Knight Hawks focus on building franchise with local talent

Southern Nevada’s newest professional sports team is less than two months away from beginning its season.

The Vegas Knight Hawks will debut as the 15th member of the Indoor Football League on March 18 at the new Dollar Loan Center arena in Henderson.

Vegas Golden Knights owner Bill Foley and Dollar Loan Center founder and CEO Chuck Brennan purchased an expansion franchise license in May 2021 from the IFL.

Knight Hawks head coach and general manager Mike Davis has experience being a part of an expansion franchise. He was the head coach for the Nebraska Danger for their inaugural season in 2011.

When Foley and Brennan contacted Davis about the Knight Hawks job, he said it was a “no-brainer” for him to listen. From his experience as a head coach, Davis acknowledged the importance of having support from the owner.

“The biggest thing for me after the ownership, you got to be able to take care of the players,” Davis said. “And everything that I said we needed to do to take care of the players, they were completely on with it because it’s the same things they do for the Golden Knights.”

Davis’ first task was finding players to build his roster. The Knight Hawks held tryouts in November featuring athletes from across Las Vegas.

During the tryout process, Davis realized that there were a lot of athletes in Las Vegas. He utilized his relationships from the Canadian Football League to connect with players who could be future Knight Hawks.

A goal for Davis when he put together the roster was to find players locally to help build a connection with the community and give local players a chance to play football. “It makes it more of a hometown team,” Davis said.

One of the Las Vegas locals on the team is Kasey Allison. The Canyon Springs product graduated from Dixie State, where he compiled 1,400 receiving yards and 11 touchdowns in three seasons.

Allison did not make it to the tryouts, but his friend, Caleb Holley, who played with Davis in the IFL, put in a good word for him.

“I’ve really just been trying to find the right spot,” Allison said. “I had been offered a few Arena League contracts, but I didn’t feel like it was the right opportunity for me.”

All the players will get to Las Vegas on March 1, with practice beginning on March 3. Davis said the team will have eight days of practice before making the final roster cuts on March 12.

The Knight Hawks are in final stages of finetuning everything before the players arrive for training camp. Their first game is March 18 against Northern Arizona.

Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on Twitter.