Cowdrey returns home to Peoria
Michael Vergane
Wednesday February 6, 2002
During their 7-9 2001 season, only two of these five founders, General Manager Greg Griffith and Assistant Coach Tony Johnson remained with the club.
But this season, one of the key ingredients from their successful Indoor Football League days returns to help right the ship; Head Coach Bruce Cowdrey.
The Peoria Pirates were the class of the short lived IFL, appearing in two championship games and winning the 2000 IFL title with an undefeated record.
It was after that 2000 season that O.P.E. (Orlando Predators Entertainment) purchased the IFL for the purpose of placing the Pirates into the af2.
Cowdrey, however, chose not to follow. Instead, taking the head coaching position with the Pensacola Barracudas and leaving the Midwest for the sunshine of the Gulf Coast. But, still keeping his home in Peoria.
It turned out to be the wrong fit for Cowdrey. In his own words, he gave new definition to the term ‘damn yankee’.
“You know how Billy Martin would leave the Yankees and screw up? Then he would come home to New York and win because he felt safe there. Well, I kind of feel that way here in Peoria”, said the 48-year old Cowdrey.
Towards the end of the 2001 season, and the Barracudas well out of the playoff hunt, Cowdrey decided he did not want to return to Pensacola in 2002.
“I had gone to Bruce Burge, who was our minority owner in Pensacola, with around three games left in the season and I asked them if it would be a problem if they let me out of my contract because I just wasn’t happy there.”
“Bruce and I had a good line of communication, and they were really good to me. Bruce (Burge) said that if you’re not happy then there was no sense of staying, and they let me out of my contract without any problems.”
Cowdrey added, “He asked me where I was planning on going, and I told him that I knew enough people that I could always find work.”
At that time, Peoria had a head coach in Gary Porter; Cowdrey’s quarterback for their 2000 Championship season. So Cowdrey’s thinking was not in returning to the Pirates, but returning home to the City of Peoria.
That was until a conversation with Baracuda’s VP of Corporate Marketing, Dale Hendricks.
“Dale came into my office and started asking me about Peoria. Well, I could go on and on about the city, so I started bragging about the people and telling him that no matter where I might coach, I’m going to live in Peoria.”
“Well, it turned out that not two weeks later, Dale began working for O.P.E. (the operators of the Pirates).”
With Hendricks now working for O.P.E., the wheels were put into motion for Cowdrey’s return to the Pirates.
Dr. Eric Margenau, who offered the Peoria job to Cowdrey, in turn kept Porter in the af2 by offering Porter the head coaching spot with his new expansion team, the Mohegan Wolves.
Cowdrey, along with his old friend G.M. Greg Grffith, are now slowly putting together the ingredients to improve on the Pirates 7-9 record.
If there was one position you could point to that needed immediate attention from last season, it would be the quarterback spot, and the offense in general (24th out of 28 in scoring).
To rectify that, the Pirates have signed two Division I quarterbacks who they feel can lead them to a Midwest Division title; James Daugherty and Walt Church.
The 6’4” Daugherty is a former University of Missouri QB who threw for over 1000 yards in the 99’ season. The Peoria born native is a former Wendy’s Scholar-Athlete winner for the State of Illinois and once held the state record in high school for throwing 151 consecutive passes without an interception.
Walt Church is an Eastern Michigan graduate who broke Charlie Batch’s records of career completions, total yards and single-game passing yards while at Ypsilanti.
Also at 6’4”, Church has the ideal drop-back passer size for the arena game. Church has an invitation to tryout for the Arizona Rattlers, so he may not be in Peoria when camp opens March 16th.
It was the recent signing of Church that kept Cowdrey from signing another ‘name’ quarterback in the af2, Anthony Buich.
The former Iowa Barnstormer had verbally agreed to sign with the Pirates but backed out at the eleventh hour and signed instead with Tulsa.
“I guess you can only have one bull in the pasture”, lamented Cowdrey on what could have been a great three-way battle for the starting job.
With the season less than two months away, and the Pirates with office space only blocks away from the Peoria Civic Center, Cowdrey and Griffith no longer need to meet at Sully’s – unless they want to.
“Back when we were starting up the team”, said Cowdrey, I was living in St. Louis and commuting up to Peoria (about 170 miles one way). The five of us would meet at Sully’s and go down the checklist of what we got accomplished and where we needed to go. Sometimes we met twice a week.”
The two other members who made up the original five were Brad Fleming, the teams first G.M., and Peoria Journal-Star sports writer Dave Eminian, who Cowdrey said added insight into the Peoria sports scene.
The sports scene in Peoria is a tight-knit one. And there is a feeling of family that not only extends into the city with its fans, but is felt inside the Pirates front office.
“You have six people here in this office”, said Cowdrey, “that truly care about each other.”
“We’re a bunch of locals. Bruce is the Johnny-come-lately!”, joked Griffith. “But, he is still a local.”
“We have pride in this team”, added Cowdrey. “This is my team, and I’ll die for it.
That’s a big fancy way of saying it, but I bleed black and silver. And you’re either with us, or against us.”
Michael Vergane was a writer for ArenaFan Online from 2000 to 2002.
