SIoux CIty Bandits, Dead

It’s a sad day in all of indoor football when one of the bedrock franchises decides to step down a level, or pack it up altogether. We all know that the problems Bob has is that he alleges, and perhaps rightfully so that every other team cheats and that's why he can't win games. But I haven't missed a Storm game in the Tyson in five years and it never seemed to matter what the Bandits record was, the place was rockin’. So, it can't really be just about winning games.

I don't pretend to know anything that goes on in Sioux City with regards to the way players are treated, housed, or fed. I know, much like you, that late in the year Coach Williams and the players had a meeting to discuss their grievances, so that coach could address them with Bob for next year (2011). Bob then basically told coach if you don’t like the way I run things there’s the door. Drama ensued; you know more about that than I do.

Now, all of this, or none of this might be connected at all. Bob was one of the few owners in the league to continually turn a profit, well again allegedly. If he was losing money at the rate money can be lost in indoor football, then yes he has decided to go the way of countless other teams in the past 12 years. Somehow I don’t think so, the Bandits never appeared to have sponsor issues, seemed to have some of the best fans in the league… a few of y’all are batsnot crazy, but it takes one to know one.

Sioux City as a town seems to get the short end of the stick more times than not. Gateway, and Morrell’s closing have both decimated the work force in a decidedly blue collar town. But their people have a passion; however misguided it seems from the outside, for things that are Sioux City. The Sioux City Bandits were Sioux City to the core. However, somewhere along the way, the players stopped being “Sioux City” players that played for their town and their team like Johnny Ostermeyer, Erv Strohbeen, Steve Schmidt, and many others, Bob began to recruit players that had seen how the other half lived, players from Sioux Falls, Billings, Wichita, and Omaha. They wanted to be treated like the royalty they were on this other markets, the fact is that in Sioux City respect is not given, it must be earned, and Bob’s not about to juggle any football player’s balls, let’s be fair here.

As a person, a human being and even “…f**k the storm and anything else that goes along with SF…” (Gee thanks JD) A Storm fan, today is a day I really never wanted to see. I can’t speak for everyone, but I’d like to think I’ve got my finger pretty squarely on the pulse of most Storm fans, so it is with no hesitation that I say you will be missed. I’ll miss BNDC and BLZ, both of whom I had the privilege of meeting and speaking to on a few occasions. To Doobi and Doom, whom I’m not sure I ever met, it’s been a heck of a ride on the boards the past 6 years or so. A special shout-out goes to BNDC for all the smuggled six-packs of Fat Tire.