New basketball team to call Bayfront home

The Tampa Bay ThunderDawgs, an ABA 2000 team, will feature former NBA players and special promotions.

By JON WILSON

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 19, 2000

ST. PETERSBURG -- If you're reading this, you could one day suit up -- temporarily, to be sure -- with St. Petersburg's next professional sports team.

You don't even have to be a star.

The Tampa Bay ThunderDawgs, a basketball team that expects to attract some high-quality players, will start its first season in November at the Bayfront Center.

The team has a three-year lease for 30 home games a season at a $2,000 fee per game, said Jeff Foreman, Bayfront operations manager.

And the ThunderDawgs have opened a downtown office in the bottom floor of the historic Snell Building, at Fourth Street and Central Avenue.

Soon, said Peter Young, the team's president and general manager, a sound rig will allow the ThunderDawgs' logo -- a tough-looking canine -- to bark at people walking past the office.

Owned by investors Ron Shaffer and Gary Elbogen of Phoenix, Ariz., the ThunderDawgs are part of a 12-team league called ABA 2000, which plans to play a 60-game season in such cities as New York, Chicago, Detroit and Kansas City.

Jacksonville is the only other Florida city to have a team in the league.

The ThunderDawgs, said Young, the president, plan to offer reasonably priced tickets, wrinkles in the rules to encourage more scoring and promotional ploys to build a community profile.

That's where the suiting up comes in.

It's called the 11th Man program.

The team will carry a 10-player roster. But during home games, someone in the community will be chosen to put on a ThunderDawgs uniform, go through pregame drills and sit on the bench beside the players.

Selection details aren't final.

But, said Young, if the game is lopsided, that 11th man actually may get to play a minute or two.

Such gimmicks are reminiscent of the old American Basketball Association, an upstart pro league that began in 1967 using a red, white and blue basketball.

The league survived for a few years during the counterculture era. Players such as Artis Gilmore wore bell bottoms, skyscraper shoes and Afro hairdos big as hot-air balloons. Larry Brown coached the Carolina Cougars while wearing overalls. Julius Erving, who went on to an outstanding career in the National Basketball Association, the sport's premier league, was perhaps the most widely recognized player.

It's no accident that ABA 2000's name is reminiscent of the old league. The idea for ABA 2000 was generated during a reunion of some of the old league's players and officials, Young said.

The brightly colored basketball again will be used, Young said.

And the ThunderDawgs have hired a colorful coach, though he spent most of his playing years in the rival National Basketball Association.

Darryl Dawkins, drafted out of Orlando Evans High School in 1975, played 14 years in the NBA. His resounding dunks shattered two glass backboards, episodes still seen on highlight films.

The Bayfront Center has provided a venue for numerous sports events and several teams have called it home since its 1967 opening. The most recent basketball team: the Tampa Bay Windjammers of the United States Basketball League, which played at Bayfront until 1996, usually in front of crowds countable on fingers and toes.

The Continental Basketball Association's Tampa Bay Thrillers drew better in the mid 1980s before moving elsewhere. Ice hockey, roller hockey and indoor soccer teams also have played in the Bayfront Center, but generally to many unfilled seats in the 6,500-seat arena.

Foreman said he thinks the ThunderDawgs will do better.

"Two things separate them from the others," he said. "One, ABA has automatic name recognition. And the addition of Darryl Dawkins gives them immediate credibility. I think it's going to help draw fans."

Young said ABA 2000 will not be a league for players who will never make the NBA. Each team will have several players with NBA experience. Six-figure player contracts won't be uncommon, he said.

"This will be the second-highest-level league," Young said. "But we're a league that wants to have fun."

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