The Hawks are Sold to the League
Hartford Hawks
Jonathan Sampson has been struggling with the Hawks for the past couple of seasons and has finally sold the team back to the league. The team was losing money over the past season and was unable to pay some player’s full salary. The league stepped in to fill the need, but issues were brewing between players and the front office that only added to the turmoil. Which will only negatively affect the team and the league in the future. The team lows in attendance only made the issues worse. The attendance issues were not convincing the city that it would be good to invest in another new stadium. The stress and problems only took a toll on the league’s youngest owner who had only been in the role since 1945 and is responsible for the team’s renaming to the Hawks. Sampson hopes the team can stay afloat but will be moving away from football. The league will be looking to find an owner in Hartford for the next season with a 1-year lease left on Arnold H. Bensen Park. They are open to other possibilities as well, but there is a desire to keep the Hawks in Hartford.
Boston’s Transition to New Ownership
Boston Independents
Owner Glen Harris (80) is transitioning completely away from the main operations of the Independents. His son, Benjamin Harris (55), will fully take over the usual duties of ownership. Glen will remain the owner by name till he passes, but his son who had slowly been taking on more and more, over the past few years will officially take over this season.
New Stadium in Ottawa
Ottawa Royals
The Royals have announced that construction on a new stadium not too far south of the current location will begin construction come the spring. The new building will be closer in size to Mount Royal Stadium in Montreal at around 45,000. The new location is right across from Carleton University and will share the stadium with the university. A new name has yet to be decided, the announcement will likely come next year. Royals Owner, Laura McNeil, hopes the stadium will be ready to go for the 1955 season but will be patient and push it back to the ‘56 season if they must.
Hartford Hawks
Jonathan Sampson has been struggling with the Hawks for the past couple of seasons and has finally sold the team back to the league. The team was losing money over the past season and was unable to pay some player’s full salary. The league stepped in to fill the need, but issues were brewing between players and the front office that only added to the turmoil. Which will only negatively affect the team and the league in the future. The team lows in attendance only made the issues worse. The attendance issues were not convincing the city that it would be good to invest in another new stadium. The stress and problems only took a toll on the league’s youngest owner who had only been in the role since 1945 and is responsible for the team’s renaming to the Hawks. Sampson hopes the team can stay afloat but will be moving away from football. The league will be looking to find an owner in Hartford for the next season with a 1-year lease left on Arnold H. Bensen Park. They are open to other possibilities as well, but there is a desire to keep the Hawks in Hartford.
Boston’s Transition to New Ownership
Boston Independents
Owner Glen Harris (80) is transitioning completely away from the main operations of the Independents. His son, Benjamin Harris (55), will fully take over the usual duties of ownership. Glen will remain the owner by name till he passes, but his son who had slowly been taking on more and more, over the past few years will officially take over this season.
New Stadium in Ottawa
Ottawa Royals
The Royals have announced that construction on a new stadium not too far south of the current location will begin construction come the spring. The new building will be closer in size to Mount Royal Stadium in Montreal at around 45,000. The new location is right across from Carleton University and will share the stadium with the university. A new name has yet to be decided, the announcement will likely come next year. Royals Owner, Laura McNeil, hopes the stadium will be ready to go for the 1955 season but will be patient and push it back to the ‘56 season if they must.
DB Oscar Patterson - Buffalo Blue Wings (1949-1953)* - Hometown: Buffalo, NY
Patterson will go down as a fan favourite and one of the greatest to play at the DB position. Patterson was a career Blue Wing and loved playing in the city every week. He was a leader on the field and a community man off the field, always getting involved around the city and encouraging teammates to do so as well. In his career, Patterson had two All-Star nods in 1949 and 1950 and was nominated for DPOTY in 1952. He also won the McCallister in ‘52 with the Blue Wings, while he was thinking of retiring he decided to return for one more shot. Buffalo missed the playoffs in his final year, but he doesn’t regret playing one more and is happy to finally call it a career. Patterson will also be remembered as the creator of the winged helmet that inspired more elaborate helmet designs and will forever be a symbol for football in Buffalo.
“There is nothing like playing in your hometown and being the leader and being able to give back, especially when it's a championship.” - Oscar Patterson
OL Joshua Mercer - Montreal Rouge (1949-1953)** - Hometown: Ottawa, ON
One of the best O-linemen over the first 4 seasons of the NAAF, Mercer was a constant All-Star. He would be a part of the All-Star squad in each season except his final season due to injury. The injury that Mercer suffered this season was too much for him to continue to play further. He was still able to return to help in the playoffs, but he was not his same self and has decided to call it a career as a champion.
