The West Texas Desert Hawks were a professional indoor football team and an inaugural member of the relaunched Arena Football League. The Desert Hawks were based in Odessa, Texas, with home games at the Ector County Coliseum. The team played their first several seasons as the West Texas Warbirds.
On October 2, 2019, Champions Indoor Football (CIF) announced an expansion team to be based in Odessa for the 2020 season with the team planning to represent West Texas and use it in their team name.[1] A name-the-team contest was held, with Warbirds being announced as the team's name on December 18, beating the "Warriors," "Law," "Outlawz", and "Thunder" in the contest.[2]
The Warbirds' planned inaugural 2020 season was cancelled due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The CIF then delayed the 2021 season, but the local capacity and interstate travel restrictions in Texas led the Warbirds and the Amarillo Venom to withdraw from participating in the 2021 CIF season. The Venom and Warbirds instead launched the Lone Star Series, a series of games between the two CIF Texas teams and a few other Texas-based semiprofessional teams.[3] The Warbirds defeated the Venom, 79–60 to claim the Lone Star Series championship.[4]
Amarillo and West Texas officially left the CIF and turned their Lone Star Series from the previous season into the Arena Football Association (AFA) in November 2021. The new league also announced its initial membership consisting of former Lone Star Series member Texas Jets, former American Arena League champions North Texas Bulls, the dormant Rio Grande Valley Dorados, and the Texas Crude.[5]
National Arena League (2023)/Arena Football League (2024)
Warbirds' final logo (2023)
In 2023, the Warbirds joined the National Arena League (NAL). After one season in the NAL, the team announced on July 18, 2023, via their Facebook page, that they will join the relaunched Arena Football League (AFL) in 2024.[6] On August 22, 2023, the team changed their name to the West Texas Desert Hawks.[7][8] They were officially announced as the second team to join the AFL on August 31.[9] NAL commissioner Chris Siegfried left that position to join the Desert Hawks as head coach.[10] The NAL unsuccessfully filed for an injunction to prevent the Desert Hawks from playing, accusing the team of breach of contract for its departure from the NAL and its joining of the AFL.[11] The Desert Hawks counterargued that it was not the same legal entity as the Warbirds and thus could not be covered under any contract to the former team.[12] After the NAL was granted a preliminary injunction on May 6, the Desert Hawks issued a statement indicating it would defy the injunction and continue playing its AFL schedule.[13] On May 10, 2024, the Desert Hawks and NAL reached a settlement to drop the injunction and allow the team to resume play in the AFL.[14]
The End of the Franchise
On June 18, 2024, a unnamed player and unnamed AFL official reported that the Desert Hawks have ceased operations, following the unannounced dismissal of head coach Chris Siegfried nine days prior. The AFL official indicated that the league was still discussing the matter internally before making any public announcement; the team had one further game on their schedule, a June 22 away game against the Salina Liberty,[10] in which the Cedar Rapids River Kings played in the Desert Hawks' stead.[15] On June 20, the league confirmed the Desert Hawks had ended their season early "for reasons that we will not disclose" but that it had not folded.[16]
On June 21, 2024, owner Zack Bugg held a press conference announcing that he would no longer be the owner of the Desert Hawks nor any other arena football team and that he did not anticipate finding a new owner for the team. He blamed the fiasco on promises that Lee Hutton had made to the Desert Hawks and the rest of the league—particularly accusing Hutton of embezzling money that Bugg had put forth to have the Desert Hawks' second game aired on NFL Network—while praising his replacement Jeff Fisher and failing to answer why he continued to operate the team as normal for six weeks after Hutton's ouster, other than to maintain obligations as best as possible.[17] In regard to joining another indoor football league, Bugg noted that none of the other leagues had the kind of robust paying television contract needed to provide shared revenue.[18] Bugg also noted that the team was in a dispute with Ector County Coliseum vendors over concessions revenue and said that other teams that played at the Coliseum got to keep all concession revenue while the Desert Hawks did not.[19]
The Amarillo Dusters are a professional indoor football team based in Amarillo, Texas, currently a member of the National Arena League. They play their home games at the Amarillo Civic Center. The Venom began play in 2004 as a charter member of the Intense Football League, a small indoor football league based in Texas. They won the championship in their first and only season with the Intense Football League.
American Indoor Football (AIF) was a professional indoor football league, one of the several regional professional indoor football leagues in North America.
Chris Siegfried is an American football coach and administrator who is currently a free agent. He was previously the offensive coordinator of the Jacksonville Sharks (2010) and Kansas City Brigade (2007), teams in the Arena Football League, the head coach of the Spokane Shock (2006), the South Georgia Wildcats (2005), and the West Texas Desert Hawks (2024), and the Cape Fear Wildcats (2002–2004) and Arkansas Twisters of the af2. While at Spokane, he led the first-year expansion team to a 14–2 regular season record and the ArenaCup Championship.
