XFL Team to be Led by Former Mountaineer Anthony Becht Named BattleHawks

West Virginia fans may want to take note of one particular XFL franchise. The St. Louis team has officially been announced as the BattleHawks and will be led by a Mountaineer.

Led by former West Virginia tight end Anthony Becht, the BattleHawks released a video and logo as part of the league’s complete unveiling Monday morning.

“Soaring higher and faster than anyone, the St. Louis BattleHawks are a force for freedom,” now reads the bio of the BattleHawks Twitter account. The name BattleHawks is retained for St. Louis from the 2020 edition of the XFL.

High up above, the St. Louis Battlehawks soar. They see everything from overhead as they wait for the right moment to sink their talons into the helpless down below. #XFL2023 pic.twitter.com/CppEjixypq

— St. Louis Battlehawks (@XFLBattlehawks) October 31, 2022

It was initially announced that Becht would be a head coach in the XFL back in June and then he has been placed in St. Louis a month later. Becht has ties to St. Louis, having spent the 2008 as a member of the Rams who have since moved to Los Angeles. That season, he appeared in all 16 games with 11 starts being primarily used as a blocking tight end.

Becht played at WVU from 1996-1999 before kicking off a 12-year professional career in the NFL. He was drafted in the first round by the New York Jets with the 27th overall pick and spent five years with them.

He then spent three years with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and a season each with the Rams, Arizona Cardinals and Kansas City Chiefs. He was out of football in between his Cardinals and Chiefs tenure.

In his career he started 132 games catching 188 passes for 1,537 yards and 21 touchdowns. Yards wise he wasn’t far ahead of his collegiate numbers of 1,178 receiving yards with 11 touchdowns on 88 catches in four seasons.

St. Louis is one of the five teams that retain a team from the 2020 reboot of the league alongside Arlington, Houston, Washington D.C. and Seattle. The 2020 locations of Los Angeles, New York City and Tampa Bay were replaced.

St. Louis did not have a team in the original XFL, though they did have a NFL team at the time. Las Vegas and Orlando both had teams in the original XFL, but not the 2020 reboot. Birmingham, Chicago, Los Angeles, Memphis, New York City and San Francisco were the other cities from the original XFL.