04-09-2020, 08:11 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-10-2020, 10:05 AM by terriblehippo.)
Quenton Bode steps up to the podium.
"Hello everyone. I'll be taking questions now."
How does it feel to be the first polar bear to win a championship in the NSFL? --IsaStarcrossed
"You know, with how chaotic the past couple of days have been, that never occurred to me. But now that I think about it, it feels great. Honestly it just feels great to have finally won a championship. We've been working at this as long as I've been in New Orleans, so six seasons, and to finally reach that goal is incredible. And after a certain point, you start to get this voice in the back of your head saying, 'What if you never win?'. You start to feel some doubt. So to finally get to the big game, and to be able to hoist that trophy above your head, is...well it's indescribable. I can't describe how happy and excited I was when that final whistle sounded, and how happy and excited I still am. And to have won an Ultimus with this team and for this city...I can't put it into words. And now thinking about the fact that I'm the first polar bear to win an Ultimus, it just adds to that feeling. Every single moment of this has felt incredible. I'm proud of what I was able to help accomplish in New Orleans, and I'm proud of the example I'm setting for polar bears everywhere. I'm just proud. I'm just happy."
One of your GMs stepped down after the Ultimus. What does Juosu mean to you? --IsaStarcrossed
Bode starts to answer, then has to pause for a moment to collect himself.
"To me, Juosu means success. Period. Like...when I was talking with teams before the draft back in Season 15, most of those conversations were pretty standard stuff. They were pretty cut and dry conversations. And that's not bad: this is a business, after all, and I was just one prospect in a crowd of prospects, so I get why things were that way. But my conversations with Juosu were different. It didn't just feel like draft scouting, it felt like a real conversation. And when I got drafted there, in a weird way it felt like coming home. I know how crazy that sounds. I hadn't really paid much attention to New Orleans; hell, I'd never even been to New Orleans. But it just felt right. And Juosu was a big factor in that. So I get drafted there, and it feels right, but the team is bad. There's no other way to say it, we were bad. I think the team was 4-10 the season before I joined, and 2-12 in my first season there. We were BAD. But I wasn't ever worried about it, because Juosu had a plan. And not only did she have a plan, she talked about that plan with us. She didn't make moves or plan things behind closed doors. She was always up front and honest with the team about what she was thinking, and we were always welcome to provide feedback or criticism. And as we started bringing in more talent, that plan got better and better. We were still losing games, but we were getting better. And we were drafting extremely well, and then we landed some big free agents, and then we started winning. And we just kept on winning, right up until the Ultimus a few nights ago. None of that would have been possible without Juosu leading this team. By the end there were a lot of voices in the war room, but all of them--myself included--wouldn't have been there if not for Juosu. In my mind, she's the one who took this team from a dumpster fire to an Ultimus victory. In my mind she's the one who made all this possible. So when I think of Juosu, I think of just how far this team has come, and I think of all the success she brought to this franchise. She's just the best."
How much faith do you have in the future of your team with a new face at the helm with Jimmy Dugan? --IsaStarcrossed
"Well I trust Jimmy. He's been a big factor in our recent success, and he and I have gotten close over the past few seasons. So I have faith that Jimmy will continue to make moves that put this team in the best possible situation to win. And I haven't had many conversations with Pengu just yet, with all the post-Ultimus celebrations going on. But the few talks I've had with him have all been really positive, so I'm confident in his abilities to lead a team. It also helps that he was hand-picked by both Juosu and Jimmy, and I trust both of them to pick a capable replacement. So yeah, I'm excited to get to know the new guy a little more, and I have complete faith that the future of this team is in good hands."
How does it feel knowing that new face is a penguin? Given that you are a polar bear and all. --IsaStarcrossed
"Well here's the thing: polar bears live in the Arctic Circle, which is in the northern hemisphere, and penguins live in the southern hemisphere. So I'd never seen a penguin before meeting Pengu, except for in zoos. And honestly, my first thought when I met him was, 'Wow, he's really small.' Like, he's so small. But that small body is hiding an excellent football mind. I know I'm gonna be in his office a lot asking him questions and picking his brain, and I know he's gonna be talking to me a lot about the team and the locker room, so I'm sure we're going to get along pretty well. I'm very much looking forward to getting to know him."
