The Fort Wayne Fusion was a 2007

af2 The AF2 (often styled as af2, and short for arenafootball2) was the Arena Football League's developmental league; it was founded in 1999 and played its first season in 2000. Like its parent AFL, the AF2 played using the same arena football ru ...

(Arena Football League's minor league) expansion team in the Midwest Division of the American Conference. They played their home games at the

Allen County War Memorial Coliseum Allen County War Memorial Coliseum is a 13,000-seat multi-purpose arena located in Fort Wayne, Indiana, near present-day Johnny Appleseed Park. It opened in 1952 with a construction cost of nearly $3 million. The Allen County War Memorial Colis ...

Fort Wayne, Indiana Fort Wayne is a city in and the county seat of Allen County, Indiana, United States. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 as of the 2020 Censu ...

, which was the former home of the defunct

National Indoor Football League The National Indoor Football League (NIFL) was a professional indoor football league in the United States. For their first six years, the league had teams in markets not covered by either the Arena Football League or its developmental league, ...

United Indoor Football United Indoor Football (UIF) was an indoor football league in the United States that operated from 2005 to 2008. Ten owners from the National Indoor Football League, including one expansion (the Dayton Warbirds, which never played a game in UIF ...

franchise, the

Fort Wayne Freedom The Fort Wayne Freedom was a professional indoor football team based in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The team was most recently a member of the Continental Indoor Football League, but originally began play in 2003 as an expansion team in the National I ...

. After only one year of existence, the Fusion folded and a new version of the

was formed for the

Continental Indoor Football League The Continental Indoor Football League (CIFL) was an indoor football league based along the Midwestern United States region that played nine seasons from 2006 to 2014. It began play in April 2006 as the Great Lakes Indoor Football League (GLI ...

History

The franchise was announced in November, 2006 as an expansion team of the

. Jeremy Golden was announced as the team's owner and general manager, and secured a lease with

for home games. The team also announced that

Arena Football League The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in ...

legend, Eddie Brown, would be the team first head coach. In January, the team named Mike McCaffrey as the team's General Manager to handle day-to-day operations for the Fusion. In February, the team announced the team colors would be Burnt Orange, Regal Purple and Pearl White. With the team struggling to find a quarterback through their exhibition games, the Fusion traded for

Cody Hodges Cody Hodges (born November 20, 1982) is a philanthropist, motivational speaker, and former professional American football player, playing in the National Football League, Arena Football League, and the Arena League 2. Hodges is best known for his ...

of the

Oklahoma City Yard Dawgz The Oklahoma City Yard Dawgz were an arena football team. The team began play as a 2004 expansion team of the Arena Football League's minor league af2 before becoming a member of the AFL in 2010. Formerly a tenant of the Ford Center from 2004 ...

. The Fusion played their first game in the af2 on March 31, 2007 against the

Green Bay Blizzard Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combin ...

, who were the then-defending American Conference champions. In July, 2007, the news surfaced that Owner Jeremy Golden had been removed as the owner of the Fusion by af2 Commissioner,

Jerry Kurz Jerry B. Kurz (born June 21, 1949) is a founding father of the now-defunct Arena Football League. He was one of the earliest leaders of Arena football, and was part owner of Gridiron Enterprises, original owner of the proprietary, formerly patent ...

. The Fusion finished the season 5-11, but with the loss of Golden during the season, the Fusion playing again in 2008 was very remote. In October, the city learned that Kurz had determined that the Fusion would not return in 2008.

2007 Schedule

The Fort Wayne Fusion's schedule for the 2007 season is as follows: (Home Games in bold)

Season-by-season

, - , 2007 , , 5 , , 11 , , 0 , , 4th AC Midwest , , --

Final roster

Coaches of note

Head coaches

''Note: Statistics are correct through the end of the

2007 af2 season The 2007 AF2 season was the eighth season of the AF2. It was preceded by 2006 and succeeded by 2008. The regular season began on Friday, March 30 and ended on July 28. The league champions were the Tulsa Talons, who defeated the Wilkes-Barre/S ...

.''

Coaching staff

References

External links

Official af2 Website

Fort Wayne Fusion Official Stats at TheStatGuys.com

Fort Wayne Fusion Website

Fort Wayne Fusion at ArenaFan.com
{{Af2 Defunct Defunct af2 teams Sports in Fort Wayne, Indiana Defunct American football teams in Indiana American football teams established in 2006 American football teams disestablished in 2007 2006 establishments in Indiana 2007 disestablishments in Indiana