Jackson Bombers

The Jackson Bombers American football club is a Mid Continental Football League team based in Michigan.

Franchise history

In 1992 semi-professional football returned to Jackson after a ten year absence with the formation of the Jackson Bombers. The last team to play in the area was the Concord/Northwest Cougars.

Unlike any previous semi-pro football organization in Jackson, this team took the town by storm.

Over a three year period the Bombers posted a 25 - 5 record, and averaged 4,000 fans during each of their home games. In 1992, the team's very first year, their opponents went scoreless through the first five games, and team won the Michigan Football League Championship with an 11-0 record. The start of the 1993 season continued their winning streak, with the Bombers winning their first five games of the year.

Their first loss against the Detroit Buccaneers dropped the Bombers into a two way tie for second place with the Flint Falcons. However, the Bombers maintained the head to head tie break since the Falcons' loss was to the Bombers. During the seventh week of the season, the Flint Falcons and Detroit Buccaneers went head to head with the Flint Falcons defeating the Detroit Buccaneers. With the Falcons, Buccaneers, and Bombers each winning all of their games after their only regular season losses, the three teams finished in a three-way tie for first place with the top two teams making the playoffs. To break the tie, the league called the National Football League offices. Paul Tagliabue was able to determine the formula for breaking the tie, and the tie break resulted in Flint travelling to play the Jackson Bombers, a game that Flint won.

Unfortunately, between the 1993 and 1994 seasons administrative changes occurred, due to many of the founding members leaving to form the Kalamazoo Tornadoes, and a new Board of Directors took over. With the new Board of Directors came some changes at the coordinator positions, new players to replace the players that left for Kalamazoo, and new marketing philosophies.

In terms of marketing, the biggest change was the formation of the Jackson "Bomb Squad", the official cheerleaders of the Jackson Bombers.

On the field, the team was mostly unchanged, although the team did finish with just a 6-3 record. Two of the losses were during the regular season, against the Highland Park Seminoles and Kalamazoo Tornadoes, by just three points each. The final loss was in the first round of the playoffs, against the Lansing Crusaders, by just one point.

Unfortunately, once again, administrative changes occurred with more members leaving to form the Down River Raiders, while others went to Kalamazoo to play for the Tornadoes. Robert Fillmore, the team's trainer, attempted to keep the franchise going with a new Board of Directors and gained approval from the outgoing Board of Directors, but President Spencer Byrd vetoed the attempt and the Bombers folded.

The Bombers were reformed in 1997 and posted a respectable 6-4 record. They made it to the MFL playoffs and lost in the semi-finals to the eventual league champ, Downriver Raiders. In 1998 the Bombers looked to improve, and went 9-4 en route to playing the Detroit Seminoles in the MFL championship game, where they were trounced by the Noles 54-0. In 1999 the Bombers made the move to the MCFL. The Bombers finished 4-4, and beat the Cleveland Lions in the first round of the playoffs 49-6, only to lose the following week to the eventual champion Southern Michigan Timberwolves.

The new millennium brought in more winning ways by the Bombers. The Bombers(9-4) finished atop their division in the MCFL, and defeated their in state rival, Southern Michigan Timberwolves en route to the league championship game, where they fell to the Kane County Eagles 34-30. The Bombers continued to improve in 01 and went 13-3 and once again lost during the MCFL semi-finals to the Cleveland Lions. Their only regular season loss was to the Kane County Eagles in an early season shootout at Kane County. The Bombers were ahead late in the game when KC were driving for the go ahead score. With a little more than a minute left a Jackson defender was able to intercept a KC pass, and the play could have sealed the win for Jackson. However, a KC WR was able to strip the defender before he went down and KC retained the ball and scored shortly after. Many who witnessed the game considered it to be one of the best semi-pro games ever played. The Bombers distinguished themselves in 2001 by beating perennial powerhouses Racine Raiders, Detroit Seminoles and Cleveland Lions during the regular and post season play. However, both Racine and Cleveland were able to avenge their defeats in post season play. Now firmly established as one of the premier teams in the midwest and MCFL, the Bombers (9-3) made another run at the MCFL league championship in 2002. The Cleveland Lions once again defeated the Bombers in the semi-finals on their way to their first MCFL championship.

