(2505 Words)
Fresh off the plane and you can just smell the Missouri in the air. I can tell you that the smell of Missouri is like fresh socks dipped in mud. That scent of the earthiness really brought back the feelings of home and the steppes of Mongolia. It is a different experience when you come from a run down city in the middle of nowhere. America surely is a land where hopes and dreams can be made by your own hand. Back in the homeland, you ran a store or plowed the earth but there was not much else for the adults to do besides drink, boast, and game. After the quick inhale it is time to disembark. As soon as I get off the plane the difference between home and Kansas City become more prominent. Its probably the giant ass airport that hits home, but it is also the small things. I do not recognize anyone except for the kiwis that came on the plane with me from the prospect bowl.
Let us take a moment to review the prospect bowl. Before the prospect bowl I had not really played a game competitively against people who were above average at the game. All these other guys came in day 1 having played some college ball and even maybe played some in their high school days against other real teams. Here I was, in my ripped jeans that were basically too small for me and a collared shirt that I just bought before coming to the states. Fitting in has never been so hard. Thankfully I speak enough broken English that I am able to get by and at least understand the plays the coaches wanted us to run. That being said, I play defensive line and I run the plan of doing one thing and one thing only. Tearing that ball away from the other team and getting my offense back on the field. I am reminded of one of my favorite movies from back in the days.
Since we did not always have the money to go to the theaters, all the children in the city would go and cram together at my friends place to watch movies on this tiny screen. We had a few VHS that we could replay over and over again. One of those was The Replacements. There is this guy in the movie that really hit home to me when I was a child. And that was the hard working Daniel Bateman. That last scene of the movie where he goes crazy to get the ball away from the other team so they could get one more chance to win the game was basically how I decided I wanted to play every football game I ever played. After the first time we watched that movie I managed to convince the other kids that we should make a football and try to play our own game. No rules, just fun and craziness fueled by youthful athletics. I practiced stripping those balls like it was no ones business. Tackle, strip, tackle, strip, repeat. Nothing was so much fun as being able to stop the offense in their tracks and watch them just droop a little bit more each time. Now I was not always successful, but that did not mean I stopped trying. Like my ancestors, I had come to conquer and take no prisoners.
When it was time for the Kiwis to start gearing up for their first game, it was enough for me that I was getting dressed in a full set of pads and a very official looking jersey. Got that neon green going over the black and the white. It was grotesquely pretty and all lined up we illuminated the ground. I think there was some concern from other teams that they would be so distracted by our coloring scheme that they were going to have trouble playing us, but the commissioner overruled them as being antics not fit for ISFL draftees. Suck it up basically was the official response. So we took the field in the first game of the bowl and proceeded to have a deafening loss to the Sols.
Our defense came out to play with me and Manhattan Project going absolutely nuclear on the other team with a combined 14 tackles, 3 TFL, 1 sack, 1 FF, and 1 FR. Even with our solid stat line, we were not able to stop 3 touchdowns getting by us and even though I am pretty fast on my feet, there was just nothing I could do when I saw the passes going down the field and I was powerless to stop them. Losing 21-10 was a sobering start for the kiwis and our games started going downhill from there.
Before game 7 we had gone down 2-4 with our 2nd win being game 6. The other teams in the prospect bowl had basically written us off at this point. We were a streaky team if you can count 1 win streaks a true streak. Our defense was making names for themselves though. Already Project Manhattan and myself were topping the charts with another Auck player that seemed a little off. I am not saying that Girl Bot was a little skippy, but sometimes she did not seem all there. One time she even responded to our coach with a series of numbers. It did not matter what she said though, because she brought the results on the field. I think my favorite moment was this one time, she had just been run over by the OL after a weird start on her part and even while she was just lying there on her back, you could tell that something was going on in her head because she just started smoking a little bit. When we lined up for the next play that was a loud noise and she was just literally on fire. I am talking spontaneous brushfire if you know what I mean. So here we have Girl Bot, on fire, lining up and no one on the other team would get close to her. She did not seem any worse for wear and our coaches said that they had treated our jerseys with fire retardants because of a past incident. The whistle is blown and Girl Bot charges the QB who just spikes the ball and squeals like a pig before running in the other direction. Then the refs came over and told our coaches that we need to get Girl Bot off the field. Go figure, it was really peculiar.
