Nashville Kats

This page is for the current Nashville Kats, which began play in the Arena Football League in 2005. The original Nashville Kats moved to Atlanta, Georgia, in 2002 and became the Georgia Force. The current Kats have assumed the original team's pre-move history.

The Nashville Kats are an Arena Football League team, located in Nashville, Tennessee.

History

The Nashville Kats began play in 2005 at the Gaylord Entertainment Center, also home of the Nashville Predators hockey team. The majority of the team is owned by Bud Adams, the owner of the Tennessee Titans of the National Football League; country music singer Tim McGraw is a minority investor, and when the Kats score a touchdown, the PA system blares out one of McGraw's hits, "I Like It, I Love It, I Want Some More of It!"

Original Nashville Kats (1997-2000)

The original team was founded in 1997.

The team began as the Nashville Kats in 1997. The original Kats played in the Gaylord Entertainment Center in downtown Nashville and were initially coached by Eddie Khayat in 1997 and 1998, who was succeeded by Pat Sperduto for the balance of the team's time in Nashville. The Kats were the league's Organization of the Year for their inaugural year of 1997, and were in the playoffs for every season of their relatively brief existence, even playing in the ArenaBowl each of their final two seasons, albeit losing both times they reached the AFL's championship game.

The franchise was purchased in December 2001 by Virgil Williams, an Atlanta businessman, for nearly $10 million (US). Their departure from the Nashville market was not really related to lack of success either on the field or at the box office, but rather their inability to negotiate a favorable lease with the Predators, who serve as the arena's primary tenant and manager. This team would become the Georgia Force.

The team is named for the 1967 hit "Nashville Cats" by The Lovin' Spoonful. Both incarnations of the Kats have used versions of the same logo: an anthropomorphic tabby wearing a 1950s-style leather jacket, holding the neck of a guitar in one paw and juggling a football with the other. The newly revived team's logo is identical except for the ball, which is now drawn as the lighter colored, brown-with-blue-stripe ball currently used in the AFL, along with the color of the cats' jacket, which is navy blue instead of black, and the lighter shade of blue, redesigned to reflect that of the Titans.

Kats Revived (2005-present)

The Kats were revived as an expansion team in 2005, assuming all former team history from the Georgia Force. This is an arrangement similar to the one made in the NFL with the Cleveland Browns.

The new Kats' first season started horrendously, as it took until week 7 for the franchise to record its first victory. But after that, the Kats won their next 5 games, and finished the season with a respectable 6-9-1 record. The Kats are coached by Pat Sperduto, who coached the team's original incarnation to two ArenaBowl appearances prior to the franchise's move to Atlanta in 2002.

The team's current mascot is a jersey-and-shorts-claded cat named Kool Kat^*.

Season-by-season

1997 10 4 0 1st NC Eastern Lost Week 1 (Tampa Bay Storm) 1998 9 5 0 3rd NC Southern Lost Week 1 (Orlando Predators) 1999 8 6 0 2nd NC Southern Lost Week 1 (Arizona Rattlers) 2000 9 5 0 2nd NC Southern Lost ArenaBowl XIV (Orlando Predators) 2001 10 4 0 1st NC Southern Lost ArenaBowl XV (Grand Rapids Rampage) Returned to the AFL 2005 6 9 1 3rd AC Central -- 2006 8 8 0 2nd AC Central Lost Week 1 (Chicago Rush) Totals 65 47 1 (including playoffs)

Head Coaches

1997-1998: Eddie Khayat, 19-9
1999-2001, 2005-?: Pat Sperduto, 33-24-1

Notable players

James Baron - OL/DL
Cory Fleming - WR/LB
Rupert Grant - FB/LB
Leon Murray - QB

External links

Arena Football League teams | 1997 establishments