Menas selected to lead Empire
Former NFL player, CFL champion calls Albany a “dream job”
Things are happening quickly for the Albany Empire, not by design but necessity, and the team has hired a new head coach for its inaugural season in the National Arena League.
The Empire hired Tom Menas, who spent the previous 18 months as assistant head coach for the NAL’S Jersey Flight, on Friday to replace Rob Keefe, who resigned unexpected Monday.
Empire co-owner Ron Tridico said Menas also will serve as general manager
“for now” and will be scrambling to assemble a roster for Albany’s opener May 29 at
Times Union
Center.
“It’s like anything in life,”
Menas said, “good things take time, great things happen real quick. That’s how I look at it.”
He said he expects to have his coaching staff finalized next week and will spend the rest of the month trying to fill out a 35-player roster for training camp, which opens in early May.
The Empire have 12 players on their roster signed by Keefe, who accepted a position Tuesday as assistant head coach and defensive coordinator for the Indoor Football League’s Iowa Barnstormers.
Because the COVID -19 pandemic wiped out the 2020 NAL season, Menas never got to coach a game in New Jersey. He and Flight head coach Terrence Foster “cultivated more players than we probably needed” and he said he will use that knowledge to recruit players for the Empire.
“We’ll turn around and work together and get some players,” Menas said. “I know a lot of the kids I’ve worked with in the past at tryout camps, and I’ve maintained their data. We’re going have success at bringing in a good roster. It’s our goal here now not just to be competitive, it’s to win. Mediocre isn’t going to fly. We’re going to do our absolute best to be successful.”
Menas, who turns 61 April 26, credits Foster for giving him this opportunity.
“He called me up when the vacancy came up and said, ‘You’re the guy for that job,’” he said. “When it happened, I said, ‘I don’t want to leave you,’ but in the same respect the dream job for any indoor football coach, and that is to coach Albany.”
A former NFL and USFL player, Menas has an extensive coaching background. He was linebackers and running back coach for the Arena Football League’s Detroit Fury from 2001 to 2003. Menas served as defensive line coach for the CFL’S Toronto Argonauts from 2004 to 2006, winning a Grey Cup in 2005.
He went into private coaching and athletic training until resurfacing with the Oakland (Mich.) club team, first as defensive coordinator and later as head coach. He had a two-year record of 23-1 at Oakland, winning the National Club Football Association championship in 2016.
Menas spent 2018 as head coach of the Oakland County Racers of the Rivals Professional Football League and in 2019 was offensive/defensive line and special teams coach of the IFL’S Green Bay Blizzard.
“If you’re an indoor football coach,” Menas said, “the Albany job is the ultimate job.”
A Kansas State graduate, Menas played two seasons as a guard with the Detroit Lions. He also had stints with the USFL’S Michigan Panthers, Chicago Blitz and San Antonio Gunslingers.