Besides random events happening, we came to play in our last games of the season going on a 3 win streak to clinch the championship game and then the championship game happened. This was basically the dream scenario every young rook wants to play and really made my Replacements fantasy a reality. We were losing this game, we were getting blown over by our original loss to the Sols. They had more possession time, they were completing passes, and getting those yards. It looked like we were going to crumple and were basically nonexistent in the first 3 period of the game. Down 0-15 going into the last 10 minutes of the game, fans were leaving the stadium. No one told us that the game should have been considered over and done with. 8 minutes and 27 seconds left in the game. Raeni Clark lobs this beautiful pass over to Chunt the Badger who runs it for a touchdown for a combined 47 yards between the two of them. Chunt was wide open and just tore their defense to pieces! Alright we were only down by 8 now. That is just a touchdown and a conversion, that is pretty easy to do, right? The team is getting hyped. We just have to make sure that the other team does not try to run down the clock so we get an opportunity to get more points. 5 minutes left and we make another beautiful play to run it down the field for another quick touchdown. We go for the conversion and its an easy pass. Raeni Clark is really coming with their all for this win. 2 minutes left, tie game, and its all but guaranteed that the game is going to either the sols or to overtime. They just need to hold out, kick, and leave it to their defense to stop us. 1min and 8 seconds left and we had just stopped the Sols from a huge push and they go to punt and PROJECT MANHATTAN that madman jumps up out of no where and block the shit out of it. With 1 minute left were within easy field goal distance. Ok not so easy, but our kicker nails a 38 yard field goal to put us up 18 to 15 and we proceed to win the game and the championship.
If all football was played like this, then there would not be any other sports in the world. If you think about it, a remarkably boring game was finished with a bang. The only comparable would be a team that comes back from 21-3 for an overwhelming OT win after being written off. It is games like these that make me crazy about football. With 11 tackles, 3 tackles for loss, and 1 force fumble I dominated the stat lines of all the defenders on the field that day. I also managed to pull one bad infraction that was completed malarky but the refs will be refs. Yet I did not get Defensive player of the game and lost to my counterpart on the Sols, Jake Hayes, who had 1 sack and a fumble return to round out his 5 tackles. Fair is fair, he won the player of the game and I took home a shiny star.
I ended the bowl with a stat line of 53 tackles, 7 forced fumbles, 2 fumble returns, 15 tackles for losses, and 1 sack. And the Kiwis stepped up to be the top defensive team of the league and in 10 games we managed to just edge out the Sols. Did the game come down to my defensive play? I am no math genius, but the heart was there and the win is in our pockets. What more do you want from me. This win led right into the draft hype that was to be announced the day following the championship game. We were told by our coaches that the games we just won probably will not have any change on our draft stock but that we all looked pretty good out there.
It was finally draft day and here I am decked out in my finest clothing and was at the expo center by myself. A lot of the other players had other family members or someone who they were familiar with them and I was all by myself. I had never considered myself to be a person who could be affected by being lonely. When I am playing football I have the other members of the defensive line standing together to repulse the enemy. As one, we push and struggle with one goal in mind. Stop the play and get the ball back to our offense to score. So from the moment I got to the USA and was put on a prospect team until now, I was always with other people. So you can bet that the homesickness hit for just a moment before the waiting began.
The Draft went on and on and the first rounders being called up pretty quickly and delivered their hats and jerseys. Names kept on being called. A few of my kiwis were snatched up early and still my name was on that board waiting to be called. They do not always tell stories of what it feels like to wait when you are by yourself. First you play the hello game. You nod and wave at anyone you might recognize for a brief moment. Then people sit near you and you try and strike up conversation and hope you can find something mutual to talk about. Thankfully the draft makes that easy as everyone there is thinking about just two things: Football and the prospects of the day. Then you sit there and wait and wait and wait. I think I was happy to go at 17. It is a good number. A prime number. It meant that I was going to be one of those unique prime players. At least in my mind it did. I had some good talks with the Coyote scouts during the prospect games that they were watching and left with a pretty positive outlook on the team and I was not disappointed in the least.
