The Memphis Maniax was an American football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 team based in Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....

. The team was part of the XFL

XFL

The XFL was a professional American football league that played for one season in 2001. The league was founded by Vince McMahon, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of WWE...

 begun by Vince McMahon

Vince McMahon

Vincent Kennedy "Vince" McMahon is an American professional wrestling promoter, announcer, commentator, film producer, actor and former occasional professional wrestler. McMahon is the current Chairman, CEO and Chairman of the Executive Committee of professional wrestling promotion WWE...

 of World Wrestling Entertainment

World Wrestling Entertainment

World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. is an American publicly traded, privately controlled entertainment company dealing primarily in professional wrestling, with major revenue sources also coming from film, music, product licensing, and direct product sales...

 and by NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

, a major television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 network in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Home games were played in Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium

Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium

Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium is a football stadium, located at the Mid-South Fairgrounds, in Midtown Memphis, Tennessee, United States. The stadium is the site of the annual AutoZone Liberty Bowl, and is the home field of the University of Memphis Tigers football team...

.

History

The team's name and logo were designed to lead the team's fans into calling the team "The Ax", a shortened form of the word "maniacs". Regardless, the name and logo were roundly criticized by advocates for the rights of the mentally ill, believing that they were derived from a derisive term for a person suffering from mental illness

Mental illness

A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...

, "maniac", and/or a depiction of a deranged axe-wielding murderer, despite that there was no picture of an axe in the logo. Still many of the fans formed their own cheering section at the Liberty Bowl unofficially known as "The Asylum"

The Maniax Director of Player Personnel was Steve Ortmayer

Steve Ortmayer

Steve Ortmayer was an assistant head coach, special teams coordinator, and tight ends coach at the University of Kentucky. Ortmayer grew up in Nashville, Tennessee and Dallas, Texas...

, who had become respected in the pro football world for helping to build the Super Bowl XVIII

Super Bowl XVIII

Super Bowl XVIII was an American football game played on January 22, 1984, at Tampa Stadium in Tampa, Florida, deciding the National Football League champion following the 1983 regular season. The American Football Conference champion Los Angeles Raiders defeated the National Football Conference...

 champion Los Angeles Raiders

Oakland Raiders

The Oakland Raiders are a professional American football team based in Oakland, California. They currently play in the Western Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...

. Steve Ehrhart was General Manager. The head coach was Kippy Brown

Kippy Brown

Kippy Brown is the wide receivers coach of the Seattle Seahawks. He was a collegiate level starting quarterback for Memphis State and has coached in various capacities at both the collegiate and professional levels of American football...

.

They were in the Western Division with the Los Angeles Xtreme

Los Angeles Xtreme

The Los Angeles Xtreme was a professional American football team based in Los Angeles, California. The team was a member of the XFL begun by Vince McMahon of World Wrestling Entertainment and by NBC, a major television network in the United States. The team played its home games in the Los Angeles...

, San Francisco Demons

San Francisco Demons

The San Francisco Demons were a short-lived springtime American football team based in San Francisco, California. This team was part of the failed XFL begun by Vince McMahon of World Wrestling Entertainment and by NBC, a major television network in the United States...

 and Las Vegas Outlaws

Las Vegas Outlaws

The Las Vegas Outlaws were an American football team in the short-lived XFL in the Western Division with the Los Angeles Xtreme, San Francisco Demons and Memphis Maniax...

. They finished tied for 2nd place at 5-5 with the Demons but did not make the playoffs as the Demons had the better division record during the season. The Maniax were one of two teams to beat the eventual league champion Xtreme, and the only team to beat them twice, going 2-0 vs. their divisional rivals in the regular season.

NBC officials wanted to move the XFL games to afternoons after the first season (2001) due to dismal ratings, and when, somewhat to McMahon's surprise and disappointment the United Paramount Network (UPN

UPN

United Paramount Network was a television network that was broadcast in over 200 markets in the United States from 1995 to 2006. UPN was originally owned by Viacom/Paramount and Chris-Craft Industries, the former of which, through the Paramount Television Group, produced most of the network's...

) wanted to follow suit, the league was then folded and the team disbanded.

Team leaders

Rushing Yards: 528 - Rashaan Salaam

Rashaan Salaam

Rashaan Iman Salaam is a former professional American football player. Salaam won the 1994 Heisman Trophy as a running back for the University of Colorado at Boulder, rushing for 2,055 yards by the end of the season. Salaam is the fourth major college football player to rush for over 2,000 yards...

 (1994 Heisman Trophy

Heisman Trophy

The Heisman Memorial Trophy Award , is awarded annually to the player deemed the most outstanding player in collegiate football. It was created in 1935 as the Downtown Athletic Club trophy and renamed in 1936 following the death of the Club's athletic director, John Heisman The Heisman Memorial...

 winner)

Receiving Yards: 823 - Charles Jordan

Charles Jordan (American football)

Charles Alexander Jordan is a retired American football player. The Wide receiver played professionally for the National Football League for seven seasons during the period of 1993 through 1999, as well as one season for the XFL....

Passing Yards: 1,499 - Jim Druckenmiller

Jim Druckenmiller

James David Druckenmiller, Jr. is a former American football quarterback.In his career Druckenmiller played for the San Francisco 49ers, Miami Dolphins, and Indianapolis Colts of the National Football League, as well as the Memphis Maniax of the XFL and the Los Angeles Avengers of the Arena...

• all-XFL has the complete team stats