Photos & story by Herman Delgado
Team owner and head coach Craig Thomas and Director of Operations Anabel Romero are anxiously waiting for their West Texas Buccaneers Pro Arena Football Team to kick off their inaugural season on March 27, 2021, 7:00 p.m., at the El Paso County Coliseum Pavilion. They hope that their excitement as well as the players, brings out the community, football fans, and sports fans to their first game. Other than the Pandemic, a big obstacle facing the Buccaneers is reducing the number of fans that will be able to attend home games, from 6,000 fans to 500 because of the size and location of the outdoor pavilion. A reduction in fan attendance that was necessary, in order to accommodate a Covid-19 vaccine station/location that was set up inside the El Paso County Coliseum to provide services to the El Paso community.
I sat down with Thomas to get a feeling of what he expects from his team, the community, and the overall football fan base here in El Paso. Thomas wanted to reiterate that there is nothing “semi-pro” about his football team. “We are a professional arena football team, nothing semi-pro about it!”, said Thomas. “We have players from New Jersey, California, Virginia, and El Paso…We’ve had some good and intense practices…they have been going pretty hard.” Being on the sidelines and witnessing the conditioning program and player scrimmages since Thomas’ first press conference in September 2020, I can most definitely vouch for the level of professionalism these athletes bring onto the field. There are 8-men on both sides of the field, and majority of the rules of the game are similar to that of regular football. El Paso is definitely in for some great football… No doubt!
Thomas gets excited when talking sports and all the positive things that revolve around local high school sports and UTEP Miners sports but wants to make his mark in the professional ranks. “We have the El Paso Rhinos and they’ve been winning back-to-back championships, the El Paso Locomotive soccer team did good, the El Paso Chihuahuas baseball team did good,” said Thomas. “And now the Buccaneers can add to the group, and we can have four professional teams with positive results…that would be great!”
Thomas wants to continue bringing good things and excitement to El Paso with his team. With all the bad things that are happening around the world, including El Paso, Thomas wants to bring an arena football championship to this community. “I think what El Paso needs right now is something good and positive because of the pandemic and all that stuff that has been going on,” said Thomas. “I think if we can bring something good to El Paso and win a championship, I think something good will have the community thinking and talking positive.”
The West Texas Buccaneers are part of the American Arena League which is made up of 16 teams and is broken down into three divisions (East, Mid-West, and West). The Buccaneers are in the West Division which consists of three other teams: Austin Wild, North Texas Bulls, and San Antonio Gunslingers. As of today, the Buccaneers have seven games scheduled for the 2021 season, and four of those games are scheduled here at home, with one game location “TBD”.
*Individual Regular season ticket prices are $15 for box seats, $10 for general admission, and $5 for kids 9 and under.
For more information call:
915-282-3801