But I digress, I seem to get lost in thought when I am not on the field looking at the next player I have to overcome. Here we are getting off the plane and I am talking about my experiences leading up to this moment. I guess it is safe to say that this will be the first pieces of many that have me attempt to learn and understand the customs and cultures of these weird American mongoloids. We are going to be doing deep dives on Kansas City culture, hot spots for a touring foreigner, as well as important tips by your local Mongolian Horde leader.
My first stop was to get some recommendations of the best place to get some beef in this city. After spending some time away from Mongolia, I was hungry for some meat that was finger lickin good and would fill me up so much that I would not be able to make my way home without some help. So I spent the time getting the other draft picks on the plane with me to agree to my plan and that we should go straight to some place to eat some food. A couple of the guys were not really up to it at first, but I reminded them that we did not have to pick the closest place. Let us take our time and really get to one of the places that people highly recommend. So we hit up our team manager and the internet to find what would be the best bbq spot in the city. Turns out the number place is also inside a bar and is only a 50 minute drive away. So before we know it were on the highway in two different vehicles with all our gear piled in the back driving to this grill spot that is only open on weekends. We get there and order and sit back. I guess I am officially starting my life in the ISFL with some good meat. If this is any indication of how my careers is going to. I think ill stay if all the meals are like this.
Fresh off the plane and you can just smell the Missouri in the air. I can tell you that the smell of Missouri is like fresh socks dipped in mud. That scent of the earthiness really brought back the feelings of home and the steppes of Mongolia. It is a different experience when you come from a run down city in the middle of nowhere. America surely is a land where hopes and dreams can be made by your own hand. Back in the homeland, you ran a store or plowed the earth but there was not much else for the adults to do besides drink, boast, and game. After the quick inhale it is time to disembark. As soon as I get off the plane the difference between home and Kansas City become more prominent. Its probably the giant ass airport that hits home, but it is also the small things. I do not recognize anyone except for the kiwis that came on the plane with me from the prospect bowl.
Let us take a moment to review the prospect bowl. Before the prospect bowl I had not really played a game competitively against people who were above average at the game. All these other guys came in day 1 having played some college ball and even maybe played some in their high school days against other real teams. Here I was, in my ripped jeans that were basically too small for me and a collared shirt that I just bought before coming to the states. Fitting in has never been so hard. Thankfully I speak enough broken English that I am able to get by and at least understand the plays the coaches wanted us to run. That being said, I play defensive line and I run the plan of doing one thing and one thing only. Tearing that ball away from the other team and getting my offense back on the field. I am reminded of one of my favorite movies from back in the days.
Since we did not always have the money to go to the theaters, all the children in the city would go and cram together at my friends place to watch movies on this tiny screen. We had a few VHS that we could replay over and over again. One of those was The Replacements. There is this guy in the movie that really hit home to me when I was a child. And that was the hard working Daniel Bateman. That last scene of the movie where he goes crazy to get the ball away from the other team so they could get one more chance to win the game was basically how I decided I wanted to play every football game I ever played. After the first time we watched that movie I managed to convince the other kids that we should make a football and try to play our own game. No rules, just fun and craziness fueled by youthful athletics. I practiced stripping those balls like it was no ones business. Tackle, strip, tackle, strip, repeat. Nothing was so much fun as being able to stop the offense in their tracks and watch them just droop a little bit more each time. Now I was not always successful, but that did not mean I stopped trying. Like my ancestors, I had come to conquer and take no prisoners.
When it was time for the Kiwis to start gearing up for their first game, it was enough for me that I was getting dressed in a full set of pads and a very official looking jersey. Got that neon green going over the black and the white. It was grotesquely pretty and all lined up we illuminated the ground. I think there was some concern from other teams that they would be so distracted by our coloring scheme that they were going to have trouble playing us, but the commissioner overruled them as being antics not fit for ISFL draftees. Suck it up basically was the official response. So we took the field in the first game of the bowl and proceeded to have a deafening loss to the Sols.
