GFL: A little bit of magic, not nearly enough.

These days, the GFL is no longer the GFL, there are only 3 players from the time I coined the term and hassled people into playing every Wednesday night January through March, but it's much easier to call any game I play in with the Degeest's a GFL game. Semantics, BAH.

Anyways, the last day we got together to play was a month or so ago, right before I left for Massachusetts.

It was a beautiful day.

My team was pretty much the same as it was last time: Patrick was captain, he took Bobby, Jake, Bob, Me and someone else, I think in that order, maybe Jake and Bob were switched.

Our issues started early: Bob is Pat's favorite quarterback. I was confident that I was the best quarterback on the team.

What happens when you have a quarterback controversy?

We play to 10, each touchdown being 1 point. We played 3 games, and lost a combined 25-10 (we only played to 5 in the last game, it was ugly).

The wierd thing is, we played pretty well. Honeslty.

We couldn't move the ball on offense. I couldn't get it done, Bob would take a drive, then I would, and in all we would complete 1 pass every drives or so. Couple dropped passes, couple bad throws, pletny of blame for everyone.

Our defense gave us a chance, consistently stonewalling them from wherever our last drive started (usually near our own goalline), but give Chuck 4 drives and 10 yards to go, and he's bound to sneak free for a few TD's.

Even in the midst of this, I had 3 steller moments in the early game, but each of them had some awful flaw.

Moment #1: An interception. A sweet, leaping tip on my part, and I came down with it. Only the fat quarterback between me and the goal. Sweet deal right, memories of my game winnning interception for a touchdown dancing through my head. All I had to do was beat Kosh.

He actually played me pretty well. I was playing the left short zone, So I was on the left side of midfield. Kosh was on my right, where the huge expanse of field could be chewed up en route to a sweet TD. All I had to do was dance around him, and chance one of the many players faster than me catching me from behind. Or I could try to brun him to the left and hope I dind't go out of bounds.

I chose the skinny stretch to the left. I danced juuuuuuuuuuuuust out of reach of his tag. Woot. Except I couldn't stay in bounds. I swore, a lot, very loudly as my team came to the new line of scrimmage. 4 plays later, they had the ball at the exact spot a stepped out. Dammit.

Moment #2: 4th and forever. Again, after 3 plays we had amassed no yards. I told my recievers to all run deep. The rush hit five dot before any of them reached the marker, I had to run. 4th and forever. No chance. Desperation. I danced past the rusher, no problem. I juked another defender. I burned another. All of a sudden, 5 guys not named DeGeest were behind me. I was closing in on the first down marker. I had an angle going to the cone at the left side of midfield. One last guy to beat, he was coming from way downfield. That guy was Chuck DeGeest. I was in a footrace with the GFL's Randy Moss. I lost. He tagged me about a foot short of the cone. I beat 5 defenders, but it didn't matter. Their ball.

Moment #3: We were actually in their territory now. This must have been a later game, my brother was on the other team, and he was rushing me. My brother is faster than me. He's more agile. He has a boatload more stamina. On this play, the rush hit 5 dot, he charged, I didn't have a reciever. I took off again. Danced past my bro-bro. running upfield, spinning juking, letting my animal instinct carry me toward the endzone. I was singing a song I made up as I went along. Don't remember how exactly it went, but it had ("can't touch me" over and over again). When I was finally tagged, I was on the goalline. Borderline touchdown. Sure to cause an argument.

Except my brother Jake was standing behind the original line of scrimmage, saying down. Two hands. Down. I yelled bullshit. I yelled other things. I cursed. Jake insisted he had gotten me with both hands, and back we went. to the new line of scrimmage.

Just another beautiful effort that wound up meaning nothing in the end.

I'm still proud.



*This post written in the parking lot of the Sandwich Public Library, where I am currently leaching wireless*