What's next for you? --HalfEatenOnionBagel
"The boring but honest answer is trying to win another Ultimus. Like I said, it feels amazing to have finally won one, and I'm so happy that all of my hard work, and all of the team's hard work, has finally paid off. But I don't think anybody on this team, or even in this league, just wants to win a single Ultimus. I know it's not mine. I wanted to win an Ultimus, because there's a huge difference between winning an Ultimus and not. But I'm not satisfied with just one. I want to win as many championships as I can, so for me what's next is another Ultimus. It's incredibly hard to get to the championship and to win it all, so more often than not your window for a title is really small. But we've got an excellent team, and even with expansion we're going to be able to keep a lot of those really key players together, so I don't think another title run is outside the realm of possibility. When I broke the career tackle record for New Orleans earlier this season, I released a statement in which I said that my next goal personally was to reach one thousand career tackles. So on a personal level, that's what's next for me. I can feel myself starting to get older and starting to slow down just a hair, but I'm still a long way from being done in this league. If I can keep performing at the level I've been performing at, which I think I can, I feel confident in my ability to reach that goal. But obviously no one can predict the future, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens. And for the record, whatever comes next for me will come for me in New Orleans. I've mentioned it quite a few times in the past, but I want it officially on the record now: I am spending the rest of my career in New Orleans, and whenever I decide to retire, it will be as a member of the Second Line."
Do you feel like your success in the league has opened the door for other animals to make a name for themselves in professional football? --HalfEatenOnionBagel
"I certainly hope so! I think it's still too early to tell, if I'm being honest. It'll probably be a few more years before we know for sure, but I definitely hope that more animals in situations like mine will consider following my path. I never set out to be a trail blazer or a pioneer or anything, I just loved playing football and I wanted to do that at the highest level. But if there are animals out there who want to follow in my footsteps, more power to them. I think it'd be great to have some more diversity in this human-dominated league. I do know there's a penguin who just declared for the DSFL draft, Adelie de Pengu, I think. So we're already starting to see some of that diversity, and I'm excited to see more in the future."
What would you say to all the young cubs out there interested in being professional football players one day? --HalfEatenOnionBagel
"I'd say that I know life can be hard for a young cub in today's society. Believe me, I know how hard it is. If you really want to play pro football someday, you absolutely can. That dream is not impossible for you, no matter what anyone might say. But it will take work, more work than you can imagine right now. It will require your entire focus, day in and day out, and you will have to push yourself to your physical and mental limits. You'll miss out on a lot of events and moments because you don't have the time to do other things, and you'll lose some friends because they won't understand what you're trying to achieve or why you're working so hard to achieve it. Essentially, you will have to sacrifice a lot if this is something you really want to do. But if it is, and you dedicate your mind, body, and soul to it, you will get to where you want to be. And I think the sacrifice is worth it, in the end. It's definitely not an easy path to take, but if you can stick to it, the payoff makes the whole trip worth it. Just be prepared."
How does a polar bear find the NOLA climate? --slothfacekilla
"Oh man, it is so hard. When I first got to New Orleans after the draft I thought I was going to MELT and DIE. My first week in town was basically just me lying on the floor of my apartment with the air conditioning at full blast. I genuinely didn't know if I would be able to play football in that climate; I was honestly afraid I'd pass out during training camp. But over time I started to get used to it, and while I wouldn't say that I've fully become accustomed to it, I'm at a point where I don't think about it really at all. You spend six years of your life in a place, and you get used to the weather and the climate. I'm glad I did, because I can't imagine having spent the last six years of my life anywhere other than New Orleans. And that's not just from a professional perspective. I love the city of New Orleans. It's been great to me and my family, and after I retire I plan on living in New Orleans for the rest of my life. It's a great city, and I'm so glad I ended up here. The climate is still hard to deal with at times, but honestly that's a small price to pay for everything else I've found here."
Are you going to wear your championship ring all the time? --slothfacekilla
"Probably not all the time, no. But for the first week or two, I'm pretty much gonna wear it whenever I'm in my house. After that, I'll probably put it in a display case in my trophy room for the most part. There will definitely be times I get it out and wear it, but those will be formal functions: an Ultimus parade (if we win another one), my retirement ceremony, my teammates' retirement ceremonies, that sort of thing. I'm absolutely wearing it to Ironside's retirement, but I think all of us are going to do that. So I'm sure it'll get worn pretty frequently, but it's definitely not staying on my finger 24/7. But who knows, maybe I'll change my mind."
How are you finding HO so far? --slothfacekilla
"I don't think it's a secret that the Head Office has had a lot of work on their plate since I joined. It has certainly kept me busy, I'll say that much. But I knew pretty shortly after I joined the league that I wanted to work in HO. I was an intern for a while back in the day, but the timing wasn't right for me then and I had to take a step back. So I'm glad I was finally able to get to where I wanted to be with HO. Like I said, it has been a lot of work so far, but I have really enjoyed my time there. I really feel like I'm helping the league move in a positive direction, and I feel like I'm having a positive impact on the league, which is what I set out to do when I applied for HO. It's definitely not a job for everybody, but we have a good group of people in HO and I'm confident we all have the league's best interest in mind with every decision we make. I basically had to hit the ground running, and it's been pretty non-stop since then, but overall I feel really good about my short tenure with HO."
