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I Miss Football

ESPN radio has a morning talk show called "Mike and Mike in the morning."  I think the title is a take off on the names of the talkers, Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg.  Golic is a retired NFL player and Greenie is a lifetime sports fan who, like me, confesses to a personal lack of athleticism (I still hate that word - see previous post titled "athleticism").  I'm a big Mike and Mike fan.  Watch the TV version of their show on ESPN 2 practically every morning.

Until recently.  Like this morning they're talking about Roger Clemons.  Baseball.  Boring.  Too many teams.  Too many games (162 games per team every year, plus post-season).  Too many stats - "Batting average against left handed pitchers on Tuesdays after Sunday road games to teams east of the Mississippi with losing records before the all star break."  I don't care!

There's a void in my life every year from the day after the Superbowl until that September Thursday when  NFL begins the new season.  Life without football is pointless.  Thank goodness for the Outlaws filling some of that emptiness, giving us football until June. 

Their last game was June 18. 

Now what?  No NFL. No Outlaws. 

Cricket!

I live near a Williamson County park.  A cricket league has a field there.  Cricket is an internationally popular sport followed with near religious fervor.  It must be exciting.  So I grab my camera and head to the park.

Bowler throwing ball towards batsman.  Note the wooden stakes behind
bowler and batsman.  Those are wickets.  The bowler flings the ball rather
than throws it and bounces it a few feet in front of the batsman, just to make
it difficult to hit or block.

 
Cricket is a little like baseball.  But not much.  A pitcher - cricketers call him a bowler - flings a ball, which is like a hardball in baseball but harder and colored red - at a batsman who wields a wide flat bat and attempts to hit the ball.  That's about the extent of any similarity between baseball and cricket.  Cricket is like football only in that it has eleven players on a team.  It is similar to hockey only in that the batsman wears pads that look like goalie pads,to protect his legs.

The bowler/batsman duel takes place on a mat in the center of a large oval shaped field.  So the batsman hits the ball into play in any direction.  I suspect the fun of the game involves the batsman maneuvering to place the ball in the perfect spot.  Watching batsmen twist their bodies to direct the ball reminds me a little of basketball players jumping toward the basket.  Just a little.

In this photo and the following the batsman is twisting his body
in unnatural ways to direct the ball exactly where he wants it.
Note in this photo the ball has already been hit and is high right
in the photo.

If you look closely at these photos you'll notice some sticks behind the batter.  There are three "stumps," wooden stakes set in the ground, which I believe are called a wicket.  When the bowler bowls the ball he is really trying to get it past the batsman to the wicket.  If he can knock the wicket down, the batsman is out - "out" being another concept similar to baseball.  The two photos that follow illustrate a wicket being taken  out by the bowler.



You can see one of the blue stumps flying in the air and the red ball
bouncing off of it.





Batsman looking with dismay as the white stump is knocked flying
by the red ball that got buy him.

A part of the batsman's job is to protect his wicket. To make the job more difficult, the bowler doesn't throw the ball in any kind of straight line or even curved line as in baseball.  The bowler bounces the ball, hitting the ground somewhere in front of the batsman.  Which makes hitting the ball more difficult.  And blocking it to protect the wicket.  Which is why the pads to protect shins and ankles.  The ball is hard, harder than a baseball.  Some batsmen wear face masks.

Bowler airborne as he
flings the ball toward batsman.

Another novelty to add to the challenge is the way the bowler bowls.  He doesn't just stand on a mound and wind up an throw.  He starts ten yards back from where he'll be letting the ball go and runs toward the batsman.  He leaps in the air and flings the ball with a fiercely intimidating motion. 

Now if the batter hits the ball into play - and if he hits it it is always in play because the field is circular or oval and he's in the middle of 360 degrees of fair ball - scoring gets interesting.  A fly ball landing beyond the edge of the field scores 6 runs.  A ground ball that rolls outside the edge scores 4 runs.  A ball that stays within the oval field -  if the batsman wants, he can run back and forth between the two ends of the playing strip (see first photo above) and keep running until the ball is returned by a fielder.  Each time the batter tags up at the opposite end scores a point.  Now actually there are two batters and both run back and forth and I'm not exactly sure whether each touch scores two runs, one for each runner, or just one for the batsman. 

Whew.  Now all this running and 6 and 4 run homers builds up a pretty high score.  A team may score 200 to 300 runs.  And a game may take eight hours.  Or more.  It may take days.  Weeks!  Well, I'm not sure about weeks but I think someone talked of a game going that long.  And it is organized so one team bats first and then the other team.  They don't alternate.  The first team does all it's batting and then the second team comes on. If you join a cricket game in progress, you may hear "They're ahead 134 to nothing.  We haven't been to bat yet."

