'Foster'-ing a rivalry
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By Craig DeVrieze | Friday, April 18, 2008 |
Former Quad-City Steamwheelers owner Jim Foster also was the founding owner of the AFL’s Iowa Barnstormers. Buy this Photo
The “Pilot Wheel and Prop” traveling trophy he created to mark a series between two teams he founded playing the game he invented?
That will be at the i wireless Center on Saturday night.
Jim Foster will be there as well, but not in a white suit.
Now an arenafootball2 consultant working to launch a new nationally syndicated af2 TV game of the week, Foster wouldn’t miss seeing the Quad-City Steamwheelers clash with the Iowa Barnstormers for the first and only time since the border rivals met twice in 2001.
He will not miss owning both teams, as he did on an April evening in Des Moines in ’01, when his defending league champion Steamwheelers, coached by Frank Haege, beat his new-to-af2 Barnstormers, coached by Art Haege, by a 45-7 score that was only that close out of a son’s deference to his father.
Two months later, Frank Haege didn’t hold back his horses as the Wheelers rolled to a 78-35 win over an Iowa team coached by Earle Bruce, who replaced Haege’s fired pop.
Foster, who wore a white coat signifying neutrality for both of those ’01 games, said he is not necessarily relieved not to have to watch one his “children’’ beat the other.
“I’m relieved I am not writing checks,’’ he said.
Indeed, the second incarnation of the Barnstormers lasted that lone 2001 season after a one-year hiatus following a seven-year run as a member of the Arena Football League that Foster founded.
And while Frank Haege-coached Steamwheelers teams won championships in front of 8,000-strong crowds their first two seasons, Foster ultimately lost an estimated $800,000 before bowing out as owner in 2006.
Foster did broker the Barnstormers return to the league this year, putting together a 24-man ownership consortium with $1.4 million in the bank, and he had goosebumps when 9,000 Des Moiners turned out at Wells Fargo Arena for Monday’s home opener.
“I wanted to do there what I couldn’t do here,’’ he said of creating a broad-based, community-minded ownership group.
Mike Bawden, Foster’s Q-C successor once-removed, this week announced a drive to create just such a broad-based group, and Foster wishes him luck.
“The absolute key to them surviving is getting other ownership involved,’’ he said.
On a positive note, Foster said this 2-0 Steamwheelers team looks like an early candidate to score the club’s first postseason win since 2001.
“My hope is they can keep winning, and they will see an increase in the fan base,’’ said Foster, who continues to make his home in Davenport.
Meanwhile, Foster is working to help the league continue to grow.
He recently completed a four-month project to help an expansion team in Daytona Beach, Fla., get up and running.
“I like what I’m doing,’’ he said. “I had to be in Daytona in January and February. That’s not too bad a deal.’’
Craig DeVrieze can be contacted at (563) 333-2610 or cdevrieze@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.
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