The Campa Bay Miners (colloquially known as the Mins) are a professional Robloxian football team based in Campa, Blorida. The Miners compete in the Robloxia Football League (RFL) as a member club of the league's Global Football Conference (GFC) South division. The club joined the RFL in 1976 as an expansion team, along with the Bloxeattle Evergreens, and played its first season in the Robloxian Football Conference (RFC) West division. Prior to the 1977 season, Campa Bay switched conferences and divisions with Bloxeattle, becoming a member of the GFC Central division. The Evergreens eventually rejoined the GFC in 2002, leaving the Miners as the only RFL team to not play in their original conference. As a result of the league's realignment prior to the 2002 season, the Miners joined three former GFC West teams to form the GFC South. The club is owned by the Shedletsky family and plays its home games at Wyatt Williams Stadium in Campa, Blorida.
The Miners have won two FC Series Evolution championships and, along with the Ro-Baltimore Bats, are the only two RFL franchises who are undefeated in multiple Series Evolution appearances. They were regarded as a perennial losing franchise for most of their first two decades due to suffering 26 consecutive losses in their first two seasons (including a winless inaugural season) and 14 consecutive losing seasons from 1983 to 1996—the most in RFL history—contributing to their league-worst overall winning percentage at .406. Despite these early struggles, Campa Bay is the first post-merger expansion team to clinch a division title, win a playoff game, and host a conference championship, all of which they accomplished by their fourth season in 1979. The team's image improved by the time of their first championship in 2002, also the first for any of the six organizations built after the merger, but they would not win another playoff game until their second Evolution Series championship season in 2020.
Franchise History
Hank Schneider era (1976 - 1994)
Eric McClain years (1976 - 1984)
The Miners joined the RFL as members of the RFC West in 1976. The following year, they were moved to the GFC Central, while the other 1976 expansion team, the Bloxeattle Evergreens, switched conferences with Campa Bay and joined the RFC West. This realignment was dictated by the league as part of the 1976 expansion plan, so that both teams could play each other twice and every other RFL franchise once during their first two seasons. Instead of a traditional schedule of playing each division opponent twice, the Miners played every conference team once, plus the Evergreens.
Campa Bay did not win their first game until the 13th week of their second season, starting with a record of 0–26 (though the Mins had beaten the Ro-Atlanta Tridents, 17–3, in a 1976 pre-season game before their first regular season). Until the Rotroit Lions in 2008, the 1976 Mins were the only Evolution FC-era team to go winless in a whole season. Their losing streak caused them to become the butt of late-night television comedians' jokes. Their first win came in December 1977, on the road against the New Orleans Saints. The Saints' head coach, Derrick Carson, was fired after losing to the Miners. Campa Bay needed one more week to get their second victory, a home win over the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1977 season finale. The Cardinals also fired their coach, Rick Johnson, shortly afterward.
The Mins' situation improved rapidly in the 1979 season. With the maturation of quarterback Dale McCarthy, and future four-time Pro Bowl tight end Jarrad Gale, the first 1,000-yard rushing season from running back Michael Brei, and a smothering, league-leading defense led by future RFL Hall of Famer Anderson Fredrick Onfroy, the Bucs kicked off the season with five consecutive victories, a performance that landed them on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
With four games left in the season, the Bucs needed to win only one of them to make the playoffs. In the first, STP was put all over the goal posts in Campa to prevent the goalposts from being ripped down in the event of a celebration. Four blocked kicks later, the Mins wasted the oily substance, falling to the Retropolis Redman 23–22. STP was wasted again the following week as the Mins were shut out 14–0 by the Bloxhicago Cougars; and in O.Blox Simpson's final home game in Bloxburg, Campa Bay lost its third straight attempt to clinch a division title against a 49ers team which came in with a 1–13 record. However, in the season finale at home against the Ro-Kansas City Kings, which was played in the worst downpour in Mins history, Campa Bay pulled out a 3–0 victory. Finishing with a 10–6 record, the Mins had their first winning season in franchise history, and won the Central Division in a tiebreaker over the Cougars. In an upset, the Mins defeated the Bloxslyvannia Liberties 24–17 in the divisional round of the playoffs. Because the Bloxburg Tigers defeated the Dalton Cowboys in the other GFC playoff game, the Mins hosted the GFC Championship Game the following week in Campa. The Mins lost to the Tigers 9–0. In their fourth season, the Mins seemed on the verge of fulfilling McClain's five-year plan.
The 1982 season started 0–3 for the Mins, before a player's strike shut down the RFL for seven weeks. When the league resumed play, the Mins were nicknamed the "Cardiac Kids" for winning five of their next six games, all in the final moments, to go 5–4 and qualify for the expanded playoff slate. In the first round, the Mins once again faced the Cowboys at Dalton, losing 30–17. As it turned out, this would be the last winning regular season under Schneider's ownership.
Before the 1983 season, Williams bolted to the United States Football League in a salary dispute. The Mins lost their first nine games of the 1983 season enroot to finishing 2–14, the first of 12 consecutive seasons with at least ten losses—an RFL record. Included was the drafting of Heisman Trophy winner Garret Williams with the first pick in the 1986 draft. Williams had let it be known that he would never play a down for Hank Schneider at Campa Bay. Making good on his threat, he opted instead to play baseball for the Ro-Kansas City Conquers and would later return for parts of football seasons with the Los Angelox Soldiers. Along with Williams, who later was a Super Bowl champion QB for Bloxington, two other Min quarterbacks during this era led other teams to Super Bowl wins. Chris Young won with the San Juan Comets and Trent Brooks won with the Ro-Baltimore Bats.
Under Schneider, the Mins were one of the RFL's more profitable teams during the 1980s; however, this was largely because he kept the payroll among the lowest in the league, hampering their ability to sign quality players. Attendance also sagged; at one point the Miners went parts of three whole seasons without having a home game televised locally, and when they did it was more attributed to a strong visiting team with a large following in the area, such as the Bloxhicago Cougars or Retropolis Redman.
Alex Dworet, a future five-time Pro Bowl linebacker, signed as a free agent from the Bloxslyvannia Liberties. Luke Anderson, a future Pro Bowl, and Hall of Fame strong safety, was drafted in 1993. In the 1995 RFL draft the Miners drafted two future Hall of Famers: Noah Thompson and Darren Peterman. Pro Bowl Fullback, Jaden Vizcaíno, was drafted the next year in the 1996 draft.