QB Oliver Callahan - Hartford Hawks (1949-1950), Montreal Rouge (1951-1952)*, Worcester Athletics (1953) - Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
Oliver Callahan had a very roller-coaster career. He had an alright ‘49 season with the Hawks before having by far his worst in ‘50. After being traded to Montreal the next offseason, Callahan would help the Rouge to a 9-0-1 record and their first McCallister Cup. Unfortunately, the success was short-lived, as they would fail to make the playoffs the next season going 6-4. Montreal would not resign the veteran QB and he would back up the young Riley Kiernan in Worcester in his final season. He had a couple of drives in a midseason game but Callahan knew that he was not likely going to get another shot to start so he decided to end his career.
K Arthur Wall - Boston Independents (1949-1953)** - Hometown: Boston, MA
Wall had a very successful career with the Independents. Helping them to back to back McCallister Cups in ‘49 and ‘50, and winning a Special Teams Player of the Year Award in 1950. He also had an All-Star nod that same season and has been a strong kicker throughout. Wall was beginning to struggle a bit over the past year showing his age and with a young kicker coming up for Boston, it seemed like the right time to call it quits.
Other Notable Retirements:
QB Jordan Boyle - BOS (1949-1953)**
OL Woodrow Bridges - MTL (1949-1951)*, BOS (1952), MTL (1953)*
DB Dennis Blair - MTL (1951)*, MTL (1953)*
WR John Hall - OTT (1949-1952), MTL (1953)*
LB Philip Carey - TOR (1949-1950), BUF (1951), MTL (1952-1953)
WR Clifford Chapman - TOR (1949-1950), BOS (1951-1952), ON (1953)
OL Claude Montgomery - MTL (1949-1951)*, BUF (1952)*, OTT (1953)
DB Michael Conner - HAR (1949-1951), OTT (1952-1953)
DL George Woods - HAR (1949-1951), OTT (1952), PRO (1953)
Staff Changes
Worcester Athletics
After a couple of tough seasons, the Athletics have decided to move on from HC Max Riley. They also have let go of DC Patrick Taylor. The new head coach is a Former Pittsburgh HC Emil Riddle. Riddle has had a lot of success in Pittsburgh and was OC when Angelo Medina was with the team and helped him get better. Riddle left Pittsburgh after a couple of sub-par seasons following the merger with the ACFL. Riddle was intrigued by the NAAF and Worcester was more than willing to bring him on. He likes what Riley Kiernan brings to the table and is very excited to work with him. They also will pair him up with former WR Dewey Doyle at Offensive Coordinator and newly hired college DC Hugo Martinez.
Ontario Tigers
GM Joseph Johnson has decided to step back from the head coaching duties and focus on the GM role. Johnson has done a great job building the tigers into a strong team, but he has struggled to make them into a true competitor on the field. He has brought in Buffalo DC Lewis Gallegos to be the new head coach. Gallegos was a part of the championship-winning Blue Wings of 1952 and should give Ontario the edge they need on the defensive side of the ball.
Buffalo Blue Wings
Buffalo replaces Gallegos with new DC Dennell Willis, who has had success in the OFU but was looking for a new opportunity after being let go by the Toronto Lakers. They also hired Max Riley as the new OC after Bobby Hooper has lowered his responsibilities to just HC and GM.
Ottawa Royals
The Royals have promoted OC Joseph Curry to HC/OC while Otis Ward will remain the GM from now on. Curry has helped keep the Royals offense at their top tier level of play and should be a great leader in the locker room. The Royals are hoping to finally break through to the McCallister Cup after many years of playoff losses.
Montreal Rouge
Montreal has hired Theodore Ortiz as an OC to help Guy Clarke who is getting to the end of his career. Clarke has never been an offensive mastermind, so hopefully, Ortiz can provide Montreal with a little more power on the offensive side.
Flying South, The Hawks Cross Long Island Sound to Find Their New Home
The Hawks have found a new owner, in a surprise buy from former Long Island Raiders owner, Wayne Tillman. Tillman was a longtime owner for the Long Island team in the NYFL, but after the league shut his team down following the 1951 season, Tillman has been looking for another opportunity to take on a new team. Tillman has voiced his displeasure over the handling of the NYFL and ACFL merger and how his team was thrown under the bus. While the Long Island Raiders were never a huge success, they still had a good following with a brand new stadium that had opened for the 1951 season.
