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Future of Riverrats in Fans’ hands  |
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With 55 seconds remaining in last week’s American Indoor Football Association playoff game between the hometown Erie Riverrats and the rival Reading Express, the ‘Rats held a 57-54 lead after kicker J.R. Cipra nailed a 31-yard field goal attempt.
Fans of Indoor Football will attest that 55 seconds is an eternity, and in that same span of time, the Riverrats’ playoff futures were changed and the off-season abruptly began much to the dismay of the blue-collar gents of the gridiron, the Erie Riverrats. With the effort the team put collectively on the field, and the organization demonstrated throughout the season, off the field, the team deserved better.
The ‘Rats deserved better on the field save a couple of fans and the organization deserved better at the gate save thousands of fans who missed out on a tremendous year of football. Only time will tell if the fickle following of local sports fans will jump on a much deserving Riverrats bandwagon in time to offer the team some stability for the future.
If 55 seconds is an eternity on the game clock, an Indoor Football off season can seem like an eternity to a front office and a fan base alike. In the span of a few months, Erie lost its AIFA entry the Erie Freeze. As former owner David Hodas played a personal game of hide and seek with the media and former employees, the calendar continued to flip pages in anticipation of a new season.
At the point of no return, the AIFA gave Hodas an “in or out” ultimatum, and when those warnings were ignored, the Freeze melted away into sports oblivion spurning one of the greatest local fan bases in the history of the League.
Enter owner Jeff Hauser and the Riverrats. Unable to find a niche in the crowded Pittsburgh sports scene, he used his Pennsylvania sensibility and moved his ‘Rats down the road to the football hotbed of Erie were the ‘Rats were reborn and rejuvenated with an influx of Freeze talent and major college experience.
The ‘Rats were better than the Freeze tenfold, but the fans chose to ignore the exploits of Erie’s newest team on the landscape. While understandable the fan uneasiness behind a product leading to poor attendance, the ‘Rats front office quickly set itself apart from previous regimes.
The biggest way this was done was that the ‘Rats were upfront with the local media and told the truth.
The first inkling that Hodas was an emperor with no clothes should have been witnessed when he chased inaugural head coach Mike Esposito out of town. Unwilling to pay one of the winningest coaches in Indoor Football his proper compensation or negotiate a contract with a livable wage commensurate with experience, Espo bolted from a town just 100 miles from where he grew up, moved with his new family, and called home.
Second year coach Jerry Crafts was fired with a 5-1 record for poor public relations skills and the 2007 season was a debacle from start to finish. By the end of the season, Hodas was so far underground and hidden from employees, players, media, and sponsors that it was thought that if he ever resurfaced and saw his shadow, we would suffer six more weeks of winter.
For the RiverRats to succeed they need the help of a loyal fan base in return for a talented and exciting product.
The team has done its part, how about you?
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