Myrtle Beach Freedom make indoor football debut Monday

The Myrtle Beach Freedom are fired up for the regular season in its inauguration, full of family entertainment on and off the field.

This new entry in the American Indoor Football league will kick off at 7:05 p.m. Monday against the Savannah Steam, from Georgia, and hike the ball in four other home games against Southeast teams – on April 11 and May 9, 16 and 23 – all at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center, at Oak Street at 21st Avenue North.

Ronnie McCuin, the franchise owner, said this 22-team league spanning the country from New Mexico to Pennsylvania, and Michigan to Florida, is timed for football’s lull and the possible “depression” for fans of the sport between the end of the Super Bowl and later summer, when the college and National Football League ranks start back up with training camps.

A native of the nation’s capital area who still roots for the NFL’s Washington Redskins, McCuin said besides lining up coaches and a 30-man roster anchored by players such as Penn State University alumnus Daryll Clark at quarterback, wide receivers such as Conway native Eric Huggins, and several guys who suited up for Coastal Carolina University Chanticleers on offense, teamwork rules in other realms.

Take field setup and take-down, arranging singers for the national anthem, booking the public address announcer, and lining up halftime and other entertainment that makes the game-day experience complete.

With the host venue a popular spot every week, year round, for a cycle of other events such as cheerleading competitions, Beta Club conventions, the annual “X-Con World,” and circuses, readying the arena before and after game with the artificial turf, uprights and other elements, “takes an army of people,” McCuin said.

“It’s a whole process,” he said, estimating set-up about six hours and removal at four.

Played with four 15-minute quarters, the game goes more quickly with a running, or continuous, clock (that is, no stop in the game time after incomplete passes), with teams fielding eight players each, running on a 50-yard field that’s 85 feet wide.

“It’s about half the dimensions of an outdoor field,” McCuin said. “It’s pretty much the size of a hockey rink.”

Sounds of Freedom add upbeat style

For the team’s debut, a nonleague match – what McCuin termed “basically a preseason game” – won 49-22 over the Carolina Dynasty, more than 1,000 fans attended. They also got a good taste of the Sounds of Freedom, the team’s pep band, which comprised nearly 40 members, driven by drum and horn lines.

James “Bull” Canty, a trumpeter in Myrtle Beach who plays in orchestras and freelances, directs the Sounds of Freedom. He said that last summer, as team planning was under way, McGuin connected with him about forming the band, and that led to getting together “a good crop of musicians,” thanks to friends, band directors, former students, and a contingent studying at CCU, giving all of them another “platform to perform.”

In devising this band’s theme, Canty said he fulfilled McGuin’s wish for “a collegiate environment.” Canty said staying upbeat will come easily with the band’s repertoire list, maybe with “Gonna Fly Now,” Bill Conti’s iconic movie theme recorded for “Rocky,” as well as ”getting really creative” with Earth, Wind & Fire’s “In the Stone” and “September.”

Keeping the whole arena in mind, Canty said the Sounds of Freedom not only pump up the fans, but also the football players.

“They’ll want to be hyped up,” he said. “We want to make sure they’re motivated, not just by play on the field, but the musical soundtrack, too.”

After every Freedom touchdown, be listening for a special fight song Canty wrote just for celebrating those scoring moments.

“That interaction between the band and the team is one of a kind to me,” said Canty, who born in New York, grew up a Giants fan and has been happy to add extra cheer for the Carolina Panthers.

Canty sees performing as “putting smiles” on audiences’ faces – whether at a game, halftime show, concert or wedding – as proof of a musician doing the job right.

Playing with the Sounds of Freedom even before each game, outside the building, he wants anyone within earshot to take note of their “marching band” flavor kind of fun, and come on in for some springtime football.

McCuin said making a Freedom game “a fun, family atmosphere” will reflect some traits the Myrtle Beach Pelicans have modeled and ingrained into the Grand Strand’s identity since 1999. Andy Milovich and the front office of the baseball club that won the Carolina League Mills Cup Championship last year as a first-time Chicago Cubs affiliate, shared some ideas that McCuin said he appreciates, such as community involvement and support, and especially the blessing from the area’s flagship professional enterprise as Myrtle Beach becomes a more popular “sports tourism town.”

“The Pelicans foundation is built on creating a fun family atmosphere and utilizing the power of baseball to impact our community,” said Milovich, the Pelicans’ president and general manager. “To the extent we can assist the Freedom in finding their footing to create additional opportunities for the families on the Grand Strand and its visitors to come together and enjoy themselves, we’d like to assist wherever possible. We wish Ronnie and the Freedom nothing but the best.”

Arena football seen ‘as its own game’

McCuin said indoor football continues to gain traction in notice, from the public and NFL, and that it’s now “looked at as its own game,” where aspiring players get another career chance in a sport they love.

He brought up the feat by quarterback Kurt Warner, who spent three years in the Arena Football League before winning a Super Bowl with the St. Louis – now again, Los Angeles – Rams, and playing in two more, including his final one, with the Arizona Cardinals. Other AIF players have tried to earn spots on NFL teams or played in the Canadian Football League, which uses a longer,wider field and only three-down play. CFL alumni include quarterbacks Doug Flutie, who in the 1990s won a Grey Cup title with the Calgary Stampeders and two others with the Toronto Argonauts, and Pro Football Hall of Famer Warren Moon, who began his career with the Edmonton Eskimos, where he won five straight Grey Cups.

McCuin said Freedom players might not yet be known to local fans, but with this new outlet for family fun, and new memories to share and take home, the folks who tell their friends and come back would score the “best advertising.”

Anyone attending Freedom games also might find familiarity in the public address voice rocking throughout the arena: Tommy Collins, co-host of the morning show, Mondays-Fridays on WYAV-FM “Wave” 104.1.

Having done some backup PA duties for Socastee High School athletics, Collins – also a Redskins fan – voiced his excitement lending his chops for the Freedom, a role he called “completely different” from radio work.

“With the morning show,” Collins said, “it’s about relating to people and bringing in your own story.”

He said as Freedom announcer, he’s “kind of on the back burner,” sharing “insight and facts” from the stars and action on the field.

“I get to be there,” Collins said,“as part of the activity, but not in the spotlight.”

Speaking of Flutie, who on Monday premiered as a contestant on the 22nd season of ABC-TV’s “Dancing with the Stars”: Buffalo Bills fans will remember him as their quarterback in 1998 and 1999, leading the team to the playoffs in those seasons, then losing his starting position later in 2000. The team hasn’t gained a postseason berth since the end of the 1990s, and at 16 years, that’s the longest active drought in any pro sport in the United States.

This story was originally published March 26, 2016 at 1:00 AM with the headline "Myrtle Beach Freedom make indoor football debut Monday."