Post by 50 Yard Fan on Jun 22, 2013 8:52:48 GMT -5
www.auburnvillager.com/sports/article_4a8c77b2-d37e-11e2-b25e-0019bb30f31a.html#user-comment-area
Chattahooche Valley Vipers want to bring indoor football to Auburn
Three seasons into their existence, seasons that have included wins by forfeit, the occasional bounced check, and playing opportunities that appear abruptly like sharp curves along their winding path to legitimacy, the Chattahoochee Valley Vipers are still looking to settle down in the topsy-turvy world of indoor arena football. Eventually, they’d like their long-term landing spot to be Auburn.
Roland Bell is the founder, general manager and head coach of the Vipers. After establishing the team in the Columbus area in 2010, Bell transformed them from a traditional 11-man semipro outdoor squad to the arena-style football outfit they are now. Arena ball typically has seven or eight players on each side. Games are played on condensed fields that run up against advertisement-laden walls, similar to ice hockey. A smaller roster helped get a team on the field, but it wasn’t the only reason for the Vipers’ conversion.
“We started as a semipro team but I didn’t want to go that route,” Bell said. “There are so many teams that do that and nobody looks at them, nobody cares. I want to give my guys a shot to be seen, so I want to do it as arena-style. I called several arena teams that I knew about and just asked them if they would watch film on our guys and maybe come scout when their seasons are over. Within a week I got a call to fill in for a team that was folding.”
***
Teams disappearing out of thin air. Entire leagues forming out of that same void. It’s all a part of amateur and professional arena football. Change is the constant, especially in the lower levels where the Vipers currently live. Bell likens their standing to Division III college football. The Columbus Lions, who play in the Professional Indoor Football League, are Division II. Chattahoochee Valley can’t join this paying league due to a rule that stipulates two teams cannot be within 100 miles of one another, for fear of fans dissipating between them. The Arena Football League is at the top; the Bowl Championship Series equivalent.
The Vipers, now based in Notasulga—playing home games at Notasulga High School, where Bell teaches—are made up of local players without contracts. Games are basically taken as they come. Prior to the 2013 season, the Vipers joined the Alliance Indoor Football League but Bell’s initial doubts about it were confirmed.
“We never played a game in it (the AIFL) because all the teams that were supposed to come to us didn’t show up,” Bell said. “We joined it, but it never happened.”
Instead, the Vipers are trying to build their reputation through their professional approach and play. Along with facing outdoor semi-pro teams using arena rules, they get paid to travel and play upper-echelon arena teams, which Bell compares to early season non-conference games for big time college football programs.
“We’ve played six pro indoor games and six semipro outdoor arena games, and we beat up on the semipros and get beat up by the pros,” Bell said. “The first step is to actually get our team name out there as some guys that are organized, that are going to come out and show up and play hard. We’re going to come out with seven players that you’re going to want to take a look at.
“They (pro teams) know that they’re going to get somebody that’s going to show up and look good. With a lot of semipro teams they have to worry if their uniforms or helmets will match, and we already have a reputation that we’re going to show up and we’re going to look good. You still might beat us up, but we’re going to look good.”
They also try to accommodate the sometimes rushed, sometimes rushed-then-changing target dates set by their opponents.
“Teams will call us up on a Monday and say, ‘We have this opening on Saturday, can you come?’ Sometimes we just have to tell them our guys are already scheduled to work,” Bell says. “Or we’ll get enough guys off and we’ll go. But last year we had a game scheduled for I think June 9, and then on May 28 or something like that the guy called and said, ‘We need you to come on June 2 instead.’”
It’s one of the reasons Bell wants the relative security of a professional league. Their next step towards becoming a pro team in Auburn is via the online survey Bell is in the process of sending out to businesses in the area. There are things a team needs—a home venue and open dates to build a schedule around, support from local businesses and the community—to join a professional league that remain in the early stages of production for the Vipers.
The ever-changing list of leagues often leads to familiar faces. The Vipers have attracted interest from the Imperial Indoor Football League—started in-part by a former AIFL team that jumped ship—and are eyeing others. For example, the Xtreme Indoor Football League—started by former Ultimate Indoor Football League teams the Vipers played in 2013—is intriguing but “kind of spread out,” as Bell says. Regardless, leagues like these need schedule plans and arenas that the Vipers don’t have right now.
***
Hence, the seven-question survey. It asks recipients in the Auburn-Opelika area what kind of support they would potentially be willing to offer the Vipers. There’s a question as to whether they should theoretically remain the Chattahoochee Valley Vipers or consider changing to the Auburn or East Alabama Vipers.
Bell said of a potential next step after the surveys: “If it’s good enough, we would talk to businesses that said they’d definitely want to support us by whichever means and see how much word we can get over town ... I don’t want us to say we need this amount of money and then those games never come through.”
That’s the result of scheduling games on the fly and unreliable leagues: sometimes, you or supporters can get burned. Bell, who once was paid with a check that ended up bouncing, has seen both.
