San Angelo Bandits Get a New Head Coach

His resume includes coaching experience in the AFL, IFL, PIFL, junior college and high school. A former NFL Defensive Back for the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins in the late '90s, with experience on the gridiron in the XFL, the new head coach for the San Angelo Bandits, Wendell Davis, has been around the pigskin the majority of his life.

“I’m happy to have the opportunity,” David told LIVE! yesterday after a small press conference held at Concho’s Downtown. “Great ownership [here] that makes my job a lot easier. You’ve got an owner that’s backing me up and the players. We are just five or six players away from turning this thing around, and my job is to get better players in here, and get this [team] back to the play offs.”

Randy Sanders, Bandits owner, said he was surprised to find out that Davis was available. “I thought he had gone back to the AFL, he’s a natural for that” he said. “When a friend of mine in Kansas told me he was available, I called him up on a Sunday, and he was here on Monday.”

“I was ready to get down here, and seize the opportunity,” said Davis. “The team has great ownership, which makes things a whole lot easier. I’m a firm believer in [positive attitude] starts at the top, and goes down to the bottom, if you are around ownership, you have a better chance of winning,” Davis said. “Be patient with us and we will get this thing turned around, we know what we need to do, we’ve been watching tape, been working hard, we’ve been staying up, and calling everywhere; we are looking everywhere, under leaves, rocks, anywhere for the big time players, and this ain’t my first rodeo, and we will get it turned around.”

 “I’m not much of a quitter,” said Joey Longoria, who is now the offensive coordinator. “Change is good, especially when your 0-5, I’m ready to stay here and see this through and through, the season is not over, we still have a lot of games left, so I’m looking forward to it; there’s no way I was running,” he said. Davis is Longoria’s replacement as head coach. Longoria said he has no hard feelings, and is determined to finish the season out with the Bandits on top, much like they were last season.

“Last year we took it to the championship, and our coach, as well as a lot of our players got to move up, which is what our job is,” said team owner, Sanders. “We are a development team, we are trying to give these guys an opportunity to be in the NFL, CFL, and AFL is our goal; we did that last year, we put eight of them there,” he said. “This year we brought in a rookie coach and a rookie team, and we saw some disconnects, the coach was strong in the area he was strong in, but in the offense the other guy was weaker than we expected, so as a group we sat down and decided we needed to make this change, not only for ourselves, but for San Angelo.”

The Bandits will play Texas Revolution this Saturday night at Foster Communications Coliseum. The irony is that this is the team that Davis used to coach for which should make for an intense night of gridiron play.