Getting to Know…APFL Playoffs

Anytime a league gives me the opportunity to mention my home state, I’m going to take advantage. And throw in that the two towns involved are Sioux City and Council Bluffs? And there is a team named Mid-Missouri? APFL, you shouldn’t have! It’s not even my birthday!

(Ed. Note: Much of the Sioux City information will be a repeat for the original MegaBracketeers)

#1 Seed – Sioux City Bandits

Location: Sioux City, IA (population: 82, 684 as of 2010 census)

Motto: “Successful, Surprising, Sioux City”. I can’t argue with that – if Sioux City were to ever be considered successful, that would be surprising.

Founded: 1854

Fun Fact #1: The first documented explorers in the Sioux City area were Merriweather Lewis and William Clark during the summer of 1804. The only fatality during their two-and-a-half year expedition occurred in the area as Sergeant Charles Floyd died there on August 20, 1804. The Sergeant Floyd Monument commemorates his burial site and is a National Historic Landmark.

Fun Fact #2: American news reporting website The Daily Beast placed Sioux City 14th on its list of the 40 drunkest cities in the United States.

Fun Fact #3: During Prohibition, Sioux City was known as “Little Chicago” due to its reputation for being a purveyor of illegal alcoholic beverages.

Fun Fact #4: The Sioux City Elevated Railway become the world’s first electric-powered elevated railway in the world in 1892. However, the system quickly fell into bankruptcy and was closed within a decade.

Notable People: MLB Hall-of-Famer Dave “Beauty” Bancroft; Colonel George E. “Bud” Day, the United States’ most highly decorated officer since General Douglas MacArthur; Esther and Pauline Friedman, better known as Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren of “Ask Ann Landers” and “Dear Abby” fame; actor/politician Fred Grandy; NBA player Kirk Hinrich; actor Jerry Mathers, (The Beav from Leave it to Beaver); and former Royal great Paul Splittorff

#2 Seed – Council Bluffs Express

Location: Council Bluffs, IA (population: 62,230 as of 2010 census)

Fun Fact #1: Council Bluffs was the starting point of the historic Mormon Trail. By the 1860s, virtually all migration wagon trains passed though the town.

Fun Fact #2: The town was originally known as Kanesville, named for benefactor Thomas L. Kane, who helped negotiate federal permission for the Mormons to use Indian land along the Missouri River for encampment in the winter of 1846-47. The town was  renamed Council Bluffs in 1852, presumably because the Kane family no longer wanted its name attached to such a filthy place.

Fun Fact #3: By the 1930, Council Bluffs had grown to the 5th largest rail center in the United States. The railroads helped the city become a center for grain storage.

Fun Fact #4: The city is known far and wide as “Counciltucky”, an insult to both Council Bluffs and the state of Kentucky.

Fun Fact #5: Council Bluffs is home to the Pottawattamie County “Squirrel Cage” Jail, one of three remaining examples of a rotary jail (none still in use). The jail was built with pie-shaped cells that rotated around the center like a turntable or a carousel. The jailer turned a crank to change which cell faced the opening into the rest of the jailhouse. The rotary mechanism was disabled in 1960 although the jail stayed open until 1969. The rotary jail in Council Bluffs was believed to be the only three-story structure ever built. Smaller examples of the concept can still be found in Crawfordsville, IN and Gallatin, MO (hometown of MegaBracketeer Michael Hubbard).

Notable People: former MLB players Stan Bahnsen and Jon Lieber; founder of the Church of the Nazarene Phineas F. Bresee; 1880s-1890s champion wrestler Martin “Farmer” Burns; inventor Lee de Forest, known as the “Grandfather of Television”; professional golfer Jerry Smith; Navy Admiral John McCain, Jr., the father of 2008 presidential nominee John McCain III; and boxer Ron Stander, who fought Joe Frazier in 1972 for the heavyweight title and was known as the Bluffs Butcher

#3 Seed – Oklahoma Defenders

Location: Tulsa, OK (population: 391,906 as of 2010 census)

Nickname: Oil Capital of the World

Settled: In 1836 by the Lochapoka and Creek tribes. The name Tulsa comes from the Creek word “Tallasi”, meaning “old town”.

Not So Fun Fact #1: Was the site of the infamous Tulsa Race Riot in 1921,  one of the nation’s costliest acts of racial violence and civil disorder. Sixteen hours of rioting on May 31 and June 1 sent more than 800 people to the hospital, left an estimated 10,000 homeless as 35 city blocks were destroyed by fire, and $1.8 million in property damage. An official report stated that 39 people were killed but other reports estimated as many as 300 people died.

Fun Fact #2: In 1925, Tulsa businessman Cyrus Avery (“The Father of Route 66”), began a campaign to link California to Chicago by establishing the U.S. Highway 66 Association, earning Tulsa the nickname “The Birthplace of Route 66”.

Fun Fact #3: Tulsa was named “America’s Most Beautiful City” in the 1950s. In the 2010s it may earn the title of “Longest Road Construction Project”.

Fun Fact #4: The Tulsa Port of Catoosa is the nation’s most inland seaport. As someone who lives in Oklahoma and has been through Tulsa many times, I have no idea how Tulsa could contain a “seaport”.

Fun Fact #5: Tulsa has its own “state” fair that runs for 10 days in September and October. The city’s Oktoberfest celebration was named one of the Top 10 in the world by USA Today and one of the top German food festivals by Bon Appetit magazine.

Notable Tulsans: fraud expert and former con man Frank Abagnale, the subject of the movie Catch Me If You Can; rock band Hanson; country musician Garth Brooks; musician Leon Russell; jazz musician and former NBA player Waymon Tisdale; NFL Hall of Famer Steve Largent; author S.E. Hinton (The Outsiders); radio personality Paul Harvey; former WWE wrestler Bill Goldberg; actor Bill Hader; actress Amber Valletta (Transporter 2); actor/singer Gene Autry; and actor Gary Busey.

Gary. Busey. If the #4 seed wasn’t something called “Mid-Missouri”, I’d stop right here.

#4 Seed Mid-Missouri Outlaws

Location: Sedalia, MO (population: 21,387 as of 2010 census)

Fun Fact #1: Sedalia is home to the Missouri State Fair and the Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival.

Not So Fun Fact #2: Much of the southern side of the city suffered significant damage in a tornado on May 25, 2011, just 3 days after the F-5 tornado tore through Joplin, MO.

Fun Fact #3: The area that became Sedalia was founded by General George Rappeen Smith who also founded Smithton, MO. In his original plans, Smith called the area Sedville but later changed it to Sedalia.

Fun Fact #4: In the 19th century, Sedalia was known as a center of vice, especially prostitution. In 1877 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called the town the “Sodom and Gomorrah of the nineteenth century”.

Fun Fact #5: Sedalia was featured in two widely seen 1977 movies: Heroes, starring Henry Winkler and Harrison Ford;  and Scott Joplin, starring Billy Dee Williams.

Notable Sedalians: composer and pianist Scott Joplin, known as the King of Ragtime; Daniel Cowan Jackling, the founder of the Utah Copper Company, known as the Father of Open-Pit Mining; war hero John Henry Parker, the first to recognize the tactical advantages of machines guns to support advancing infantry; George Whiteman, the first United States Air Force airman killed in World War II. Whiteman was killed while attempting to get his plane off the ground during the attack on Pearl Harbor; billiards champion Johnny “Diamond King” Layton, a member of the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame