by Spence Blazak
I come up with the wild idea that it would be fun to run a football team. I muster up interested potential players, and go on the internet to sign us up. I immediately get mad that the website doesn't load. I take a 5-hour nap and completely forget about it.
A few days later, we see a schedule for signups.
James: "Hey Spence, you signed us up for the team right? The deadline is the 7th".
Me: "Well….I'm going to do that soon. Just like how I'll fix the internet connection for Xbox Live in room today (Two weeks later, this still hasn't been done). I've got plenty of time…."
James: "The 7th was Wednesday, Spence."
Me: "I know that. Thats tomorrow."
James: "Its Friday……."
I am then thrown into a violent existential crisis filled with self loathing and malcontent against my own pscyhe where I realize that I have no sense of the passage of time, the universe, or the basic path of my own life. All because I don't know when Wednesday is. Note to self: Its going to be a long week.
Evan and I make the call to join the league. Since we have joined so late, Commissioner Craig (or it might be Greg……stay tuned. Never mind. Don't stay tuned. We will probably never learn his name. In fact, I think I'll refer to him as Commissioner Voldemort), decrees that not only can we not join the B-League or be on the Busch Campus League, but that we must join the A-League and be on the Cook/Douglass League. Worst case scenario.
I take a step back. We are a rag tag group primarily composed of smokers or athletes past their prime. We will be playing with the best of the best (Cook/Douglass League is for those who signed up last, and everyone knows that all great athletes are procrastinators. Spence Blazak: Professor of Logic Based Reasoning). We will be versing people who have actually played football, and not just been the Giants in Madden and cheated so that they had Larry Fitzgerald, Adrian Peterson, and Jim Thorpe on their team.
I had an epiphany. We would be exactly like the Oakland Athletics in Moneyball. I would be Billy Beane. Maybe Brad Pitt would play me in a movie one day. I immediately looked Commissioner Voldemort in the eye and handed over Evan's money.
Voldemort: "What do you want your team name to be?"
Me without hesitation: "The Wookiees."
We were official.
FIRST PRACTICE
We realize we don't have a football. I have two plans: 1. Get one of the crappy foam ones at the spirit store. 2. Kidnap a football player and take his ball. Since we realize that we are too poor to feed a prisoner, we go to the spirit store. We get to Rips's car and realize that it holds six people and there are five. I think it will be a tight squeeze, and I was right: moments later I find myself in the trunk. I text everyone in the front seats the message "Pray for me……". After being whacked on the head by a tissue box for the ride's entirety, I get out of the trunk, and am put on football duty. I get a foam one, buy a Red Bull, hit on the moderately attractive cashier, and return outside.
Rips: "What the hell kind of football is that?"
Me:"All they had."
Rips: "I think you know what your punishment is……"
After another fifteen minutes in the trunk, we arrive at the Busch practice center. Rips reenacts the opening scene of Goodfellas and pretends to stab me in the trunk. I finally emerge. The only other person in the parking lot is a man in his Range Rover who starts pumping his fist yelling something that sounded like "WOOOOOOO! THAT TRUNK GUY LOVES FOOTBALLL!!!!!!!!!" I'm convinced it was Hank Williams Jr.
We get to the field and it takes two minutes of throwing to get our first catch. Five fewer minutes than I thought it would take. I like the way things are looking. We come up with six different plays. Actually make a few completions. Then people start asking questions. I realize that Evan and I lost the rule book…..we also realize that we could have been practicing things that could all be illegal.
Me: "uh………..no practice is bad practice right?
I'm losing them. I call a cigarette break and immediately win them back to my side. Upon return, an all-girl, all-Asian Flag Football practice has gone under way. We debate stealing their ball. My goal is to make plays so complicated that the defense will just lie on the grass in the fetal position. Right now, we can barely get off an outside run. I act calm for the team, but on the inside am committing swallowing Kitty Litter.
Rips looks on his phone and sees that Scarlett Johansenn released drunken nudies. After twenty minutes of inspecting them, practice concludes. I realize that was the most productive part of the day. After we drop off Mike on Busch, I wait for the trunk to unlock. I start banging and yelling. I start to hear laughter. Shit. Twenty minutes and several traffic circles later, I stumble out onto asphalt.
My Coach's Checklist of Goals
-Get a funny coaching hat
-Get a headset that is connected to nothing
-Get a laminated play list
-Get every girl I know to be a cheerleader, and name them "The Princess Leahs"
-Get my router working
-Work out Bayo's wrist
-Find Bayo
-Find a football
-Get a hoody, just in case I want to go for the Bill Belicheck look
-Get elf ears, just in case I want to go for the Tom Coughlin look
-GOAL FOR GAME ONE: Show up.
