Friday, Jul. 31, 2009

O'Hara returns home after whirlwind

By Ben Reynolds, Herald staff writer

Like most of the players before him, Tri-Cities Fever coach Pat O'Hara left the Tri-Cities on Thursday, heading home to Orlando, Fla., with a lot of uncertainty.

O'Hara, who is under contract with the arenafootball2 league until Sept. 15, says he is going to go back, spend some time with his family and get his boys ready for football in the fall.

But all the while, he will be thinking about his next move.

"I don't know what's next," he said. "I'm kind of in limbo."

So are a lot of other things in arena football. The Fever is facing possible extinction if owner Doug MacGregor cannot find some local ownership.

The Arena Football League is supposed to come back in 2010, but that's looking like a dream more so than reality at this point.

There is talks that the af2 might not be the same af2 next season.

A lot of things are expected to shake out in the next couple of months.

For O'Hara, he returns home after what has been a life-changing past 12 months for the once AFL star.

O'Hara landed his dream job a year ago last Saturday as the head coach of the Los Angeles Avengers. Five months later, he was out of a job when the league decided to cease operations for the 2009 season and the Avengers subsequently folded.

He was out of work and was sitting around waiting for something to come his way.

Then on a Saturday in April he got a call, asking him if he would be interested in coaching the Fever, which had just fired Richard Davis after his fifth straight loss to open the season.

Less than 48 hours later, he was in the Tri-Cities ready for work.

"It was a whirlwind couple of days," O'Hara said.

O'Hara did an admiral job with the Fever during the final 11 games of the season. He won just three, including last Saturday's 41-point win over Central Valley, but brought the Fever some respectability with limited resources and a roster filled with rookies.

He says he learned a lot about himself this summer in the Tri-Cities and also learned the true meaning of perseverance.

"It was tough at times," O'Hara said. "But I am definitely glad it happened the way it did."

O'Hara figures to go home and get caught up with some family time that he unexpectedly missed this summer, and weigh his options for his next possible move.

Like he has said before, returning to Tri-Cities is not out of the question, but one thing is for sure, he's not going to sit around and wait for his next opportunity.

If the AFL comes back great, but if not, he says he can't base his life around

"I did that and I'm not going to do that again," he said. "I can't worry about that. I have go to go do something; be proactive."