IFL Team Name in Maryland

[bobscatz]

The name of the new IFL team in Upper Marlboro is "MARYLAND MANIACS" They were in the CIFL last year and were known as the Chesapeake Tide. Site has just got up and running.

www.marylandmaniacs.com

[UnoBomber]

I thought the Tide went belly up last year. Same ownership group?

looking at the site, they need to get the "example" articles off of there..... Also I never saw the point of displaying a "Store" link when there's no merch to sell yet..... Not trying to chop'em down, but they aren't helping me much here..

Great looking site, but not having content ready defeats the purpose of having a site open to the public.

[bobscatz]

Different Ownership. Examples are misleading. I'll contact them and see if they can take them down. IFL site is not done either. Takes time to get started.

[bobscatz]

New Owners, New Name for Pro Indoor Football Team


Club based at Showplace Arena in Upper Marlboro also changing leagues heading into third season

The Chesapeake Tide is no more.

Gone too are the fiscal problems that plagued the county’s two-year old pro indoor football team and sent it spiraling to a 1-9 finish this past spring in the Continental Indoor Football League.

In its place are the Maryland Maniacs and new owner Messay Hailermariam’s vision for success.

Hailermariam said he took over the Tide midway through last season after former owner Martin Johnson abandoned the team amid growing dissention among players, who Hailermariam said weren’t being paid according to contract. The Tide’s eventual 1-9 finish was in stark contrast to a 7-4 record and a playoff appearance in the team’s inaugural season.

“When I took over, they were playing because they loved the game and they wanted to stick with what they had started,” said Hailermariam, who owns the Gold’s Gym in Greenbelt. “I just know that the franchise was in trouble in terms of paying the bills. It’s hard to play in that kind of environment.”

So what do you do when the owner jumps ship and you inherit a team in a dire situation? For starters, change the name.

“We wanted to get a clean slate and we wanted to affiliate ourselves with the state of Maryland,” said Hailermariam, who added that he hopes to eventually move the team to the University of Maryland’s Cole Field House. “We wanted to get an excitement going about the team.”

Hailermariam and partners Alvin “Jerome” Nichols II and David Yee also announced the team’s entry into the newly formed Indoor Football League, the product of a merger between the United Indoor Football League and the Intense Football League, which were each loosely based in the Midwest.

The 23-team league will include five new teams spread across the Mid-Atlantic and the original 18 teams involved in the merger.

Recruiting players will be the first priority for Hailermariam and general manager John Wolfe, who served the same role with the Tide.

The Maniacs announced their first signing Saturday, former University of Maryland offensive lineman Donnie Woods. After starting for three years, Woods chose to forgo his senior season at Maryland.

“Football, in whatever level you play, is won in the trenches, so we’re excited to have that kind of leadership,” Hailermariam said of Woods.

“For me it’s just about being able to compete again,” Woods said. “I didn’t want to go in and be sloppy, but this is going to be top-notch quality in terms of competition.”

Woods is the first member of what will be a 21-man roster that should include several other former NCAA Division I players if Wolfe has his way. Wolfe will be actively recruiting players across the country with the confidence of a financially stable team ownership.

While team officials declined to offer specifics on the costs of entering the new league, Wolfe said players would be paid $200 per game plus incentive bonuses. He added that the owners “had to go through a stringent review to gain admittance into the IFL.”

“This is the third [indoor football] team I’ve been with in three years and I’m very impressed,” Wolfe said. “We have the funding required and a business plan. It’s like night and day. The new ownership is definitely committed to doing it the right way and if they weren’t, I wouldn’t be involved.”

The Maniacs will retain Tide coach Matt Steeple and last season’s home field, the Showplace Arena in Upper Marlboro. Hailermariam said the roster will be very different from the Tide’s. The Maniacs held their initial tryout Saturday at the Soccer Dome in Jessup and will hold two more in the coming months.

“Coming into it last year gave me a chance to evaluate the way the coaches and the players work,” Hailermariam said. “I saw that the coaching staff was in great shape. There are some players that we would love to come back, but when we started we decided that we were going to open up the competition.”

by Robert Klemko | Special to The Gazette