Doug Baxter was hired today to be the 4th GM/Coach in Brooklyn Bulls history. Here are 3 things you may not know about the new Brooklyn sideline boss.
Baxter's 1st NAFL Title, toppling the Chicago Blues 28-14
1. Championship Pedigree
Fresh off back-to-back American Cup wins in the recently disbanded NAFL, GM/Coach Doug Baxter was drawing interest from both college and pro teams looking for a team-builder.
Those skills were battle-tested over his 8-year NAFL career, taking the lowly Fargo Flyers from a perennial bottom-dweller to bona-fide studs in only 5 seasons, becoming the only 2x American Cup winner amid back-to-back Championship runs. If the league hadn’t folded, who knows how many more titles he would have brought back to North Dakota.
Baxter's 2nd NAFL Title, Beating the Memphis Hounds in a 31-27 comeback win.
2. New York Native
While he’s not from that New York, Baxter hails from Rochester, the 3rd largest city in the state after NYC + Buffalo. A football junkie from his early years, he played as a two-way athlete in college, starting at MLB while backing up at QB.
Baxter was known for his sideline personality with the Fargo Flyers
He holds 2 DIII records for the St. John Fisher Cardinals, one for being the only player to throw a TD on offense + return a pick-6 on defense in the same game, and the other record for the leading the largest comeback in school history, a 33 point comeback revered in Western NY as “The Baxter Bowl”.
3. A CEO vs Micromanager
Having experience playing and coaching on both sides of the ball, it’d be easy to think Baxter would want to own every aspect of gameday. Think again.
Being interviewed for this piece, he replied, “There’s too much going on, too much at stake. We’re in this thing to provide opportunities, and the first one I’m excited about is assembling my staff, which will include playcallers in all three phases.”
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Whether Baxter can compete in a very tough ARC North is yet to be seen, but at first glance, he seems to be taking these Bulls by the horns.