Well the season is upon us. I'm so excited I can hardly eat. I'm checking the Evite every half hour to see if anyone else RSVPs. I'm checking weather.com every hour to see if by some miracle the forecast for Saturday has not climbed by yet another degree (on Wednesday it was predicting a high in the 80s and I thought it would be a Football Miracle). I'm hoping that my leg doesn't give out on the first cut . . .

Looking forward to seeing everyong on Saturday. Please try to show up by 9:00 (or better yet early). Several thoughts behind that:

1) Its going to start off relatively cool tomorrow but then get pretty hot. If we start early we can enjoy the weather.

2) A lot of rust needs to be shaken off. If we start early we can get warmed up and start playing before it gets hot (see item 1).

3) The Horns are playing at 11:00 and I want to be sure that if we lose some folks to go home and watch that, we still have had a good game to start with.

Couple other thoughts/reminders:

1) Those of you who have never played with us, you will be sore afterwards. You will be most sore on Monday (about 48 hours after playing). When you find yourself walking funny for the next couple of days wondering if you ever want to play again, the answer is you do. Trust me on this. If you play every week then after about 2-3 weeks of playing, you will be a bit sore after playing but it won't be that bad. Its only when you start that its really bad.

2) Returning players, see above. This applies to you too.

3) Everyone, if you workout, I suggest you do a leg workout at about 70-80% of normal on Sunday after playing on Saturday. You may think I'm nuts but someone suggested it to me 2 years ago and I was surprised at what a difference it made. Much less sore. Also, don't do leg workouts on Fridays if you plan on playing Saturday. Thursday is the latest you should work legs before playing on Saturday.

Now that's a player

And I thought I was committed to playing! This guy plays HS football and has no legs - none - no hips, no nothing:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/2005/09/27/gallery.martin/content.1.html?cnn=yes

Less than a Week
Well, I reinjured my leg in NY. The therapy had been helping but then I hurt it again pretty bad. For the first day, it felt like it did back when I first injured it (in February or March). Its doesn't hurt quite as much today but its still bad.

This is more than a little bit of a problem. I think I'm going to be really limited this season. I can't believe that 5-6 months after I pulled the damn muscle, its STILL not healed and now is unlikely to be healed any time soon.

I'm going to buy a ref's shirt before the game this weekend.

Koontz Excuse

Some of you from last year may have noticed that Sean Koontz is on the Evite and you wondered "who the hell is that?" because he replied to the Evite almost every week but he NEVER actually came out to play. Well Sean is part of what I call the second wave of players. He started playing with us in the 2nd or 3rd year of our game (at the same time as Brian) and he used to be a regular - regularly late, regularly requiring a call from the field to get his ass out of bed, etc. He also usually played in jeans and brought a large Starbucks with him each week.

In any case, Sean didn't play last year and I don't think he played the year before either. I just keep him on the list because rather than admit he's never going to play again, he just keeps RSVP'ing that he can't make it because he's out of town and then tells us where and often provides a little story. So basically, he's still on the list because he amuses me.

Its Thursday the 22nd and I've just read this year's first excuse - Vegas. Not a very interesting beginning but I'm sure he'll step it up.

Two Weeks Away

Well, we're two weeks away from another season. I've stepped up my leg rehab another notch of the last couple of days - incorporating some plyometric exercises to start putting greater strain on the leg I injured last March or so. Two weeks isn't a lot of time to get ready but I'm hoping it will be enough.

My bigger problem is that because of my leg, I've been unable to do any cycling this summer. So my endurance going into this season is going to SUCK. I'm worried it'll be November before I'm worth a shit unless it gets a lot cooler a lot sooner than I'm guessing it will.

Hope the rest of you are getting ready.

Ran into Joe Shields today at the doctor's office (we were both getting blood drawn) and caught up. Juan had mentioned in a comment earlier that he was wondering where Joe was. Well, Joe coaches his daughter's soccer team on Saturdays in the fall and spring so he's retired. Still, good to run into him and reminice.

Ready to talk some shit!!!!!!!

Well the weekend is over and I have no one in tonight's game fantasy-wise. I'm just glad I'm a lot better in our league than my fantasy team is in my fantasy league.

Well this is the first post of the new AustinFlagFootball Blog. AustinFlagFootball is going into its 10th season. I'm the only one left from the original group but that's what makes the game great - each year we lose a few but we also gain a few and the game just keeps going strong.

Those of you who have played know we have a competitive and physical but above all, FUN game. We play a contact game - offensive lines, open-handed blocking, stiff-arms, are all legal. Grabbing a guy to slow him down and wait for help or to get a flag is legal. If you're interested in coming out and having some fun, let me know.

We use Evite to keep track of who's playing each week but Evite is a lousy way to have a conversation, make suggestions, or share ideas. This Blog is intended to provide a communications hub for those in our game. I'm hoping people will have fun with it - post fun links, talk about the game, whatever. My only request is that we keep the posts fun, like the game.