Pro Football Capital of the World
(May 20, 2003)

Not only is the Tampa Bay area the pro football capital of the world, it is title town, the city of champions, the center of the football universe and any other phases we may have heard over the weekend. The Bucs won the Super Bowl and the Storm won the Arena Bowl. Two teams and two rings. When the Storm put the finishing touches on a successful season last night, it was the first time one city held the NFL and AFL titles at the same time.

The Storm finished the regular season 12-4, won their division, were the second seed with a bye in the playoffs, went 3-0 in the post season and won a league championship. Sound familiar? All those things could also be said of the Buccaneers. As Storm head coach Tim Marcum said, "We took some inspiration from the team across town. We're holdin' a trophy, they're holdin' a trophy, we love it."

The Storm had a successful regular season, but they have struggled in the postseason and had not won an Arena Bowl since 1996. This year the playoffs would be different. A victory against Detroit set up a semi-final match-up against Orlando. The game against the Fury was actually tighter than many anticipated with the Storm winning 52-48. Defeating arch rival Orlando, and Jay Gruden, was a sweet way to reach the title game. It was one of those game's were the Storm could not put the Predators away until Antoine Tolliver returned a Gruden interception for a score with 40 seconds left. The 50-40 victory put Tampa Bay in the Arena Bowl for the sixth time.

Arena Bowl XVII has several interesting story lines. One was a sellout crowd of 20,496 at the St. Pete Times Forum. It was the second largest in Arena Bowl history. The record was 25,087 set back in 1995 when Tropicana Field was known as the Thunderdome. Actually, the crowd watching Sunday's game was the largest to ever watch an AFL game not played at the Thunderdome.

The Storm defense just dominated Arizona and Sherdrick Bonner. The Rattlers quarterback was intercepted, sacked twice and forced into three lost fumbles. The play of Pat O'Hara was an interesting story. When John Kaleo went down with a sprained back early in the third quarter, O'Hara came in to QB the Storm. O'Hara had only thrown fourteen passes all year, but he threw for two TDs and ran for a score. Lawrence Samuels had a huge game and was the first player in league history to be named both the Most Valuable Player and Ironman in the same Arena Bowl. Samuels caught five passes for 109 yards, had three touchdowns and recovered one of the fumbles. The Storm won 43-29.

The Storm became the first team to win five Arena Bowls and Tampa Bay became the pro football capital of the world.