Team aims for Shock value
Contrary to what might be assumed, Brady Nelson did not nickname his new indoor football venture after his wife’s reaction to it.
True, for Danna Nelson, seeing her husband jump into sports ownership with both feet and their bank account probably was a Spokane shock.
But this is the Spokane Shock.
Indoor football here now has a name, a logo and a face – four of them, actually – with news Tuesday that Spokane’s expansion entry in arenafootball2 is open for business as the Shock, an announcement which coincided with the launch of the club’s season ticket sales. There’s a coach due in the next week and then the real believe-it-when-we-see-it furniture: players.
The Shock nickname is not exactly a shock. Nelson, the new franchise’s chief executive officer, had let that drop as one possibility earlier, and of course it meets both of af2’s – indeed, all minor leagues’ – preferred criteria.
It’s both singular and alliterative.
“Arena nicknames are a little different – Blitz, Fire, Blizzard,” Nelson allowed. “They don’t do standard names. And there are lots of names that start with an ‘S,’ but Shock was a good fit for us.
“We wanted something to capture the excitement, the fast-paced action of Arena football and we think Shock is perfect.”
Well, OK, sure. But we can still yearn for some new sporting endeavor here to call itself the Sockeyes or the Salmonbellies – both good alliterative alternatives. Surely “Catch Your Limit of Sockeyes at the Arena,” is a marketing slogan right up there with, “It Ain’t the Ballet.”
Or, if it must be non-beastial and singular in nature, what about the Spite?
But then, if the franchise were ever sold and moved to another city, we’d be stuck with the headline, “Team leaves Spokane out of Spite.” Better scratch that.
So Shock it is – quick, punchy and even an unintentional homage of sorts to Spokane’s pro football past. Once upon a time, fellow geezers will remember, we were home to the Spokane Shockers, who played for two years in the old Continental Football League, the granddaddy of minor league football. And – yes, yes, yes – we know Ken Stabler pulled a couple of undistinguished shifts at quarterback for them.
Not that this registered at all with Nelson or partners Eric Enloe, Brady Gardner, Adam Nebeker since none of them had been born when the Shockers schlepped through.
Until players can be put on the field and games played – something that won’t happen until the season begins at the end of March – the most distinguishing characteristic of this eager operation is the dizzying youth of the ownership. And their swagger.
“We’re going to win this year,” Nelson promised. “I can’t guarantee 16-0, but we’re going to put a good product on the field and we’re going to win.”
Nelson, Gardner and Nebeker are just 27. Enloe is 32. There is the possibility, though unlikely, that a roster slot or two on the Shock will be filled by players who are older than the proprietors.
“We are young,” Nelson admitted. “I guess most of the obstacles and convincing that had to be done with the Arena here and the league was that, while we are young, we were serious and we could financially make it work.
“It’s something we’ve always talked about in college – how great it would be to be involved in sports. We’ve always been huge fans.”
Hmm. More than one owner of a sports franchise who’s come into the game as a huge fan has managed to forget that he’s supposed to be a businessman, too – possibly even first. We’ll assume that won’t be the case here, since these guys all seem to be doing OK in that other department.
Nelson, a Central Valley High School graduate, runs Regal Satellite, a dish network dealer. Nebeker, who went to University High, is a William and Mary Law School graduate who relocated back home from a firm in Boise. Enloe owns Global Vinyl Solutions, and Gardner is in the mortgage business.
He’s also the general manager and player personnel guy, though he’ll get some help in that department when the Shock names its coach – which is expected to be Chris Siegfried, one of af2’s winningest coaches, who took Cape Fear to the playoffs three straight years beginning in 2002.
Gardner, the son of former Ricks College basketball coach Gary Gardner, has already been to an open tryout for the Arena Football League’s expansion Utah Blaze, where some 300 hopefuls auditioned for what Gardner figured “might be five spots, at most.
“Now, maybe 20 of those might be a good fit for us. What people need to know about our potential players is that they’re high-caliber athletes – guys who got cut from NFL teams or didn’t have quite enough speed or are NCAA Division II or III guys who’ve been overlooked. A third of the Arena league’s players have been in af2, and there are three in the NFL this year.”
As league president Jerry Kurz insisted on Tuesday, “The game you see on TV” – which is to say, the Arena Football League game – “is the same brand you’ll see here.”
By which he means high-scoring, rapid-fire, big on caroms off the nets and dashers, and in the face of front-row fans. But the big cities get the players with better resumes.
But it’s the rapid-fire part and not the resumes the Shock will be trying to sell to potential sponsors and ticket buyers (the website is www.spokaneshock.com).
And they’re doing it on an accelerated schedule; since the Shock is coming into af2 in tandem with another Northwest team, in Everett, the league took them in this year. Otherwise, they probably would have had to wait until 2007.
Not that Nelson finds that daunting.
“My biggest concern? Losing it all,” he laughed. “I’m kidding. I did have to convince my wife and it took me a few months to win her over that it could work. One advantage to being young is that we can start over if we have to – but we won’t have to.
“I figure if I can get her to let me have another job, selling tickets will be a lot easier.”