. We sent them the money for the balls, but we didn't get them. They also said we violated league policy with our comments in the newspaper."

Mitchell estimated it would have cost his organization more than $25,000 for the trip to the title game. It would have cost more than $3,000 for the expenses of bringing in teams to complete the home schedule.

"We could meet our payroll for Sunday's game," Mitchell said. "But it's tough to market our team with the kind of opposition they're sending us.

"I mean some teams didn't have enough helmets, others had tape falling off their uniforms and some hadn't practiced. It was becoming harder and harder."

Attendance at Warriors games dropped steadily after the opening night crowd that appeared to number more than 3,000. The last home game drew about a third of that number.

[gatek99]

AIF claims they suspended the Warriors haha

[Banana Cat]

Of course they did (Morris learned that move from Haines a few years ago).

[Banana Cat]

Here's that release (AIF's by far the worst ran league this year, and up in the top for all time):

aifprofootball.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1196%3Aaif-suspends-ontario-warriors-team&Itemid=248

AIF Suspends Ontario Warriors For League Violations

Topic: Ontario Warriors
For Immediate Release

Effective May 17, 2012, the AIF indefinitely suspended the Ontario Warriors franchise from all AIF play, to include the final 2 games of the regular season as well as any playoff and All Star Classic participation.

This suspension is a result of numerous violations of the Membership Agreement and the AIF Operating Manual.

Jack Bowman
AIF National Director

[Banana Cat]

www.fontanaheraldnews.com/articles/2012/05/18/sports/doc4fb6b7f218ba1624043470.txt

Ontario Warriors cancel their final two games due to financial difficulties experienced by American Indoor Football

May 18, 2012

Due to financial difficulties experienced by American Indoor Football, the remaining games for the Ontario Warriors have been cancelled, according to Tom Mitchell, the team’s president.

The Warriors, who played at Citizens Business Bank Arena, had a 7-0 record and had been dominating their opponents.

“I deeply regret to have to inform everyone that due to continued problems with the AIF and its leadership, the Warriors are ending their affiliation with the AIF effective immediately,” Mitchell said in a statement posted on the Warriors’ website. “This will cause the two remaining games to be cancelled. We will spend our time looking into better alternatives for 2013.”

Mitchell said this sudden turn of events took place this past week and he acknowledged that the fans would be “angry, disappointed and have questions.”

He said he wanted to thank the fans for the support they have shown the Ontario players and coaches this season.

“On game days, I can see how passionate our fans are. In addition, our players talk about how great the fans are quite frequently,” he said.

Two of the team’s players -- Bernard Afutiti (a Kaiser High School graduate) and R. Jay Soward (a Fontana High School graduate) -- were from local schools.

[Banana Cat]

www.dailybulletin.com/ci_20660415/warriors-feeling-sense-hurt

Warriors feeling sense of hurt

Louis Brewster, Staff Writer
05/18/2012

ONTARIO - Keith Evans did not answer his phone Friday with the usual zest. The news of his team's demise hadn't quite sunk in, even after 24 hours.

"This is all like a bad dream," said Evans of the saga of the Ontario Warriors. The undefeated indoor football team, coached by Evans, ceased operations on Thursday and the situation is evolving into a he-said, she-said scenario.

Team owner Tom Mitchell used social media on Thursday to announce the news, saying American Indoor Football had put him into a position where the "team could go no further."

AIF responded with a terse statement on its website on Friday credited to Jack Bowman, the organization's national director.

"Effective May 17, 2012, the AIF indefinitely suspended the Ontario Warriors franchise from all AIF play, to include the final 2 games of the regular season as well as any playoff and All Star Classic participation," read the post.

"This suspension is a result of numerous violations of the Membership Agreement and the AIF Operating Manual.

Attempts to reach Bowman by phone were unsuccessful.

"We're working on our response," Mitchell said. "I'm afraid this will eventually end up in the hands of lawyers."

Not exactly what Evans had in mind when he left his team after a Tuesday night practice. It was his responsibility after hearing from Mitchell on Thursday to individually call his team members with the bad news.

"This is very disappointing," said Evans, who pieced together the team in less than a month and directed the Warriors to a 7-0 record. "I was trying to make a comparison with one of the coaches and all I could think of was like watching a great movie and then the service is interrupted.

"I am at a loss for words. This hurts, it hurts quite a bit. Knowing the players and myself, we have the same fire and desire, we wanted to complete the mission."

That mission was to head east next month to play the Eastern Conference first-place team for the AIF championship.

"We had to keep engaged," said Evans, not an easy task considering the last three games resulted in lopsided scores that included a 92-0 victory. "There are great guys and they are all hurting, and I'm there with them.

"We were so close. We were looking forward to June 16 and that game. I definitely didn't see this coming."

Evans said he hopes he can gather his team together a last time, perhaps as early as next week.

