New league, coach for football Bandits

Change is at hand, with the goal for more wins and stability for the 12-year franchise. The new coach is Butch Faulkenberry, the new league is the American Professional Football League, which has a goal to develop regional rivalries in small- to mid-sized communities with 3,000- to 7,000-seat arenas, while plucking local and area players to play professional football.

The APFL requires players to currently reside or attend a college within 90 miles of the franchise, so the Bandits have a big presence of players from Wayne State, Morningside and Briar Cliff colleges.

The first game was with Iowa Blackhawks Friday at the Tyson Events Center, which is once again home to the Bandits. At least 5,000 fans routinely attend Bandits games.

Leading the Bandits into their new era is Faulkenberry, head coach of the Iowa Sharks outdoor team for the last three seasons. He also is a teacher and coach at Galva-Holstein (Iowa) Community School District.

“I look at this as a lifetime opportunity. Football has been an extremely important part of my life for as long as I can remember and I feel very fortunate to be asked to do this job,” said Faulkenberry on his hiring in late 2010.

“We want to recruit and find players for this franchise that have the type of character that make people in Sioux City, Iowa, proud to say that they’re part of this organization.”

Bandits Managing Partner Bob Scott said it was not easy to leave the Indoor Football League, since Sioux City was a founding team.

“I’m not going to say the new league we’re joining is any more stable because, quite frankly, I don’t know what stability in indoor football is. The big issue for me was compliance. I look at the rule book as just that,” Scott said.

“When owners decide that winning is more important than doing the right thing as far as your partners go, it was time for me to leave (the IFL). We had teams starting practices early, we had teams paying lots more money than we were supposed to and when it came to a salary cap most of the teams thought it was a suggestion more than a rule.”

Tommie Williams coached Sioux City to a 4-8 record a year ago, before leaving with two games left in the regular season. Assistant coaches Jarrod DeGeorgia and Erv Strohbeen led the team to losses in their two subsequent starts.

Indoor football began here with the Sioux City Attack, which competed in the old Indoor Football League in the spring and summer of 2000. After one year as the Attack, the city team became the Bandits in 2001, and the squad competed in the National Indoor Football League (NIFL) from 2001-04.

The Bandits joined United Indoor Football in 2005, and lost 40-38 to the Sioux Falls Storm in the league’s championship game that season at the Tyson Events Center. In August 2008, UIF and the Intense Football League merged to form the Indoor Football League.

Defenders Spetlar Tonga and Alex Ardley are among veteran players who re-signed with the Sioux City Bandits for 2011.

“It’s great to be back for another season, even though I keep saying after each season that it’s my last,” said Tonga, who said he couldn’t stay away once he heard Ardley was coming back.

This will be the seventh season for each in a Bandits uniform. The pair has a friendly rivalry going to see who can pile up the most tackles each year.

“I’ve been around for the NIFL, UIFL, you name it,” Ardley said. “I’ve been through every transition we’ve had. You’ve just got to take the punches and keep on rolling.”

Ardley, who played for Clemson University, has registered 280 tackles in 66 games for the Bandits, and he’s swiped 15 career interceptions roaming the defensive backfield.

That’s second only to Tonga, a two-time all-star linebacker, among active Bandits. Tonga has racked up 466 career tackles and led the Bandits last season with 101 stops, four fumble recoveries a sack and an interception.

Scott Jensen returns for his third season as quarterback. For his Bandits career, the dual-threat Jensen has 2,418 yards passing with 48 touchdowns and another 686 yards and seven scores on the ground.