Rush Veterans Offset Short Offseason
Mary-Ann Williams
Wednesday January 15, 2003
This year, the Rush have brought back 15 players from last year’s roster, nine of them starters. Having spent at least a year under Chicago head coach Mike Hohensee’s tutelage, these men know his scheme, and his expectations.
 Mike Hohensee evaluates his players with scrutiny in camp Image courtesy of Kevin Sheller |
With a solid starting point, Coach Hohensee and his staff set out to build a championship team. But the schedule change from spring to winter football meant more than snow-covered tailgaters this year. It meant two months less to land the talent necessary to get the team to their final destination: ArenaBowl XVII.
“I think it made it tougher to go out and find people,” said Hohensee. “You had to make decisions quickly. You couldn’t wait and say, ‘Ah, you know, we’ve got a couple more months to see if anyone else calls us, to see if anyone else gets waived…’ or whatever. You had to be a little more sure of your decisions.”
The Arena Football League did more than change the schedule around to accommodate NBC, their new media partners. They scratched an age-old tradition in professional sports.
“[The players] have to understand that we have got to be in the best shape [now],” said Hohensee. “There are no preseason games. There’s no time for errors. We’ve got to be sharp February 2nd.”
The lack of preseason games could affect the coaches’ ability to test their new recruits in the line of fire, making cuts a little more difficult. Coach Hohensee isn’t worried about cutting his 37-man roster down to the requisite 24, though.
“I think it’s enough time for us [to tell]. I can tell you after three days most of the time. Like every team, we have two-day-waivers during the season, when guys come in to practice for two days, and you can tell. Especially when you’ve got guys that have been around for a while. All of a sudden these [new players] come in side-by-side with them, it’s like, ‘This guy should not be here.’”
He has help in the form of his veterans. “Sometimes during a break [from practice] I’ll take a guy off [the field] and say, ‘What do you think of this [new] guy? Does he scare you?’ Sometimes it helps. You have to take it with a grain of salt, though. They don’t always know. But you still get kind of an idea. And you find that out quick, too... who you can ask and who you can’t.”
A lot rides on his ability to find the right guys now. Coach Hohensee faces the losses of several of his starters next year when they become free agents. The new skill players he hires this year could be stepping in for those who have moved on, and have to be ready to start when the time comes.
“I think we have an edge. I think we’re going to be mentally tough,” said Hohensee. “We’ve got a lot of veterans. Not just veterans of the league, but veterans of our system.”
For two years, Hohensee and his staff have worked to bring winning players to Chicago. This year, for the first time, he’s starting the season with winners already in place. He’s counting on the team veterans to show the new guys how he does things, and why that puts them above most of the league, even though they’ve only been around a few years. It starts, says Hohensee, with the right attitude.
Their first year in, the Rush expected to not only make the playoffs, but to go all the way. “We expected to win,” said Hohensee. “We talked about it day one, when the organization first came in. The first meeting I had with them we wanted to win the ArenaBowl. And we weren’t too far away from possibly doing that our first year.”
Or their second year either, for that matter. They plowed headlong into the play offs and came out the other end at the semi-finals against Arizona, perennial contenders for the Championship. Unfortunately, the Rush looked too far ahead when they should have been looking right in front of them.
“I think we were so worried about winning and getting to the championship that we forgot about the task. It was just little things here and there that got us. We forgot about those little things. Catch the ball. Hold it. It just didn’t happen,” said Hohensee.
When it didn’t happen it took the team, and a few others, by surprise. Hohensee heard that the San Jose SaberCats spent time preparing for the Rush in the championship game. No Chicago player had packed a single thing before heading to the Rattlers Snake Pit. “None of us were ready to leave last year. It was very difficult when we came back from Arizona because nothing was ready to go home. And I think that taste stayed in these players’ mouths.”
So last year’s players moved forward with their own expectations. They spent time in the off-season working toward their own personal goals of refining their speed, muscle mass, or overall attitude.
“It’s just that their mindset is so much better. It’s not such a sour feeling right now,” said Hohensee. “It’s more of a ‘Let’s go get it right now. Let’s not screw around this time. Let’s do things right. We should have been there.’ But this isn’t last year.”
Coach Hohensee has spent three years building the kind of team he needs to win it all. He’s handled the issues that come from a first-year team. He’s dealt with expectations and lost momentum. He’s taking this year to plan ahead for the continued success he believes his team will have. Every coach says that, but Hohensee has a special reason for his obsession.
“I played in the very first ArenaBowl 17 years ago and I ain’t been back since. I’ve been to six semi-finals. I’ve lost by a touchdown in five of them. I don’t care [who we play]. I just want to get back there.”
Mary-Ann Williams lives in Chicagoland with her four children, Carter, Jackson, Jeremy, and Riley Jade. As a freelance writer, she`s written articles for the Associated Press, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and the Daily Herald. She also serves as editor of the AFL-side of Arenafan Online, and covers the Chicago Rush.
