Making the Transition to the Indoor Game
Gary Stibolt
Thursday April 1, 2004
Following his release by the Titans, Barr wanted to play football but he also wanted to finish his education. It was the education that was most important for Barr.
"I look at myself first," stated Barr. "I`m going to make it or not make it so I was looking for something that was around school.” Finishing school is Fred Barr`s number one priority. "I go to Iowa and so the Steamwheelers was the best opportunity for me to do it," said Barr.
It was his education that created an opportunity for the Steamwheelers to have an outstanding Inside Linebacker who recorded 376 tackles in his college career along with four sacks and twenty-four tackles for a loss.
So making the transition from the outdoor game to the indoor game is something that every arena football player has to go through.
"It`s been real different for me," said a sweating Barr following Wednesday night`s practice. "In the outdoor game, you are banging it hard, real hard but in the arena there`s not so much banging.”
Now we all know that the hitting in the arena game is just as intense as it is anywhere else. It is the fundamentals of the indoor game that requires a lot of discipline especially for the rookies.
"In the arena game, you work on getting your foot-work down and concentrating on the little things," Barr said. "You have to get use to how fast it happens...getting use to the offense."
Throughout his career at Iowa, Barr always played defense, so getting use to having to play both ways was a tough transitions. It is not so much the conditioning of having to play both ways, but rather the knowledge of the offensive scheme.
"I haven`t done offense since I was in high school so I have to get use to doing it again," said Barr.
For Barr, it is about the scheme. "I look at the blocking scheme and recognize certain match-ups on the line," stated Barr. "I help the FB to see how to protect him, how to help him. In the outdoor game you don`t have to be as talented in order to win, here you have to be precise."
It`s been almost three weeks of arena ball practice for Barr and his reads.
"It`s kind of the same," explained Barr. "You`ve got to know what their (offense) is going to try and do...what they`re wanting to accomplish. You`ve got to know where the hole is but the hardest part is knowing what they`re trying to do. The biggest difference in arena ball for me is not being involved with the coverage."
In Arena Football, the rules state you have to have some “daylight” between the linemen and the linebackers and that the linebackers cannot start forward progress until after the ball is snapped. In addition to that, they can`t go outside the box until the quarterback breaks it. In the outdoor 100-yard game defenses blitz and they do it a lot. In Arena Football, you can`t do it the same way.
"I look at the read of the quarterback and the receivers," said Barr. "In the indoor game you try to interrupt the passing lane."
Barr used an old saying that his old high school coach always said. "You have eleven one-on-one battles; if every man wins his battle, you get the touchdown...you got no choice but to get the touchdown."
That applies to the eight-man game too. The difference with Barr is he loves to play defense and he plans on winning his one-on-one battle.
Gary Stibolt has covered the Quad City Steamwheelers since their 2000 inaugural season. He also owns, operates and is the Chief Editor/Publisher of SteamwheelerFans.com, a website dedicated to the Steamwheelers and their fans. He coresponds for other media outlets covering arenafootball2. In addition to leading the Steamwheelers Fan Club, Gary serves as Coordinator of the National af2 Fan Club. He is married with two sons and works as an Infrastructure Analyst for Deere & Company in their Corporate Computer Center in Moline, Illinois.