A Very Soul-ful Return

Try the veal, everyone!

In the dire straits of the mid to late 2000s before the 2008 World Series when Philadelphia was starved for a championship, I turned to a team I thought that had a chance of winning one. A team with a young, enthusiastic head coach, a star QB, and a lot of promise as a future champion. That team, the Philadelphia Soul, finally won a championship in the summer of 2008 just before the league shut down for a year and went bankrupt. Well for the unaware, Arena Football returned earlier this year and next year, also returning will be the Philadelphia Soul! From Philly.com

The baptism of the reborn Philadelphia Soul will begin near the nexus of three rivers - in Pittsburgh.

On March 11, the local Arena Football League franchise will take to the indoor carpet for the first time since winning the league title in July 2008, according to the team's newly released schedule.

George W. Bush was still president back then.

Jersey rocker Jon Bon Jovi was still one of the Soul's co-owners.

Then the league tanked worse than the American economy, taking a year off, and then going bankrupt, before re-emerging with a mix of old and new teams for this year's season.

But without a Soul.

In June, the franchise announced that ex-Eagles quarterback / ESPN analyst Ron Jaworski would be back as one of four co-owners of a resurrected franchise - but that Bon Jovi and bandmate Richie Sambora were giving up the gig.

The team has a new head coach and a new quarterback. Former player Mike Hohensee is one of the league's winningest coaches, and just a couple of weeks ago, the Soul signed 6-foot-2, 240-pound Justin Allgood, who threw a league-high 109 touchdown passes with Tulsa Talons in 2010. Also signed is Donovan Morgan, who caught 52 of Allgood's TDs with Tulsa.

Mike Hohensee was the head coach of the Chicago Rush in the pre-bankrupt days while Justin Allgood was one of the best QBs last season in the AFL, playing for the Tulsa Talons. For those wondering where he comes from, Allgood played for Division II University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) Bronchos (yes, "Bronchos" is the right spelling here).

And now for a flashback to the last time the Soul were on an Arena Football field. The Phillies may be the ones who officially ended the championship drought in 2008, but the Soul were the ones who started the year of greatness.



"The New Orleans Arena in New Orleans." - Bob Wischusen

Never would have figured that one out, Bob. Anyways, a little post-script on this team. Bret Munsey, then the head coach of the Philadelphia Soul, is now the director of player personnel for the Florida Tuskers. The original starting QB for the Soul that season (and then highest paid player in the league), Tony Graziani, is now out of football. The back-up QB (who coincidentally was once a starter for Mike Hohensee's Chicago Rush only to be released before being picked-up by the Soul as the back-up), Matt D'Orazio signed a contract with the Calgary Stampeders of the CFL in February 2009. He was released a few months later. The star wide receiver of that Soul team, Chris Jackson with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the CFL in 2009, but was released a month and a half later and is out of football as far as I can tell. The defensive player of the game for the Philadelphia Soul, Gabe Nyenhuis, spent some time in the CFL before returning to the AFL where he still has a job playing football with the Tulsa Talons.