The Mesquite Bandits indoor football club was a charter member of the

Lone Star Football League The Lone Star Football League (LSFL) was a regional professional indoor football minor league that played three seasons from 2012 to 2014. All of the LSFL's charter teams were based in the state of Texas, with five teams coming from the Souther ...

(LSFL) that was scheduled to begin play for its 2012 inaugural season. Based in

Mesquite, Texas Mesquite is a city in the U.S. state of Texas, located in Dallas County, Texas, Dallas County with portions extending into Kaufman County, Texas, Kaufman County. The population was 150,108 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, and maki ...

, the Bandits would have played their home games at the Resistol Arena, home of the famous

Mesquite Championship Rodeo The Mesquite Championship Rodeo is a rodeo located in Mesquite, Texas, United States, that operates from June through August. It is only a 15 minute drive from Dallas, Texas. It is sanctioned by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA ...

. Citing financial and organizational issues, the LSFL revoked the team's franchise in January 2012.

History

The LSFL announced the Mesquite Bandits as the eighth franchise set to play in the league's inaugural season. Under the ownership of David Hawkins and leadership of general manager Steve Gander, the Bandits promised an "experienced coaching staff, great players, and a knowledgeable front office staff" as well as "family-oriented events that will be enjoyable for all ages". On December 5, 2011, the team named former professional football player Louis Fite as its inaugural

head coach A head coach, senior coach, or manager is a professional responsible for training and developing athletes within a sports team. This role often has a higher public profile and salary than other coaching positions. In some sports, such as associat ...

. The team also announced that player tryouts would be held on December 17, 2011. In early January 2012, veteran coach Rodney Blackshear was named to replace Fite as head coach and Michelle Mitchell replaced Gander as general manager. When the LSFL announced its 2012 regular season schedule on December 15, 2011, Mesquite was set to play 12 games over 14 weeks with home games against the Laredo Rattlesnakes,

Amarillo Venom The Amarillo Venom were a professional Indoor American football, indoor football team based in Amarillo, Texas. They played their home games at the Amarillo Civic Center. The Venom began play as the Amarillo Dusters in 2004 as a charter member ...

, Rio Grande Valley Magic,

Corpus Christi Hammerheads Corpus (plural ''corpora'') is Latin for "body". It may refer to: Linguistics * Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts * Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files * Corpus linguistics, a branch of ...

Abilene Bombers The Abilene Bombers were a professional indoor football team. The Bombers played their home games at the Taylor County Expo Center, in Abilene, Texas. Team history The Bombers began play as the Katy Ruff Riders, a 2007 expansion team of the In ...

, Houston Stallions, and away games against Houston, Abilene, Laredo, Rio Grande Valley, Corpus Christi, and the

West Texas Roughnecks The West Texas Roughnecks were a professional indoor football team based in Odessa, Texas that plays in the Lone Star Football League. The team's nickname was a tribute to the oil industry, which has been the source of Odessa's wealth over th ...

. At the LSFL's league meetings in mid-January 2012, the league determined that the Mesquite franchise had "not established infrastructure to support the team for the entire 2012 season" and, after a brief investigation, revoked the team's membership in the league. The LSFL had hoped to find a new ownership group to field a Mesquite franchise for the 2013 season but that search was later abandoned. In January 2013, former Bandits owner David Hawkins was charged

wire fraud Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical (e.g., the U.S. Postal Service) or electronic (e.g., a phone, a telegram, a fax, or the Internet) mail system to defraud another, and are U.S. fede ...

and operating a

Ponzi scheme A Ponzi scheme (, ) is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays Profit (accounting), profits to earlier investors with Funding, funds from more recent investors. Named after Italians, Italian confidence artist Charles Ponzi, this type of s ...

by the

United States Attorney United States attorneys are officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts. Each U.S. attorney serves as the United States' chief federal ...

for the District of Colorado. He pleaded guilty to one count of

money laundering Money laundering is the process of illegally concealing the origin of money obtained from illicit activities (often known as dirty money) such as drug trafficking, sex work, terrorism, corruption, and embezzlement, and converting the funds i ...

and one count of wire fraud in March 2013.

Schedule

References

External links

Lone Star Football League official website
{{LSFL American football teams in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex Former Lone Star Football League teams Defunct American football teams in Texas Mesquite, Texas American football teams established in 2011 American football teams disestablished in 2012 2011 establishments in Texas 2012 disestablishments in Texas