During the 2003 season the Bombers left the MCFL along with other league teams (Kane County, Racine) to try their hand at playing in the NAFL. The Bombers swept through most of the league schedule defeating most teams handily, but lost to former MCFL Kane County, and split games with regional powerhouse, Indiana Tornadoes. They finished 11-2 with no post season games.

The Bombers returned to the MCFL in 2004, but with a much different look. The Bombers were without many of their superstars who had led them the previous seasons, including perennial All-Star and former League MVP Jason Tokar at QB. With the players left and many new faces in starting positions, the Bombers managed to finish with a respectable 9-6 record while playing in one of the premier leagues in the country.

Despite many successful campaigns and quality teams the Bombers have fielded, the current incarnation of the Bombers have never won a league or tournament championship.

The Bombers sat out the 2005 season for administrative reasons, and took a leave of absence from the MCFL. The Bombers have returned to the MCFL for the 2006 season with a fresh new look and new uniforms and logos. The ageless former head coach, Joe Costello, decided to retire from coaching on the semi-pro level, which left head coaching responsibilities to owner Jon Gose. The Bombers also briefly joined forces with the Battle Creek Crunch indoor football team, for marketing purposes, and changed their name to the Calhoun County Bombers. After further consideration, however, the Bombers decided to keep their former moniker and returned to being the Jackson Bombers. In 06 the Bombers are looking to return to their former glory and play their home games at Jackson high School in Jackson and Napoleon High school in Napoleon, Michigan.

The 2006 season ended in disappointment and a feeling that the team under achieved. Finishing with a franchise low 3-5 record, the Bombers found ways to lose games throughout the season. After fighting hard to knock off pre-season rust against the COmets, a spirited comeback was snuffed out in the final moments of the game on a broken play, that the Comets turned into a victory. The following week was supposed to be against perennial powerhouse Detroit Seminoles but due to the Noles failure to secure a field the Bombers were allowed to take a Forfeit win from the vaunted Noles. Instead of taking the easy W against a quality opponent the Bombers decided to reschedule the game and try and beat the Noles fair and square. By the time the game was rescheduled to Labor Day weekend, however, the banged up Bombers were no match. Missing their star RB, and their star WR showing up at Halftime, the Bombers couldn't hang with the Noles. The defense played valiantly, only giving up 14 points going into the 4th quarter, but the Noles D played better grounding the Bombers O and not allowing a TD until late in the game. The Bombers also dropped a heartbreaker to the eventual MCFL champion West Michigan Force, by allowing a semi-pro record 3 kickoffs returned for TD's. Despite allowing these easy TD's, the Force still needed a last minute drive to finish off the Bombers. With the Playoffs on the line the Bombers travelled to the cornfields of Indiana to face a Mustang team that had already forfeited 3 games earlier in the season for lack of participation. Travelling light themselves, the Bombers dominated on both sides of the ball statistically but could not cash in points when they should have, and left with a 1 point loss. The Bombers also hosted the nationally ranked Cleveland Lions and stood toe to toe and exchanged blows with the Lions in a heavyweight fight full of huge hits and stingy defenses. The Lions scored on their opening drive and late in the game for a 14-0 victory. On a winning note, the Bombers coasted to wins over the Ohio Swarm and Flint Fury. They also went into Monroe MI and beat an undefeated (at the time) Southern Michigan Timberwolves team. In a season full of promise and expectations at again becoming an elite team, the Bombers only managed to muster 3 wins. All 3 phases of the team (offense, Defense, Special teams) never seemed to show up at the same time from week to week. the players were left with ab itter taste and a hunger to get back to work and fix what needed to be fixed and get back on the field as soon as possible. Unfortunately that wouldn't be possible. Due to unforeseen problems the Bombers organization has decided to take a leave of absence from playing in the MCFl for the 2007 season. As they did in 2005, the Bombers are allowed to resume an MCFL schedule if they decide to return for 2008, without being voted back into the league.

Logo and uniforms

When they were known as the Jackson Bombers, the logos went through two changes in 1992 and 1997. The new logo shown above was incorporated for the 2006 season.

External links

* [http://www.bombers-football.com/ Jackson Bombers official website]
* [http://www.semiprofootball.org/ Semi-pro Football Headquarters]