Uncle!
Scott Reed
Tuesday May 15, 2001
An 0-3 start to the season is a large hole to climb out of so he must have been in Chicago Cubs mode. I see a regular season record of 8-8.
Attendance at the Barn has been anemic at best so there is nothing like a ‘shock-value’ maneuver to help increase attendance.
Earle Bruce, Ohio State, Woody Hayes, Colorado State…..if the pattern continues we could see a “Clench on the Bench” instead of a “War on the Floor”. Nothing like good old controversy to divert the fan’s attention from a teams record. Then again, why do people go to NASCAR events?
And lastly, Art Haege just defeated a 4-1 Jacksonville team on the road. Things were turning around! Did Foster think Iowa did not beat them by enough points?
One can’t help but wonder how you can replace an AFL-experienced coach with a man who has only a 40-55-1 record over the past 13 years (yes, Earle Bruce had a very short stint with the St. Louis Stampede). By the way, Earle has a 13-15 lifetime record in arena football.
Jim Foster was quoted by the Des Moines Register today as saying, “Art Haege has been a wonderful member of the Barnstormer family from the beginning and he was a major architect of what we were on the field for a number of years. This was an extremely difficult decision to make, but the team has to become more competitive. We simply have to win more.”
WOW! Rhetoric at its best! Let’s have that quote translated.
‘Art, you done well in the past but what have you done for me today? I need people in the stands to break even and the only way that will happen is if you win. Do you want me to pull the plug on this team a second time? So here is the plan, I’ll announce we had a great party and it was time for you to leave. That way, the poor attendance was all your fault and I can try to repair the remains of the season. If you would have only put on those pads and got out on the field to show you cared I would have kept you around……for one more game.’
For the record, Coach Haege and I don’t bake cookies for one another so this is not a media-assisted payback. I also have nothing against Earle Bruce since he did try to help out my alma mater (Northern Iowa).
It is, however, a stand against the mentality that a coach can fix all problems AND put points on the board. With all due respect to Gerry Howe, what do you expect with a bench full of rookies?
And as for the attendance levels, Des Moines is still smarting from the loss of AFL no matter how hard the front office spins it. Did they expect a Quad City Steamwheeler-type season coming out of the chute?
Scott Reed was a writer for ArenaFan Online from 2000 to 2002.