“I know some other guys that just move into a city, start a team and get a bunch of sponsors, but they’re not interested in making it last,” Bell said. “They’re just interested in playing a few games and seeing what they can get out of it real quick. One guy would set up teams in several cities and leave without paying the arena or his players.
“I’m trying to do it the right way. If I have to go slow and take another year to get this stuff done, but if it’s right and it lasts, that’s perfectly fine with me ... It’s why I want the backing of the community: so I don’t have to worry about issues like that. If you’re a member of a pro league you’re guaranteed games.”
But why Auburn? For one, arena leagues often take place between spring and summer, otherwise known as the off season for Auburn University football. It could quench the thirst for football, albeit not Tiger football. But it could still connect through them by giving talented players the opportunity to shine right away.
“Auburn had one player get drafted this year,” Bell said. “I know a few others signed undrafted free agent contracts, but think of all the players, really good players from Auburn or Tuskegee that don’t go to the NFL. That’d make a real good arena team right there.”
Bell’s roster changes frequently, but has featured anyone from former Tigers and other players with some degree of collegiate experience to guys who never played past high school. In fact, Bell says one of the best players he’s had never went to college.
***
Though he’s ideally shooting for a 2014 start to the Vipers’ professional indoor football life in Auburn, Bell knows there’s a long way to go between now and any potential start date. He hasn’t personally spoken with city or university officials yet. Those are steps that will be necessary down the road, especially since the Auburn Arena seems to be one of, if not the only, viable places in the area to possibly host indoor football.
Bell hasn’t gotten that far. There’s a lot of work ahead, but it’s a labor of love. Bell is focusing on the product he’ll potentially need to sell if it does progress that far, rather than drumming up support for a weightless idea. He’s taking the time so if those surveys convey an interest level in the Auburn-Opelika area worth exploring further, the Vipers will hopefully have a stronger backbone than other teams that fold like wet cardboard after a short stay on the turf.
That first arena game they played three seasons ago, the Vipers were called on as replacements for one of those folded teams. They faced the Alabama Hammers of Huntsville, at the time playing in the Southern Indoor Football League.
“There were four or five thousand people in the stands,” Bell said. “In arena football, the coaches are down on the field leaning against the wall.
“You’ve got the other side in our ears telling us how bad we are and this or that, but in the second quarter I finally told them, because we were wearing the uniforms of the team we were filling in for, that we’re a semipro team and this is our first arena game ever. Most of my guys were college kids. Then they were like, ‘Well, you’re pretty good then!’
“We took a thumping, but at the end of the game all those fans were thanking us for coming.”
Three seasons into their existence, seasons that have included wins by forfeit, the occasional bounced check, and playing opportunities that appear abruptly like sharp curves along their winding path to legitimacy, the Chattahoochee Valley Vipers are still looking to settle down in the topsy-turvy world of indoor arena football. Eventually, they’d like their long-term landing spot to be Auburn.
Roland Bell is the founder, general manager and head coach of the Vipers. After establishing the team in the Columbus area in 2010, Bell transformed them from a traditional 11-man semipro outdoor squad to the arena-style football outfit they are now. Arena ball typically has seven or eight players on each side. Games are played on condensed fields that run up against advertisement-laden walls, similar to ice hockey. A smaller roster helped get a team on the field, but it wasn’t the only reason for the Vipers’ conversion.
“We started as a semipro team but I didn’t want to go that route,” Bell said. “There are so many teams that do that and nobody looks at them, nobody cares. I want to give my guys a shot to be seen, so I want to do it as arena-style. I called several arena teams that I knew about and just asked them if they would watch film on our guys and maybe come scout when their seasons are over. Within a week I got a call to fill in for a team that was folding.”
***
Teams disappearing out of thin air. Entire leagues forming out of that same void. It’s all a part of amateur and professional arena football. Change is the constant, especially in the lower levels where the Vipers currently live. Bell likens their standing to Division III college football. The Columbus Lions, who play in the Professional Indoor Football League, are Division II. Chattahoochee Valley can’t join this paying league due to a rule that stipulates two teams cannot be within 100 miles of one another, for fear of fans dissipating between them. The Arena Football League is at the top; the Bowl Championship Series equivalent.
The Vipers, now based in Notasulga—playing home games at Notasulga High School, where Bell teaches—are made up of local players without contracts. Games are basically taken as they come. Prior to the 2013 season, the Vipers joined the Alliance Indoor Football League but Bell’s initial doubts about it were confirmed.
“We never played a game in it (the AIFL) because all the teams that were supposed to come to us didn’t show up,” Bell said. “We joined it, but it never happened.”
Instead, the Vipers are trying to build their reputation through their professional approach and play. Along with facing outdoor semi-pro teams using arena rules, they get paid to travel and play upper-echelon arena teams, which Bell compares to early season non-conference games for big time college football programs.