GAME DAY 1
PREGAME
Goodhand: "Who are we playing?"
Me, checking my schedule: "Ummmm the Phantom Dumpers"
Goodhand: "So are they phantoms who dump or do they take phantom dumps?"
A new "chicken or the egg" type question for the Facebook generation.
We have five hours to get five players to show up. The definites are me, Evan, and Goodhand. At this point I think we only get to bring five starters and two subs. Bayo, Reggie (Bayo's friend), James, Jeremy, and Allah knows who else I had recruited decide they have to do Calc homework. I realize this might be the first team in sports history to put athletics behind school…..and I'm the fucking GM of it. The team without morals, and this is the moral they choose to have? Shake my damn head.
Evan: "Make the call."
Me: "No. I refuse. I'm not giving up yet."
Evan: "Give up."
Me: "Wait! I have a text from Michael! Our QB!"
text from Michael: "Hey spence, I'm not coming. I woke up at 5PM hungover and I have homework. Next time."
Me to Evan: "……:'("
My first executive decision as GM is to make the call to forfeit.
POST GAME
I throw play book onto ground and run into the flower bush that is arranged to look like the Rutgers "R". After five minutes, I return, and am comforted by a group embrace.
Goodhand: "It had to be done."
Me: "Hey Evan, I made my first act as GM. Make your first act as owner."
Evan, after taking a minute to ponder his options: "Timeouts will not be used for any strategy in game play, but merely for cigarette breaks."
Rips returns from home with a real ball and pump. We have a semi-practice, which means Evan and Goodhand leave for parties while Rips and I practice throwing the ball around while smoking hookah. Almost dropped the ball onto the hookah half a dozen times.
James and I read the email from Commisioner Voldemort. "Dear Spence, due to your forfeit you have given up 2 points that will be deducted from your playoff qualifying points. And seriously, if you need free agents, just ask."
Me: "James, the day I take a fucking free agent, put my head into every part of the micro fridge."
James: "Playoffs, I JUST HOPE WE CAN WIN A GAAAAME!"
We immediately looked up the video of one of the best football post game interviews ever then called it a night.
Things on checklist accomplished:
-Got router working
PRACTICE 2
I call a practice. I grab my play book and the back up ball just in case, then head over to the field. I find Rips, Goodhand, and Evan out on the field. I realize that it looks like Evan is walking away and it seems like they are short….one….football. DAMMIT. Me and Zev from Detroit (the new receiver I've recruited) walk over.
Me: "Evan…..?"
Evan: "uh…….I'm going to a party." Then he runs away.
Me, with tangible fear on my breathe: "Rips…..where is the football?"
Rips: "I thought you had it?"
I have an out of body experience. Every emotion swells through my body. I see the beginning, end, then the in between of my life. Wow. I wind up having way more kids than I thought. And way fewer cats. I return to my body.
We set off to find another football. We find one after 15 minutes of hunting, but it is deflated. We borrow it from a kid we don't know the name of. Rips runs back to his room to get the stolen soccer pump. I evaluate where we are at this point. I forgot to text our QB about practice, our other QB is under an influence, and we are playing in front of the honors dorm because there is light but we all keep running into benches on our routes.
After practice, I realize we can have as many people as possible. I start recruiting RAs, frat boys, Jewish kids, everyone who walks by. I plan on a Sunday team and a Wednesday team since class schedules will conflict with Wednesday kids. I'm on fire. I feel like a regular Napoleon.
Bayo: "Why are you so excited?"
Me: "BAYO! CALL EVERY BLACK PERSON YOU KNOW AND GET THEM ON THE TEAM!!!!!"
Then we come up with a master plan to hold onto this kid's football as long as we can. Rips wants to poke a hole into it so it looks less attractive for the kid to keep, then once he gives it to us, we just patch it with duct tape. I can't believe this is real life. I head back to the room.
Bayo: "I'm scared that we will get tackled by D-III athletes."
Me: "Don't worry about it, B-Money. We will intimidate them! I'm large, you're black, if we get tackled, they get thrown out for the game! We WANT to be tackled, then we win!"
Bayo: "Then we fight them. Like Wookiees. And don't call me B-Money"
DAY BEFORE GAME 2
I sit down and begin constructing an apparatus made out of duct tape and notecards to hold of the plays to my forearm. I'm going for a look halfway between Tom Brady and Buzz Ligthyear.
Michael's Facebook status: "I'm not shaving until the Wookiees win a game."
PRACTICE 3
Called off because we all want to go see the Lion King in 3D.
What will happen for the second game? Will we win? Will we lose? Will we show up? Don't touch that dial.
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