The NYFL has gained a bad reputation in their league management. The Buffalo Blue Wings used to play in the league and had been ignored with the other New York teams not wanting to travel to Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse each year, so Buffalo rarely had home games, which would eventually happen to the other upstate New York teams. In this case, the richest teams in New York and Brooklyn always got their way in order to keep the league afloat with their funding. That meant that with the merger, the teams wanted to hold a greater area of the market and shut down the other teams. The move would backfire with many fans upset over the loss of their teams and another factor they didn’t think about: NAAF on CBS.
Since CBS was covering the NAAF in the summer, it gave fans a chance to see a different league and they wouldn’t have to support the NY teams. They would still go back to them a bit come the fall. However, the movement of the Hawks to Long Island might turn the tables. The fans of Long Island are very likely to gravitate to the new team in their area and in a league that people have started to take notice of.
With the purchase coming later in the offseason, the team will maintain the Hawks brand and jerseys for this season but will now be known as the Long Island Hawks. They will be playing in Long Island Stadium, which hosts 40,450 and is located in Hempstead, New York. Tillman is very excited to bring the new style of football to Long Island. Already is much more satisfied with the way things are handled and managed in the NAAF and assures the fans of the team that they are in good hands.
Several days after the purchase with limited time before the draft, Wayne Tillman fired almost his entire staff. GM Michael Stein would be let go with Tillman taking over the GM role, HC Willie McLean would be dumped to the street with OC Dean Parrish. DC Jimmy Sargent would be promoted to HC as he used to be the DC for the Raiders. After the team shut down he had gone to Hartford and spent the last season with the team. That makes him the most experienced in NAAF football, but also he was expected to eventually become the HC of the Raiders at some point. The OC is also a former Raiders OC, Richard Thorne. He is a very experienced coach and should help the dire offense regroup. The new DC is a young college coach in George Mitchell, this will be his first professional coaching role, but he has lots of potential as a long term staff member.
The alternate will now be the primary logo for the time being getting rid of the "Hartford" wordmark and going with a barebones wordmark. No changes to the jerseys, but they expect that will change come next season.
The Hawks have found a new owner, in a surprise buy from former Long Island Raiders owner, Wayne Tillman. Tillman was a longtime owner for the Long Island team in the NYFL, but after the league shut his team down following the 1951 season, Tillman has been looking for another opportunity to take on a new team. Tillman has voiced his displeasure over the handling of the NYFL and ACFL merger and how his team was thrown under the bus. While the Long Island Raiders were never a huge success, they still had a good following with a brand new stadium that had opened for the 1951 season.
The NYFL has gained a bad reputation in their league management. The Buffalo Blue Wings used to play in the league and had been ignored with the other New York teams not wanting to travel to Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse each year, so Buffalo rarely had home games, which would eventually happen to the other upstate New York teams. In this case, the richest teams in New York and Brooklyn always got their way in order to keep the league afloat with their funding. That meant that with the merger, the teams wanted to hold a greater area of the market and shut down the other teams. The move would backfire with many fans upset over the loss of their teams and another factor they didn’t think about: NAAF on CBS.
Since CBS was covering the NAAF in the summer, it gave fans a chance to see a different league and they wouldn’t have to support the NY teams. They would still go back to them a bit come the fall. However, the movement of the Hawks to Long Island might turn the tables. The fans of Long Island are very likely to gravitate to the new team in their area and in a league that people have started to take notice of.
With the purchase coming later in the offseason, the team will maintain the Hawks brand and jerseys for this season but will now be known as the Long Island Hawks. They will be playing in Long Island Stadium, which hosts 40,450 and is located in Hempstead, New York. Tillman is very excited to bring the new style of football to Long Island. Already is much more satisfied with the way things are handled and managed in the NAAF and assures the fans of the team that they are in good hands.
Several days after the purchase with limited time before the draft, Wayne Tillman fired almost his entire staff. GM Michael Stein would be let go with Tillman taking over the GM role, HC Willie McLean would be dumped to the street with OC Dean Parrish. DC Jimmy Sargent would be promoted to HC as he used to be the DC for the Raiders. After the team shut down he had gone to Hartford and spent the last season with the team. That makes him the most experienced in NAAF football, but also he was expected to eventually become the HC of the Raiders at some point. The OC is also a former Raiders OC, Richard Thorne. He is a very experienced coach and should help the dire offense regroup. The new DC is a young college coach in George Mitchell, this will be his first professional coaching role, but he has lots of potential as a long term staff member.
The alternate will now be the primary logo for the time being getting rid of the "Hartford" wordmark and going with a barebones wordmark. No changes to the jerseys, but they expect that will change come next season.
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