On another subject . . .

After last week's game, Mark and I exchanged a couple emails about the number of players we had and how LaVance's fit into the game given his mix of size, strength, speed, and skill. This was a continuation of a discussion we had a couple weeks ago when LaVance first came out to play.

Mark talked to LaVance about it and I got this email from LaVance in response. In fairness to him and our players, I wanted to share it and my response:

From: LaVance_Randle_III
To: AustinFlagFootball; Mark_Neubauer
Cc: LaVance_Randle_III@Dell.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 12:08:06 PM
Subject: FW: football

Adam/Mark,

First let me say thanks for the opportunity to exercise with you and your guys. Being new to the Austin Area, it is nice finding a group of guys dedicated to providing a competitive and organized sport to people who are looking to have fun and stay in shape. I was rather impressed with Adams attention to detail, organization of friends and the time dedicated to the play by play review.

Gentleman – I do not understand nor appreciate the comments made below. I approached the opportunity to partake in this “Gentleman’s Game” with regards to both teams’ safety. I have never heard so many complaints about a person’s ability to compete and effort to make plays. I really just wanted to share the attached clip and thank you both again for the opportunity to exercise on Saturdays. I hope that whoever received the email below does not follow your lead in running away from competition.

Have a wonderful week and thanks again for the opportunity.

Colorado head coach Dan Hawkins recently had this to say during one of his press conferences….

LaVance Randle III

My Response:
I'd like to clarify a few things. Forgive the length but I want to lay this all out and I'm posting this on the Blog because I want to be open about this discussion. BTW - sorry about getting your name misspelled. I'll get around to fixing it.

Mark is right that I've been running this game for a while - I'm just starting my 15th year doing it and I do dedicate a lot of time to trying to make it fun for everyone, especially me. For most people, the game is 3 hours on Saturday morning and 10 minutes reading the blog later that week. Not for me. I live and breath this stuff - next to my wife, job, and health, there is nothing I love more than this game.

For me, this game is 4 hours of my time on Saturdays since I have to get there nearly an hour early to set up and warm up, 3 hours of transcribing the game, and 5-6 hours a week working out trying to stay in shape to play with guys 10-15 years younger than me (hell, I spent 2 hours just responding to your email). The only reason our game is not played 52 weeks a year is that I can't play in that much heat and at 40, I need an offseason. The night before the first game of the season, I can't sleep.

I've always tried to control attendance to get 14-16 players each week (which makes for the best games) and work to make sure that we minimally get 12 and try to avoid getting more than 18. 9 on 9 is as big a game as we can make work and still have some offense. Playing with 1 sub per team is annoying but not too bad. Playing with more is a mess because the offense rarely gets into rhythm with guys constantly shuffling in and out of the game. That's why I didn't play last week.

Understand, I have not missed a game in 3 years, possibly more. None due to injury, vacation, familial obligations. I tore a ligament off my thumb last April (literally off it) and played another 6 weeks or so prior to getting it casted so I wouldn't miss a game and I played the final game of the season in a cast (85 yards, 2 TDs, and a pick : )

So I still can't believe that I didn't play last week because of the clusterfuck of 24 players and that's why when I sent out the Evite this week I emphasized the importance of people responding early so I can prevent that from happening again.

I am committed to trying to keep this game great for the players in it. I'm the last player from the original generation. There are only 1 or 2 players from the second generation. Most of the players we have now have been playing for less than 4 years and are essentially 4th, 5th, and 6th generation players.

As you can imagine, the game has changed over the 15 years. As we get new players, ideas evolve and skill-levels change. When we first started, we played with a "Mississippi Rush" because the games were never bigger than 5 on 5. We had to really carefully balance our teams to keep games fair.

As the game grew and the players got better, the difference between the best players and the worst shrank. That meant that the team composition was less important as long as we had a decent QB on each team. When we got to playing line games each week, team setting got easier because the pressure on the QB meant that plays were over before faster players could just totally blow out their coverage. The underlying goal was always to keep the game competitive but it got easier to do.

Now this brings us to you. Most of the guys playing now played in HS but few played in college - those that did were playing in very small schools and/or backups. Many players such as myself, never played any organized football. I'm not sure of your background by my understanding is that you played linebacker at University of North Texas, right? You're listed in this 1998 Signing list from College Sports TV: http://interact.cstv.com/recruiting/archive/98football_bwc_signings.cfm (you're 6'5" and 285?!?!).

However you got your experience, it shows and shows big. After the first game, we talked a lot about it. Robert is good also but people didn't feel overwhelmed trying to block him on every play. We threw two guys at you the whole game and you went through us without so much as a shrug. Sure we didn't always get the biggest bodies on you but in that game, your team had most of the size so we did what we could. Also, great rushers always have an advantage over the offensive line because they rush every single down while offensive linemen only play every other series on the line at the most and often the players get mixed up or rotated so the line is always trying to learn to work together. We don't make anyone play offensive line only because while it can be fun, its less fun than playing receiver.

Lest you think we're afraid of competition, I assure you we're not. I'm sure not. I love to play against the best players on our field. Most of the players are taller, weigh more and are 10 or more years younger but as soon as the weather gets cool, my endurance goes up and I can play with anyone. I look to cover the fastest guys when I'm in coverage and I always want the best rusher on when I'm on the line - I may be 5'8" and 150lb but I'm one of the better linemen when I get a straight up match.

That's why I tried to take you myself when we first played. When I realized I couldn't handle you, I enlisted help and that didn't work either. See the problem wasn't just your size, weight and strength, its your skill. Josh is close to your size and weight. He may not be as strong but he's plenty strong. Him, I can handle one on one because he doesn't have your skill. I'm not down on Josh here, he's a great player who I love having out there but you're in another league.

The only way I could block you would be to throw myself at your knees and hope that you didn't accidentally break my ribs - on that point, I want to be sure you know that I do not think that you would ever try to hurt anybody or play dirty. So I don't know that complaints you may have heard about people getting or worried about getting hurt but the only way that would happen is by accident. Having said that, with the size and strength differential, getting injuries seem slightly more likely given the basic disparity between your size/strength/weight and that of the players trying to block you (not just me).

So after that first game I talked to Mark and expressed concerns about it. Last week, he suggested that perhaps if you were matched up against Robert that might make it more reasonable so I said sure, lets give it a try - I had no problem with you personally, my concerns were all about preserving a competitive game. So I watched this last week and you were in the backfield as fast as I've ever seen on half the plays. I figured that it must be that they weren't doubling you up because both teams had a lot of size so finding size to block you with shouldn't have been a problem. But apparently you were being doubled a lot by bigger, stronger guys like Mark and Robert and still making chaos. The only reason it wasn't more disruptive was because Tom was very mobile and with so many linemen, it was possible to block people into each other (like in front of you). If we got into a normal sized game with a 3 man line, you'd be able to get good pressure on the QB without another rusher joining you.

I don't want you to "hold back" yet I can't figure out how to keep you from unbalancing the game. I've kept this running for 15 years and I'd like to play another 5 or so before handing it over to someone else (I want to be the Jerry Rice of flag football : ). The reason that it's kept going is because while it evolves over time, we find ways to keep it true to the type of game its supposed to be: competitive but organized, methodical, no sandlot bullshit. No "go out and get open". We generally don't let the QB run (unless its a really big game) because we don't want to play "Michael Vick-ball."

My goal every week is for people to have fun and my hope is that each player has one moment in the game when they do something really cool, something that all the players, even those on the other team - even the one who he made the play against, says "great job." That's why the balance is so important to me, because it keeps the game competitive and fun.