Indoor Football Surges onto the Sports Scene

By Kim Dunbar

Four years ago, I accompanied a friend to Long Island to see the New York Dragons. For three hours, I watched two teams run up and down 50 yards of turf, scoring loads of touchdowns and electrifying the crowd in a game of indoor football. I was unfamiliar with this game that resembled the NFL, with hockey-style boards and end zone netting where players could catch the rebound from a kick-off like a center in the NBA. I had just been introduced to the Arena Football League.

These days, I don’t have to try very hard to follow the game of indoor football. The sport has exploded on a national level and has seeped into regions where no AFL teams play ~ and even the casual sports fan can tell you about it. With high-profile celebs like Jon Bon Jovi and sports legends like Mike Ditka and John Elway owning teams, the AFL also has a pop culture edge. In 2007, ESPN signed a five-year deal to broadcast regular season and playoff games, including the Arena Bowl, and the company even bought a share of the league. Arena Football is more accessible than ever to sports fans..

The league’s rise in popularity has resulted in the expansion of the sport of arena football. An arenafootball2 league was formed, as were extension leagues, which are not operated by the AFL and have applied slight variations to the rules and style of the game. The Continental Indoor Football League (CIFL), home of the New England Surge, is one of those spin-offs.

“People like to see big plays, lots of touchdowns and player celebrations,” said Surge wide receiver Tyler Grogan. “This sport caters to that. It is fast-paced, exciting and fan-oriented.”

In 1994, the Worcester Centrum (now the DCU Center) hosted the AFL Massachusetts Marauders for a year before the franchise folded due to an owner-commissioner feud. This taste of indoor football left fans salivating for more of the action-packed AFL in their city. Thirteen years later, the Surge was formed and immediately rejuvenated the love for a sport that was never really forgotten.

Tyler Grogan didn’t pay too much attention to arena football until his senior year of college at Northeastern University. After tryouts with NFL Europe and an af2 team, Grogan found his way to Worcester. The 28-year-old Foxboro, MA native (and son of former New England Patriots quarterback Steve Grogan) spent most of his football career as a punter, but because there is no punting in indoor football, he took the opportunity to capitalize on his receiving skills.

“Some coaches see different things in different players, and I’m glad Coach Lucas saw something in me,” said Grogan, who is in the midst of his second season with the Surge.

So far, Surge owner, President and coach Roy Lucas’s move has paid off, as Grogan has been the go-to-guy on the field as a receiver and as the occasional drop kicker (a skill he learned from his football playing grandfather and father when he was young).

The Surge won the first five games of the organization’s sophomore season and are, according to Grogan, “…riding our momentum from last season,” when the Surge won seven of their last eight regular season games.

“Our goal is to win a championship, but we haven’t really talked about anything other than playing one game at a time,” he said.

Grogan admits he still has a lot to learn and is constantly making adjustments to his indoor game.

“When you are outside there is more room to work with,” he said. “Indoors the game is so condensed so you have to be precise when running your routes and reading the defense. And you always have to know where the wall is.”

As the team continues to entertain, the Surge fan base is steadily growing.

“My favorite part is interacting with the fans,” said Grogan. “We want to make this experience as fun as possible. We are building something from the ground up and our base is our fans.”

Grogan said the growth of indoor football also stems from the popularity of the NFL.

“Indoor football is a football fix in the springtime,” he said. “The NFL does a good job making their sport one of the national pastimes. More kids are playing it and more fans are watching it. This is a slight variation of the same game. There is always something happening and with our relatively low costs, we are catching people’s eyes.”

All Pictures of Tyler Grogan
Photo Credit John O’Brien