Nate Charles Davis is an American professional football quarterback for the San Diego Strike Force of the Indoor Football League (IFL). He played college football for the Ball State Cardinals. He was selected by the San Francisco 49ers in the fifth round of the 2009 NFL draft.
The Indoor Football League (IFL) is a professional indoor American football league created in 2008 out of the merger between the Intense Football League and United Indoor Football. It has one of the largest number of currently active teams among indoor football leagues. As of the 2024 season, the league consists of 16 teams in two conferences with each team playing 16 games over 19 weeks.
The Lone Star Football League (LSFL) was a regional professional indoor football minor league that played three seasons from 2012 to 2014. All of the LSFL's charter teams were based in the state of Texas, with five teams coming from the Southern Indoor Football League, three from the Indoor Football League, plus one expansion team. The LSFL played three seasons to completion before merging with the Champions Professional Indoor Football League in August 2014 to form Champions Indoor Football.
The West Texas Wildcatters were a professional indoor football team based in Odessa, Texas. The Wildcatters played their home games at the Ector County Coliseum. The Wildcatters began play in 2014 an expansion team in the Lone Star Football League (LSFL). They had planned on joining the CIF in 2014 during the merger of the LSFL and Champions Professional Indoor Football League (CPIFL), but were left out of the league.
The Dodge City Law were a professional indoor football team based in Dodge City, Kansas, with home games at the United Wireless Arena. The team joined the Champions Professional Indoor Football League (CPIFL) in 2013 as an expansion member for the 2014 season. In 2014, the CPIFL merged with the Lone Star Football League (LSFL) to form Champions Indoor Football (CIF). The branding was used again for the 2021 season as a replacement team before an expansion team was granted to the Southwest Kansas Storm for the 2022 season.
Champions Indoor Football (CIF) was a professional indoor American football minor league created in 2014 out of the merger between the Champions Professional Indoor Football League (CPIFL) and Lone Star Football League (LSFL), plus one team from the Indoor Football League and two expansion teams.
The Wichita Force were a professional indoor football team based in Wichita, Kansas, with home games in Wichita Ice Center. The team was founded in 2014 as an expansion franchise in the Champions Indoor Football league for the 2015 season. The Force's membership in the CIF was revoked prior to the 2022 season and the team joined the new Arena Football Association.
The 2010 Amarillo Venom season was the team's seventh season as a professional indoor football franchise and first in the Indoor Football League (IFL). One of twenty-five teams competing in the IFL for the 2010 season, the Amarillo, Texas-based West Texas Roughnecks were members of the Lonestar West Division of the Intense Conference.
The West Michigan Ironmen are a professional indoor football team based in Muskegon, Michigan, the Ironmen play their home games at Trinity Health Arena. The team joined American Indoor Football (AIF) in 2016. The AIF ceased operations following the 2016 season, leaving the Ironmen without a league. They joined Champions Indoor Football for the 2017 season. For the 2018 season, the team was originally announced to have joined the Indoor Football League, however, the team was forced to sit out the 2018 Indoor Football League season. The team was then sold and played in the regional Midwest Professional Indoor Football for the 2018 season until they could rejoin the CIF in 2019. However, they were not among the list of members for the 2019 CIF season and instead joined the American Arena League.
Jonathan Bane is an American football quarterback for the West Texas Desert Hawks of the Arena Football League (AFL). He played college football at Dakota Wesleyan.
The National Arena League (NAL) is a professional indoor football league that began play in 2017. As of the end of the 2024 season, the league consisted of five teams.
The Carolina Cobras are a professional indoor football team in the National Arena League (NAL) and that began play for the 2018 season. Based in Greensboro, North Carolina, the Cobras play their home games at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex.
The Rio Grande Valley Dorados were a professional indoor football team based in Hidalgo, Texas. The team originally began play in 2019 as an inaugural member of the International Arena Football League with their home games at State Farm Hidalgo Arena. The league and team folded after the 2019 season. In 2021, the team was reactivated as a member of the Arena Football Association for the 2022 season as a traveling team.
The Arena Football Association (AFA) was a professional indoor football league based in Texas, Kansas and Mississippi, United States. The league began operation in June 2021 with five teams, known that season as the Lone Star Series. The league was founded by three African-American entrepreneurs and is "built upon the pillars of diversity, equity, and inclusion," placing its teams in underserved markets with populations from 200,000 to two million people.
The 2023 National Arena League season was the sixth season of the National Arena League (NAL). The league started the season with seven teams following the additions of the expansion team, the Fayetteville Mustangs, and the West Texas Warbirds joining from the Arena Football Association, while the Columbus Lions left the league following the previous season.
The 2024 Arena Football League season is the first season in the new version of the Arena Football League (AFL), and the 33rd season of play in the history of the Arena Football League brand.
The 2024 National Arena League season was the seventh season of the National Arena League (NAL). The league will include six teams, five of which are new, with only the Carolina Cobras returning from the previous season.
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