“We’ve played six pro indoor games and six semipro outdoor arena games, and we beat up on the semipros and get beat up by the pros,” Bell said. “The first step is to actually get our team name out there as some guys that are organized, that are going to come out and show up and play hard. We’re going to come out with seven players that you’re going to want to take a look at.
“They (pro teams) know that they’re going to get somebody that’s going to show up and look good. With a lot of semipro teams they have to worry if their uniforms or helmets will match, and we already have a reputation that we’re going to show up and we’re going to look good. You still might beat us up, but we’re going to look good.”
They also try to accommodate the sometimes rushed, sometimes rushed-then-changing target dates set by their opponents.
“Teams will call us up on a Monday and say, ‘We have this opening on Saturday, can you come?’ Sometimes we just have to tell them our guys are already scheduled to work,” Bell says. “Or we’ll get enough guys off and we’ll go. But last year we had a game scheduled for I think June 9, and then on May 28 or something like that the guy called and said, ‘We need you to come on June 2 instead.’”
It’s one of the reasons Bell wants the relative security of a professional league. Their next step towards becoming a pro team in Auburn is via the online survey Bell is in the process of sending out to businesses in the area. There are things a team needs—a home venue and open dates to build a schedule around, support from local businesses and the community—to join a professional league that remain in the early stages of production for the Vipers.
The ever-changing list of leagues often leads to familiar faces. The Vipers have attracted interest from the Imperial Indoor Football League—started in-part by a former AIFL team that jumped ship—and are eyeing others. For example, the Xtreme Indoor Football League—started by former Ultimate Indoor Football League teams the Vipers played in 2013—is intriguing but “kind of spread out,” as Bell says. Regardless, leagues like these need schedule plans and arenas that the Vipers don’t have right now.
***
Hence, the seven-question survey. It asks recipients in the Auburn-Opelika area what kind of support they would potentially be willing to offer the Vipers. There’s a question as to whether they should theoretically remain the Chattahoochee Valley Vipers or consider changing to the Auburn or East Alabama Vipers.
Bell said of a potential next step after the surveys: “If it’s good enough, we would talk to businesses that said they’d definitely want to support us by whichever means and see how much word we can get over town ... I don’t want us to say we need this amount of money and then those games never come through.”
That’s the result of scheduling games on the fly and unreliable leagues: sometimes, you or supporters can get burned. Bell, who once was paid with a check that ended up bouncing, has seen both.
“I know some other guys that just move into a city, start a team and get a bunch of sponsors, but they’re not interested in making it last,” Bell said. “They’re just interested in playing a few games and seeing what they can get out of it real quick. One guy would set up teams in several cities and leave without paying the arena or his players.
“I’m trying to do it the right way. If I have to go slow and take another year to get this stuff done, but if it’s right and it lasts, that’s perfectly fine with me ... It’s why I want the backing of the community: so I don’t have to worry about issues like that. If you’re a member of a pro league you’re guaranteed games.”
But why Auburn? For one, arena leagues often take place between spring and summer, otherwise known as the off season for Auburn University football. It could quench the thirst for football, albeit not Tiger football. But it could still connect through them by giving talented players the opportunity to shine right away.
“Auburn had one player get drafted this year,” Bell said. “I know a few others signed undrafted free agent contracts, but think of all the players, really good players from Auburn or Tuskegee that don’t go to the NFL. That’d make a real good arena team right there.”
Bell’s roster changes frequently, but has featured anyone from former Tigers and other players with some degree of collegiate experience to guys who never played past high school. In fact, Bell says one of the best players he’s had never went to college.
***
Though he’s ideally shooting for a 2014 start to the Vipers’ professional indoor football life in Auburn, Bell knows there’s a long way to go between now and any potential start date. He hasn’t personally spoken with city or university officials yet. Those are steps that will be necessary down the road, especially since the Auburn Arena seems to be one of, if not the only, viable places in the area to possibly host indoor football.
Bell hasn’t gotten that far. There’s a lot of work ahead, but it’s a labor of love. Bell is focusing on the product he’ll potentially need to sell if it does progress that far, rather than drumming up support for a weightless idea. He’s taking the time so if those surveys convey an interest level in the Auburn-Opelika area worth exploring further, the Vipers will hopefully have a stronger backbone than other teams that fold like wet cardboard after a short stay on the turf.
That first arena game they played three seasons ago, the Vipers were called on as replacements for one of those folded teams. They faced the Alabama Hammers of Huntsville, at the time playing in the Southern Indoor Football League.
“There were four or five thousand people in the stands,” Bell said. “In arena football, the coaches are down on the field leaning against the wall.
“You’ve got the other side in our ears telling us how bad we are and this or that, but in the second quarter I finally told them, because we were wearing the uniforms of the team we were filling in for, that we’re a semipro team and this is our first arena game ever. Most of my guys were college kids. Then they were like, ‘Well, you’re pretty good then!’
“We took a thumping, but at the end of the game all those fans were thanking us for coming.”