The Rock River Raptors were a professional indoor football team based in

Rockford, Illinois Rockford is a city in Winnebago County, Illinois, located in the far northern part of the state. Situated on the banks of the Rock River, Rockford is the county seat of Winnebago County (a small portion of the city is located in Ogle County). ...

. The team was most recently a member of the

Continental Indoor Football League The Continental Indoor Football League (CIFL) was an indoor football league based along the Midwestern United States region that played nine seasons from 2006 to 2014. It began play in April 2006 as the Great Lakes Indoor Football League (GLIF ...

. The franchise was established in 2000 as the

Tennessee Valley Vipers Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

, a charter member of

af2 The AF2 (often styled as af2, and short for arenafootball2) was the Arena Football League's developmental league; it was founded in 1999 and played its first season in 2000. Like its parent AFL, the AF2 played using the same arena football ru ...

. The franchise was based at the

Von Braun Center The Von Braun Center (known as the Von Braun Civic Center until 1997) is an entertainment complex, with a maximum arena seating capacity of 9,000, located in Huntsville, Alabama. The original facility debuted in 1975 and has undergone several si ...

in Huntsville, Alabama. In 2005, the franchise moved to

United Indoor Football United Indoor Football (UIF) was an indoor football league in the United States that operated from 2005 to 2008. Ten owners from the National Indoor Football League, including one expansion (the Dayton Warbirds, which never played a game in UIF ...

as the Tennessee Valley Raptors, to accommodate the Vipers' af2 return to Huntsville, as which point the team owner Art Clarkson announced that the franchise would relocate to Rockford. Coincidentally, Rockford was the site of the first-ever

Arena Football Indoor American football, or arena football, is a variation of gridiron football played at ice hockey-sized indoor arenas. While varying in details from league to league, the rules of indoor football are designed to allow for play in a smaller ...

game in 1986. The Owner of the Raptors was Art Clarkson. The Raptors played their home games at

Rockford MetroCentre The BMO Center (formerly known as BMO Harris Bank Center and Rockford MetroCentre) is a multi-purpose arena located in downtown Rockford, Illinois. It is currently home to the AHL's Rockford IceHogs hockey team. The arena formerly served as th ...

Franchise history

2005: Move to UIF

In November 2004, owner Ark Clarkson announced that the team would be leaving af2 and would be joining the newly formed

due to what Clarkson claimed as the af2 not performing its obligations to the team operators to meet increasing financial demands on the teams. The financial demands on the af2 member teams were such that since the league was founded in 2000, numerous teams had gone out of operation. They worked to make the league more financially viable and responsive to the needs of team operators, but were unable to get the organization to change, as well as changing their name to the Tennessee Valley Pythons. Clarkson wasted little time naming veteran coach, Dick Adams, as the team's head coach. In late January, the team changed their name to the Tennessee Valley Raptors, after the af2 objected that the Pythons would spark people to become confused with the former af2 Vipers. On October 1, 2007, the Raptors announced they would not play in the UIF in 2008. Eighteen days later, they announced they would move to the CIFL to begin play there for the 2008 season.News from the Rock River Raptors
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Logos and uniforms

Image:Raptors.PNG, Original Rock River Raptors logo Image:RockRiverRaptors.JPG, Revised Rock River Raptors logo

Season-by-season

, - , colspan="6" align="center" , Tennessee Valley Raptors (UIF) , - , 2005 , , 6 , , 9 , , 0 , , 3rd South , , Won Round 1 (

Fort Wayne Fort Wayne is a city in and the county seat of Allen County, Indiana, United States. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 as of the 2020 Censu ...

)
Lost Semifinals (

Sioux City Sioux City () is a city in Woodbury and Plymouth counties in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 85,797 in the 2020 census, making it the fourth-largest city in Iowa. The bulk of the city is in Woodbury County, ...

) , - , colspan="6" align="center" , Rock River Raptors (UIF) , - , 2006 , , 11 , , 4 , , 0 , , 1st Central , , Won Round 1 (

)
Lost Semifinals ( Lexington) , - , 2007 , , 10 , , 5 , , 0 , , 1st East , , Lost Round 1 ( Bloomington) , - , colspan="6" align="center" , Rock River Raptors (CIFL) , - , 2008 , , 7 , , 5 , , 0 , , 2nd Great Lakes West , , Won GLD West Finals (

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

)
Lost GLD Championship (

Kalamazoo Kalamazoo ( ) is a city in the southwest region of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Kalamazoo County. At the 2010 census, Kalamazoo had a population of 74,262. Kalamazoo is the major city of the Kalamazoo-Portage Metropolit ...

) , - , 2009 , , 7 , , 5 , , 0 , , 3rd Western , , -- , - !Totals , , 41 , , 28 , , , colspan="2", (including playoffs)

References

External links

Raptors website

Raptors' 2005 stats

Raptors' 2006 stats

Raptors' photos
{{CIFL American football teams in Illinois Defunct indoor American football teams Former Continental Indoor Football League teams Sports teams in Rockford, Illinois United Indoor Football teams American football teams established in 2005 American football teams disestablished in 2009 2005 establishments in Illinois 2009 disestablishments in Illinois