"Hello everyone. I'll be taking questions now."
How does it feel to be the first polar bear to win a championship in the NSFL? --IsaStarcrossed
"You know, with how chaotic the past couple of days have been, that never occurred to me. But now that I think about it, it feels great. Honestly it just feels great to have finally won a championship. We've been working at this as long as I've been in New Orleans, so six seasons, and to finally reach that goal is incredible. And after a certain point, you start to get this voice in the back of your head saying, 'What if you never win?'. You start to feel some doubt. So to finally get to the big game, and to be able to hoist that trophy above your head, is...well it's indescribable. I can't describe how happy and excited I was when that final whistle sounded, and how happy and excited I still am. And to have won an Ultimus with this team and for this city...I can't put it into words. And now thinking about the fact that I'm the first polar bear to win an Ultimus, it just adds to that feeling. Every single moment of this has felt incredible. I'm proud of what I was able to help accomplish in New Orleans, and I'm proud of the example I'm setting for polar bears everywhere. I'm just proud. I'm just happy."
One of your GMs stepped down after the Ultimus. What does Juosu mean to you? --IsaStarcrossed
Bode starts to answer, then has to pause for a moment to collect himself.
"To me, Juosu means success. Period. Like...when I was talking with teams before the draft back in Season 15, most of those conversations were pretty standard stuff. They were pretty cut and dry conversations. And that's not bad: this is a business, after all, and I was just one prospect in a crowd of prospects, so I get why things were that way. But my conversations with Juosu were different. It didn't just feel like draft scouting, it felt like a real conversation. And when I got drafted there, in a weird way it felt like coming home. I know how crazy that sounds. I hadn't really paid much attention to New Orleans; hell, I'd never even been to New Orleans. But it just felt right. And Juosu was a big factor in that. So I get drafted there, and it feels right, but the team is bad. There's no other way to say it, we were bad. I think the team was 4-10 the season before I joined, and 2-12 in my first season there. We were BAD. But I wasn't ever worried about it, because Juosu had a plan. And not only did she have a plan, she talked about that plan with us. She didn't make moves or plan things behind closed doors. She was always up front and honest with the team about what she was thinking, and we were always welcome to provide feedback or criticism. And as we started bringing in more talent, that plan got better and better. We were still losing games, but we were getting better. And we were drafting extremely well, and then we landed some big free agents, and then we started winning. And we just kept on winning, right up until the Ultimus a few nights ago. None of that would have been possible without Juosu leading this team. By the end there were a lot of voices in the war room, but all of them--myself included--wouldn't have been there if not for Juosu. In my mind, she's the one who took this team from a dumpster fire to an Ultimus victory. In my mind she's the one who made all this possible. So when I think of Juosu, I think of just how far this team has come, and I think of all the success she brought to this franchise. She's just the best."
How much faith do you have in the future of your team with a new face at the helm with Jimmy Dugan? --IsaStarcrossed
"Well I trust Jimmy. He's been a big factor in our recent success, and he and I have gotten close over the past few seasons. So I have faith that Jimmy will continue to make moves that put this team in the best possible situation to win. And I haven't had many conversations with Pengu just yet, with all the post-Ultimus celebrations going on. But the few talks I've had with him have all been really positive, so I'm confident in his abilities to lead a team. It also helps that he was hand-picked by both Juosu and Jimmy, and I trust both of them to pick a capable replacement. So yeah, I'm excited to get to know the new guy a little more, and I have complete faith that the future of this team is in good hands."
How does it feel knowing that new face is a penguin? Given that you are a polar bear and all. --IsaStarcrossed
"Well here's the thing: polar bears live in the Arctic Circle, which is in the northern hemisphere, and penguins live in the southern hemisphere. So I'd never seen a penguin before meeting Pengu, except for in zoos. And honestly, my first thought when I met him was, 'Wow, he's really small.' Like, he's so small. But that small body is hiding an excellent football mind. I know I'm gonna be in his office a lot asking him questions and picking his brain, and I know he's gonna be talking to me a lot about the team and the locker room, so I'm sure we're going to get along pretty well. I'm very much looking forward to getting to know him."
