By TYLER HENRY
Lead Sportswriter - Salina Post
Just as the dust appeared to be settled across the Arena Football League landscape it was reported on Tuesday that the West Texas Desert Hawks would be shuttering football operations.
With this move, West Texas became the eighth AFL team to fold, joining the Iowa Rampage, Philadelphia Soul, Louisiana VooDoo, Georgia Force, Minnesota Myth, Oregon Blackbears, and Rapid City Marshals, leaving AFL with half of its original member teams.
There’s no doubt that this relaunch of the Arena Football League has been a troubled one, but despite all the chaos, the enduring group of teams and owners have stayed the course, and remain committed to revitalizing the AFL from the ashes of this restart.
Among those teams is the Salina Liberty, and despite a number of factors outside of their control, this franchise has remained on track, and found ways to compete despite being one of the smallest market teams in a league that spans from coast to coast.
“We always felt that as long as there was a league the Liberty would be okay,” Salina GM Sam Sellers said. “That’s the great thing about our ownership and Coach O, we worry about the things that we can control and we make sure that our players and staff get paid. We haven’t missed a single paycheck or asked anyone to restructure a contract and that’s a testament to the stability of our ownership group.”
Not only have the Liberty weathered the storm, but at 6-2 Salina currently sits in the 3-seed with just one league game remaining before the conclusion of the regular season.
“At the end of the day no matter what’s happening I want to be a contender,” Liberty head coach Heron O’Neal said. “I don’t want to be a bottom feeder, I don’t want to be middle of the pack, I want to be an upper-echelon team. That’s our goal every year and that’s something we’ve been able to do even with some of the stuff that happened earlier in the year.”
The IFL Hall of Famer also noted that this is not his first rodeo when it comes to a shaky league launch, and highlighted what can come of a league that survives the very adversity this one has faced.
“In 2009 I was a part of the new IFL which is now one of the most dominant indoor football leagues in America but it wasn’t always like that,” he said. “I knew some things were going to go awry but I love that we have a bunch of owners around the United States that worked to take the bull by the horns and turn something that could have been a disaster around through a lot of hard work. Without that work, we wouldn’t be sitting where we are right now but thanks to it I’m excited about the direction the AFL is headed.”
Much of that optimism stems from new league ownership after the league ousted Lee Hutton and Travelle Gaines, the two culprits widely blamed for the league’s early failings, midway through the season.
In their place, former NFL head coach Jeff Fisher has been elevated to interim league commissioner, former AFL head coach Gary Compton has been hired as Head of Football Operations, and Tracey Leinen, who brings 23 years of NFL operations experience, has been hired as President of Football Administration.
“I feel really good about where things are at right now,” Sellers said. “With this being my first year I don’t really know what normal looks like but it’s weirdly exciting to be getting emails from league officials about the way we’re running things now.”
Since instituting this new leadership group, just one game, the one involving West Texas this week, has been canceled, and the league is finding its footing ahead of what should be an exciting postseason in July.
“I love this new leadership,” O’Neal said. “I’m excited to have Jeff Fisher leading us and I was excited to hear his ideas and what he wants to turn this thing into. With that type of leadership coming down from the top I knew things were going to turn around.”
That postseason should excite those in Salina as well as the Liberty look primed to make a real title push, with plenty of familiar faces dotting a stacked roster from top to bottom.
“There was definitely a learning curve but at the end of the day football is football and you build the team in the same way,” O’Neal said. “The key for me was getting our Magnificent Seven back to lead the charge because they know my expectations, they know how to win and they know the Liberty Way.”
While no one should look to make excuses for the early failings of the AFL, those willing to look to the future should find great football, an exciting postseason, and better years to come as the league reasserts itself among the indoor football world.
“The group that got hurt the worst were the players on the teams that couldn’t function and we’ve taken some of those guys in and heard their stories,” Sellers said. You really feel for the guys that were put in those positions but we’ve been fortunate to weather the storm and do right by our players. These guys have been forged by fire and in a weird way we’re stronger for it.”
Salina will conclude its regular season on Saturday, June 29 when they play host to the Billings Outlaws in a game that could very well decide the 2-seed.