"Right from the start, we showed we could do it," Evans said. "(Stockton) was a team and we beat them by 16 points. When we beat them again later, it wasn't the same team.

"But the point is, we got better as the season went on, and that's what a good team does."

[Banana Cat]

blog.pe.com/gregg-patton/2012/05/22/column-warriors-fire-back-after-league-takes-their-ball-away/

Warriors fire back after league takes their ball away

May 22, 2012

The Ontario Warriors ceased playing after their parent league charged them with unspecified “violations” and suspended them last week. The grand poobahs of American Indoor Football never bothered specifying details.

Then again, there were the “violations” we could all see – scores like 92-0, 60-6 and 76-6 in their final three games, which clearly violates any sense of competitive balance.

The stoppage was a shame for the players and whatever small slice of fans the unbeaten (7-0) Warriors had attracted in their inaugural AIF season. But the juice was leaking out of this bottle for some time.

The AIF has some stability, apparently, in the East, but out here in the West, the league was laughable.

The Warriors’ four division rivals simply couldn’t cut it, some financially and, by the end, none of them in terms of talent. The only team with a place to play was Ontario, at Citizens Business Bank Arena. The rest were homeless from the start, or evicted during the season.

Warriors owner Tom Mitchell has been saying for weeks that his team hoped to leave the AIF after this season, and play at a higher level. Bet that wasn’t received well in AIF-burg.

The suspension was relayed through a website. Officials claimed legal reasons for not explaining further. How convenient.

I left a message at a North Carolina phone number, ostensibly the AIF executive office, but no one called back. Who knows what riled them up? Mitchell won’t miss the boys at HQ.

Monday, he cited a laundry list of agreements he said the league broke. He said the league told him he had to pay the other teams’ expenses and compensation for the final two regular season games. He declined. He said the league wouldn’t pay for the Warriors to come east for the June 16 championship game, either.

“They were saying we owed them money, which isn’t true,” said Mitchell. “There’s a league fee due August 1. They wanted it now.”

One feud involved AIF footballs, which fans keep when balls go in the stands. Mitchell said he paid $1,700 for official red, white and blue balls, and only received half of his allotment. When he tried to buy more, he said the league told him he had to wait three months, so he bought non-AIF balls to keep fans happy. The league cited him.

Call it a marriage that soured quickly. A dysfunctional match.

Mitchell said his team met its own financial obligations. One Warriors player that we contacted, quarterback Anthony Andre — who played at Riverside Poly, Riverside City College and La Verne– said players were paid, such as it was.

“They lived up to their obligations,” said Andre. “But you only get paid when you play games. It’s hard when you have a schedule and games get cancelled.”

Two April games were scuttled, so players went a month without paychecks.

If the Warriors were an on-field sensation — gathering loads of experienced arena football talent and crushing opponents – there were miscalculations. Marketing was minimal.

Andre said he played for an arena team in Corpus Christi, Texas last year that regularly drew 5,000. He said players interacted with schools and community groups a couple of times a week.

In Ontario, the best crowd may have been 3,000. Interest seemed to wane. The final crowd on May 12 reportedly was about 1,000.

“It looks great to win 92-0, but it probably hurt us,” said Mitchell. “People don’t want to see that.”

Too late. Still, Mitchell repeated his desire to return to Ontario next year, in a better league.

“I fully expect to bring the Warriors back,” he said. “It’s not the market we’re giving up on, it’s the AIF.”

Never mind who dumped who. Just be glad.

[gatek99]

that is just messed up!

[50 Yard Fan]

The Warriors were not done firing back at the league. They put out this press release on May 23

www.oursportscentral.com/services/releases/?id=4407307

AIF East teams to play for Second Best

May 23, 2012 - American Indoor Football (AIF) Ontario Warriors

The Ontario Warriors finished off the 2012 season pre-maturely at 7-0 without really being tested. They trailed for a total of two minutes all season. That happened to be in the first game after the first drive. The Warriors finished with a 502-154 point differential. With the league's top offense and top defense the Warriors marched through their challengers. Warriors President Tom Mitchell stated that the teams in the East know they don't match up and this is the only way John Morris could call one of his teams a champion. People in all leagues took notice of what we had built especially considering the short amount of time we had to pull it together. Our coaches did an amazing job getting in the right players and coaching them. Our team improved in various ways every week. Our team was very talented and deep. Some of the players who didn't get a lot of playing time would start for most teams throughout indoor football. In some ways our coaches had the Patriots motto. We had athletes that could play multiple positions and play them better than our opponents. For those of us that saw the Warriors practice we realized they gained more in practice from going up against each other than in the games. Some of our guys should be playing on a much higher level than the AIF. At the end of the day, the Warriors were not only the best team in the AIF but one of the best in all of indoor football. It's too bad the AIF, John Morris and Jack Bowman put their personal greed ahead of the fans.

To get more info and to follow the Warriors in 2013 go to www.ontwarriors.com