ALBANY — When coach Tom Menas joined the Albany Empire in 2021, he had four short weeks to put together a team.
This time, he has just 60 hours before Albany (1-2) hosts the West Texas Warbirds at 7 p.m. Saturday.
“It’s an impossible task,” Menas said. “So what you do is you put great effort into it, and you say a lot of prayers, and you rely on a lot of relationships and a lot of people who have throughout the years said they want to play for you, and you call in your markers.”
Menas, who led the Empire to back-to-back National Arena League championships, was let go just before the season’s start, while the team was co-owned by Mike Kwarta and former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown.
Brown, now majority owner, brought Menas back to Albany Tuesday afternoon after several tumultuous days for the team. After issues over pay and a conflict on the team bus Sunday night that resulted in kicker Michael Hall filing a police report, head coach Damon Ware and eight top players were suspended Monday and released Tuesday morning.
Ware was initially supposed to rejoin Menas as offensive coordinator, the post Ware held for two season before being promoted to interim head coach after Menas’ departure. But Menas said Wednesday that Ware would be joining the Orlando Predators instead.
At a press conference Wednesday afternoon reintroducing Menas, Brown declined to talk about the incident on the bus and said everyone has been paid.
“I’m not here to point any fingers or talk about the minutiae of things that happened in the past,” Brown said. “You can’t talk about things that deteriorate the Empire, things that happen on the outside. We’re not here to point the finger, we’re here to commit to be the difference.”
“There’s no doubt we’ve had a storm here. We’re going to punch through it as…
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