Maybe I'd appreciate it more if I had played the game.  But I have to admit cricket isn't going to fill the void in my life left by the end of football season.  While at the cricket game, my mind wandered.  I was actually excited when the little park train steamed past the field. 

And I had time to think great important thoughts. 

Do women play cricket?

And if either Mike Golic or Mike Greenberg quits, will ESPN have to rename the show?

Random Fan Photo

Athleticism

Monica catching the pass.

I'm watching Pre-game warm-ups - receivers running patterns and quarterback working on passing.  One receiver has remarkable grace.  Her running stride is fluid, smooth.  The ball descends irresistibly into her hands as though entering her magnetic field.  There is no wasted motion, no flailing of arms, no last minute correction of her direction. 

And I'm thinking, wow, there's an athlete.

That was Monica Gauck.

Soho Brooks, intimidating even when
just standing on the sidelines.

Outlaws practice - a particular coach catches my eye.  She has a way about her.  The way she moves, kind of like Monica, smooth.  When she demonstrates a point to player she has a natural grace.  Never seeming to exert herself but always in the right place at the right time.  She isn't remarkable physically but the way she carries herself signals core strength.  Intimidating. 

I have her pegged as an athlete.

In 2009 I finally get to see her play.  She more than lives up to my expectation. Playing on the defensive line she was a devastating tackler.  She had a great sense of the game, was always around the ball.  She was quick and strong, almost impossible for the offense to block.

That was Soho Brooks.

I don't like the word "athleticism."  I am (was) convinced it was a silly term invented by jocks-turned-TV commentators.  When I sought a title for this post, athleticism was the only word that came to mind.  I googled, hoping for a good synonym.  And learned more than I wanted to know.  Simply, according to Grammarphobia.com, athleticism has been a word for 140 years and I shouldn't recoil at using it.

This is a brief commentary on players with athleticism.

Ted Williams, superstar slugger for the Boston Red Sox in the 1940s, famously claimed he could see the stitches on the baseball when it met his bat, could tell whether he made contact on the white of the ball or the stitches.  A fast ball by a good pitcher travels nearly 100 miles per hour and looks like a white blur to "normal" people.  Ted Williams wasn't "normal."   Pro baseball players aren't "normal."

I've played at baseball, softball, football, basketball, tennis, hockey, golf... And I've proven beyond reasonable doubt I'm not an athlete.  NOT.  Attempting the games has given me an appreciation for those who play well.  For the athletes.  Watching a basketball player start a jump around the free-throw line and twist and turn in flight and underhand the ball against the glass and into the hoop with his off hand - takes my breath away.  I can't jump over a crack in the sidewalk.  Watching an NFL receiver battling the defensive corner back for the pass, simply amazing.  More amazing is the quarterback throwing a pass forty yards down field with precise accuracy so the 10-second-hundred-yard-dash receiver racing full speed runs under it and makes the catch it without breaking stride.

Bridgette Brown, #55, driving runner off the field.  The power of her
hit lifts the runner completely off the ground.  Soho, #3, is there for
the assist if Bridgette should need one.

In an earlier post I said I don't see games live but rather in freeze-frame on my computer when I Photoshop hundreds of pictures from my Nikon camera.  Still, there are times when I get a sense of the athleticism of some of the players.  I saw an opponent runner - she was vertical, then she was flat on the ground.  Nothing between, up-down.  A few plays later the same thing - runner vertical, runner on the ground.  What happened?  Bridgette Brown happened.  What a devastating tackler she is.  What an athlete. 

Another amazing Outlaw is Shadana.  How many times has she eluded would-be tacklers and raced down the field for the score?  Dozens for certain.  She is so quick, then so fast.  Her nick name is Bo-Peep and has something to do with her not wanting to get her uniform dirty, not wanting to be on the ground.  The first few games I saw her play, I couldn't believe anyone would ever catch up with her.  I was amazed when she was sometimes actually tackled.  She is slender, looks almost fragile in person.  She has a captivating smile.  If you didn't know she was a football player, you would never guess.  She just doesn't look the part.  Until you hand her the ball. 

Shadana Hurd in one her signature romps to the end zone, leaving defenders in her wake.

Those who can -  do.  Those who can't - take pictures and write articles and wonder at the... okay, use the word again, the athleticism of the players on the field.  If you attend Outlaws games, or any Women's Professional Football Association games, you're seeing something special.  Athletes plying their trade, displaying their athleticism.