What's next for you? --HalfEatenOnionBagel
"The boring but honest answer is trying to win another Ultimus. Like I said, it feels amazing to have finally won one, and I'm so happy that all of my hard work, and all of the team's hard work, has finally paid off. But I don't think anybody on this team, or even in this league, just wants to win a single Ultimus. I know it's not mine. I wanted to win an Ultimus, because there's a huge difference between winning an Ultimus and not. But I'm not satisfied with just one. I want to win as many championships as I can, so for me what's next is another Ultimus. It's incredibly hard to get to the championship and to win it all, so more often than not your window for a title is really small. But we've got an excellent team, and even with expansion we're going to be able to keep a lot of those really key players together, so I don't think another title run is outside the realm of possibility. When I broke the career tackle record for New Orleans earlier this season, I released a statement in which I said that my next goal personally was to reach one thousand career tackles. So on a personal level, that's what's next for me. I can feel myself starting to get older and starting to slow down just a hair, but I'm still a long way from being done in this league. If I can keep performing at the level I've been performing at, which I think I can, I feel confident in my ability to reach that goal. But obviously no one can predict the future, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens. And for the record, whatever comes next for me will come for me in New Orleans. I've mentioned it quite a few times in the past, but I want it officially on the record now: I am spending the rest of my career in New Orleans, and whenever I decide to retire, it will be as a member of the Second Line."
Do you feel like your success in the league has opened the door for other animals to make a name for themselves in professional football? --HalfEatenOnionBagel
"I certainly hope so! I think it's still too early to tell, if I'm being honest. It'll probably be a few more years before we know for sure, but I definitely hope that more animals in situations like mine will consider following my path. I never set out to be a trail blazer or a pioneer or anything, I just loved playing football and I wanted to do that at the highest level. But if there are animals out there who want to follow in my footsteps, more power to them. I think it'd be great to have some more diversity in this human-dominated league. I do know there's a penguin who just declared for the DSFL draft, Adelie de Pengu, I think. So we're already starting to see some of that diversity, and I'm excited to see more in the future."
What would you say to all the young cubs out there interested in being professional football players one day? --HalfEatenOnionBagel
"I'd say that I know life can be hard for a young cub in today's society. Believe me, I know how hard it is. If you really want to play pro football someday, you absolutely can. That dream is not impossible for you, no matter what anyone might say. But it will take work, more work than you can imagine right now. It will require your entire focus, day in and day out, and you will have to push yourself to your physical and mental limits. You'll miss out on a lot of events and moments because you don't have the time to do other things, and you'll lose some friends because they won't understand what you're trying to achieve or why you're working so hard to achieve it. Essentially, you will have to sacrifice a lot if this is something you really want to do. But if it is, and you dedicate your mind, body, and soul to it, you will get to where you want to be. And I think the sacrifice is worth it, in the end. It's definitely not an easy path to take, but if you can stick to it, the payoff makes the whole trip worth it. Just be prepared."
How does a polar bear find the NOLA climate? --slothfacekilla
"Oh man, it is so hard. When I first got to New Orleans after the draft I thought I was going to MELT and DIE. My first week in town was basically just me lying on the floor of my apartment with the air conditioning at full blast. I genuinely didn't know if I would be able to play football in that climate; I was honestly afraid I'd pass out during training camp. But over time I started to get used to it, and while I wouldn't say that I've fully become accustomed to it, I'm at a point where I don't think about it really at all. You spend six years of your life in a place, and you get used to the weather and the climate. I'm glad I did, because I can't imagine having spent the last six years of my life anywhere other than New Orleans. And that's not just from a professional perspective. I love the city of New Orleans. It's been great to me and my family, and after I retire I plan on living in New Orleans for the rest of my life. It's a great city, and I'm so glad I ended up here. The climate is still hard to deal with at times, but honestly that's a small price to pay for everything else I've found here."
Are you going to wear your championship ring all the time? --slothfacekilla
"Probably not all the time, no. But for the first week or two, I'm pretty much gonna wear it whenever I'm in my house. After that, I'll probably put it in a display case in my trophy room for the most part. There will definitely be times I get it out and wear it, but those will be formal functions: an Ultimus parade (if we win another one), my retirement ceremony, my teammates' retirement ceremonies, that sort of thing. I'm absolutely wearing it to Ironside's retirement, but I think all of us are going to do that. So I'm sure it'll get worn pretty frequently, but it's definitely not staying on my finger 24/7. But who knows, maybe I'll change my mind."
How are you finding HO so far? --slothfacekilla
"I don't think it's a secret that the Head Office has had a lot of work on their plate since I joined. It has certainly kept me busy, I'll say that much. But I knew pretty shortly after I joined the league that I wanted to work in HO. I was an intern for a while back in the day, but the timing wasn't right for me then and I had to take a step back. So I'm glad I was finally able to get to where I wanted to be with HO. Like I said, it has been a lot of work so far, but I have really enjoyed my time there. I really feel like I'm helping the league move in a positive direction, and I feel like I'm having a positive impact on the league, which is what I set out to do when I applied for HO. It's definitely not a job for everybody, but we have a good group of people in HO and I'm confident we all have the league's best interest in mind with every decision we make. I basically had to hit the ground running, and it's been pretty non-stop since then, but overall I feel really good about my short tenure with HO."