Indoor Professional Football League (2000)
National Indoor Football League (2001)
Tombstone
Born: February 2000 – IPFL expansion franchise
Folded: July 2, 20011Cameron, John. “Indoor football league’s Seagulls close up shop in Mobile”. The Sun Herald (Biloxi, MS). July 4, 2001
First Game: April 9, 2000 ( @ Mississippi Fire Dogs)
Last Game: June 29, 2001 (L 39-19 @ Tupelo Fire Ants)
IPFL Championships: None
Arenas
2000: Mobile Civic Center
Opened: 1964
2001: Mitchell Center
Opened: 1998
Marketing
Team Colors:
Radio:
- 2000: WNTM (710 AM)
Radio Broadcaster:
- 2000: Mike Grace (play-by-play) & Mike Jones (color)
Ownership
Owners:
- 2000: ?
- 2001: David Stevens
Background
The Mobile Seagulls were a short-lived indoor football promotion that played parts of two summer seasons in the coastal Alabama city in 2000 and 2001. The Gulls played in the Indoor Professional Football League (IPFL) in 2000 and moved to the National Indoor Football League (NIFL) in 2001.
Both the IPFL and the NIFL were bus travel leagues that operated at a considerable remove in budget size and professionalism from the more mainstream Arena Football League (AFL) and the AFL’s small market subsidiary, Arena Football 2. Nineteen of the twenty-three players on the Seagulls’ opening day roster in 2000 were local products of Mobile area high schools.22000 Mobile Seagulls Program
During the Seagulls debut season in the IPFL, former Houston Oilers All-Pro receiver Ken Burrough served as Head Coach and his former Oilers teammate Robert Brazile was a defensive assistant. The team featured five members of the recently disbanded Mobile Admirals outdoor minor league football team that won the first and only championship of the Regional Football League during the spring of 1999. The Admirals veterans included starting quarterback Kelvin Simmons and linebacker Willie Gaston, a veteran of the University of Alabama’s 1992 NCAA national championship team.
The Seagulls finished the 2000 IPFL season with an 8-8 record and missed the playoffs.
End Game
Change was afoot in 2001. The Seagulls switched leagues to the NIFL, left the Mobile Civic Center in favor of the University of South Alabama’s Mitchell Center, and moved on from Ken Burrough as head coach to hire former New Orleans Saints quarterback John Fourcade. The 40-year old Fourcade would also serve as the Gulls’ starting quarterback.
The 2001 season quickly descended into farce. Fourcade got into a physical confrontation with Seagulls owner David Stevens during a game in Biloxi, Mississippi. Fourcade was fired the next day, leaving the team without a head coach or a starting signal caller. Meanwhile, in June, the superior Arena Football 2 league announced plans to put an expansion franchise at the Mobile Civic Center in 2002. This move effectively made the low-budget Seagulls a dead franchise walking. Players began to complain about late paychecks.
Ultimately, the Seagulls disbanded in midseason on July 2, 2001. They finished their abbreviated 2002 season with a 5-7 record.
Arena Football 2’s Mobile Wizards arrived the following spring, but lasted only season themselves before closing up shop.
In Memoriam
Head coach Ken Burrough (Seagulls ’00) passed away on February 24, 2022 at the age of 73. A Texas Southern graduate, he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame in 2016. New York Post obituary.
Links
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