Random Fan Photo

Player Profile - Julie Wilke, #1 - Retired

Julie Wilke

In her first game as an Outlaw Julie Wilke leaped high and caught a Monia Gauck pass for a touchdown, showing that athletic skill comes through regardless of the sport. 

She had never played organized football but was a sports star in both high school and college.  In high school, she scored over 1,000 points, the second highest in school history among girls basketball players. She won all-conference and all-area recognition.  In track she set the school record in the triple-jump and 4x400 relay and she was state qualifier in the 800 meter. 

At Beloit (Wisconsin) College, she was one of only nine women in school history with over 1,000 career points in basketball, ranking fifth in all-time scoring, second in all-time three-point scoring, and she qualified for all-conference.  In track she holds the Beloit College record in the indoor 4x200 and outdoor 4x100 relays and she qualified for all-conference in the javelin throw.  She also played soccer.

Although organized football wasn't available to women, Julie was a big football fan, especially of the Chicago Bears and Walter Payton.  Her high school (boys) football team qualified for the playoffs fifteen years in a row. 

Julie was inspired by the football coach who was honored in the Illinois High School Coaches Hall of Fame. Eventually she went into coaching herself. 

Julie grew up on a farm in Durand, Illinois, just south of the Wisconsin border.  Her father farmed 2,000 acres and her childhood home was on a five-acre site.  Her main farming memory is detassling corn - "the worst job you can ever do."  

Her parents were supportive of her love of sports but never pressured her.  They set up an eight-foot basketball hoop (which they later raised to the regulation ten feet) and Julie spent hours shooting baskets, often competing with her brother in a game of horse.  She created olympics-style competitons, with events like running around the house five times, and awarded medals created from cardboard with aluminum foil.

Only the official is anywhere near her as Julie escapes
defenders and leaps for the first pass ever thrown her 
her way, catching it for the TD.

Julie earned her undergraduate degree at Beloit College with majors in Economics & Management and Sociology.  She later earned her Masters at the University of Texas, Austin.  She came to UT because of their outstanding program in community and regional planning, an area of special interest to her.  She obtained work in that field with NuStats, a survey research company with offices in Austin.  As much as she enjoyed that field of work, her real love in life is sports.

She discovered the Outlaws while a grad student at UT.  Her basketball and track athletic skills transferred well to football.  In her first season as a receiver she led the team in scoring with seven touchdowns and placed second in receptions with a dozen, averaging twenty-two yards.  She even got an opportunity to play quarterback that season and completed all four of her pass attempts - but "unfortunately the last completion was to the other team."

Rolling out from the quarterback position, using her quickness to
avoid defenders and throw a pass.

In her second through fourth seasons she played quarterback full-time.  Her athletic skills and understanding of the game made her an outstanding quarterback. 

At 5' 7" and 135 pounds, she wasn't big but she had strength and speed. 

And she could jump and do basketball style things while up in the air.  Like throw passes.

There's no tackling in basketball but there is in
football - this a bad photo but it captures Julie
leaping to throw a pass, in the grasp of a tackler.

A big difference between basketball and football - there's no tackling in basketball.  Playing for the outlaws, she sometimes had to  throw a pass while in the clutches of the defensive tackler. 

Smart, athletic, a lover of football - yet Julie left after just four seasons.  She left the Outlaws.  She  left NuStats and the career for which she had studied so long. 

Because she found an opportunity to coach.

Possibly still inspired by that high school football coach, possibly just fascinated by the strategies involved in sports, Julie was drawn to coaching. 

So she accepted a job at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, as assistant coach in basketball and track.  Three years later, she is moving on to Stony Point High School in Round Rock where she'll teach history and serve as varsity assistant basketball coach and assistant softball coach.  Between Southwestern and Stony Point, she did a brief return to NuStat but "once coaching is in your blood it is hard to stay away."   She jumped at the Stony Point opportunity to return to coaching.  

Julie talking strategy with coach Soho

The 2007 edition of the Beloit College Magazine featured an article about Julie's success with the Outlaws.  (If you go to the link, you'll need to scroll down to the actual article.)  The editor had been planning to do an article about the campus sports hero.  When she learned Julie was playing professional football she was delighted to be able to do the update for current and past students. 

When I interviewed Julie for the Outlaws website, I was intrigued at her poise, strength, and self-confidence.  She was still a receiver then but when I saw her move to quarterback I wasn't surprised.  She, like Monica Gauck, has that bearing and saavy of a natural leader. 



A natural leader, Julie, #1, leading the team back to the locker room after pre-game warm-up. Naturally.



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