preeths
07-20-2006, 12:28 PM
Check out http://www.oscnewsgazette.com/index.php?option=sports&task=viewarticle&sid=13280
It's a good read on what Osceola went through in the NIFL this season, particularly recently.
Some of the better parts:
Here’s three things I learned from covering the National Indoor Football League:
1. In the rest of the country, it takes about 10 hours to set up for a Faith Hill concert. But in Cincinnati, it takes four days.
2. If you call a team on Friday to confirm that they’re coming to your place for a Saturday game, call them again Saturday morning. And again when they get on the bus. And then start looking out the window and hoping.
3. Keep your NIFL opponents close — and your league reps closer.
It was NIFL President Carolyn Shiver’s sudden need for a non-compete clause precluding the Football to play in no other indoor league but the NIFL — her “playoff paperwork” — that did Osceola in. Cincinnati had already signed their paperwork.
The burning questions are: where was this “paperwork” during fiascos against the Dayton Bulldogs and West Palm Beach Phantoms, who didn’t pay their venues and had to forfeit to the Football? And did the Shiver use the “paperwork” ploy to “coax” Cincinnati into coming back by handing them a playoff win, or as a strong-arm tactic to force Osceola back that backfired when David Doebler and Dave and Don Czech called the bluff?
The answer to those questions is, “I dunno.” If I had answers, then I would have written a much better story last week, because Shiver would have returned one of my handful of phone messages.
It's a good read on what Osceola went through in the NIFL this season, particularly recently.
Some of the better parts:
Here’s three things I learned from covering the National Indoor Football League:
1. In the rest of the country, it takes about 10 hours to set up for a Faith Hill concert. But in Cincinnati, it takes four days.
2. If you call a team on Friday to confirm that they’re coming to your place for a Saturday game, call them again Saturday morning. And again when they get on the bus. And then start looking out the window and hoping.
3. Keep your NIFL opponents close — and your league reps closer.
It was NIFL President Carolyn Shiver’s sudden need for a non-compete clause precluding the Football to play in no other indoor league but the NIFL — her “playoff paperwork” — that did Osceola in. Cincinnati had already signed their paperwork.
The burning questions are: where was this “paperwork” during fiascos against the Dayton Bulldogs and West Palm Beach Phantoms, who didn’t pay their venues and had to forfeit to the Football? And did the Shiver use the “paperwork” ploy to “coax” Cincinnati into coming back by handing them a playoff win, or as a strong-arm tactic to force Osceola back that backfired when David Doebler and Dave and Don Czech called the bluff?
The answer to those questions is, “I dunno.” If I had answers, then I would have written a much better story last week, because Shiver would have returned one of my handful of phone messages.