Our defense came out to play with me and Manhattan Project going absolutely nuclear on the other team with a combined 14 tackles, 3 TFL, 1 sack, 1 FF, and 1 FR. Even with our solid stat line, we were not able to stop 3 touchdowns getting by us and even though I am pretty fast on my feet, there was just nothing I could do when I saw the passes going down the field and I was powerless to stop them. Losing 21-10 was a sobering start for the kiwis and our games started going downhill from there.
Before game 7 we had gone down 2-4 with our 2nd win being game 6. The other teams in the prospect bowl had basically written us off at this point. We were a streaky team if you can count 1 win streaks a true streak. Our defense was making names for themselves though. Already Project Manhattan and myself were topping the charts with another Auck player that seemed a little off. I am not saying that Girl Bot was a little skippy, but sometimes she did not seem all there. One time she even responded to our coach with a series of numbers. It did not matter what she said though, because she brought the results on the field. I think my favorite moment was this one time, she had just been run over by the OL after a weird start on her part and even while she was just lying there on her back, you could tell that something was going on in her head because she just started smoking a little bit. When we lined up for the next play that was a loud noise and she was just literally on fire. I am talking spontaneous brushfire if you know what I mean. So here we have Girl Bot, on fire, lining up and no one on the other team would get close to her. She did not seem any worse for wear and our coaches said that they had treated our jerseys with fire retardants because of a past incident. The whistle is blown and Girl Bot charges the QB who just spikes the ball and squeals like a pig before running in the other direction. Then the refs came over and told our coaches that we need to get Girl Bot off the field. Go figure, it was really peculiar.
Besides random events happening, we came to play in our last games of the season going on a 3 win streak to clinch the championship game and then the championship game happened. This was basically the dream scenario every young rook wants to play and really made my Replacements fantasy a reality. We were losing this game, we were getting blown over by our original loss to the Sols. They had more possession time, they were completing passes, and getting those yards. It looked like we were going to crumple and were basically nonexistent in the first 3 period of the game. Down 0-15 going into the last 10 minutes of the game, fans were leaving the stadium. No one told us that the game should have been considered over and done with. 8 minutes and 27 seconds left in the game. Raeni Clark lobs this beautiful pass over to Chunt the Badger who runs it for a touchdown for a combined 47 yards between the two of them. Chunt was wide open and just tore their defense to pieces! Alright we were only down by 8 now. That is just a touchdown and a conversion, that is pretty easy to do, right? The team is getting hyped. We just have to make sure that the other team does not try to run down the clock so we get an opportunity to get more points. 5 minutes left and we make another beautiful play to run it down the field for another quick touchdown. We go for the conversion and its an easy pass. Raeni Clark is really coming with their all for this win. 2 minutes left, tie game, and its all but guaranteed that the game is going to either the sols or to overtime. They just need to hold out, kick, and leave it to their defense to stop us. 1min and 8 seconds left and we had just stopped the Sols from a huge push and they go to punt and PROJECT MANHATTAN that madman jumps up out of no where and block the shit out of it. With 1 minute left were within easy field goal distance. Ok not so easy, but our kicker nails a 38 yard field goal to put us up 18 to 15 and we proceed to win the game and the championship.
If all football was played like this, then there would not be any other sports in the world. If you think about it, a remarkably boring game was finished with a bang. The only comparable would be a team that comes back from 21-3 for an overwhelming OT win after being written off. It is games like these that make me crazy about football. With 11 tackles, 3 tackles for loss, and 1 force fumble I dominated the stat lines of all the defenders on the field that day. I also managed to pull one bad infraction that was completed malarky but the refs will be refs. Yet I did not get Defensive player of the game and lost to my counterpart on the Sols, Jake Hayes, who had 1 sack and a fumble return to round out his 5 tackles. Fair is fair, he won the player of the game and I took home a shiny star.
I ended the bowl with a stat line of 53 tackles, 7 forced fumbles, 2 fumble returns, 15 tackles for losses, and 1 sack. And the Kiwis stepped up to be the top defensive team of the league and in 10 games we managed to just edge out the Sols. Did the game come down to my defensive play? I am no math genius, but the heart was there and the win is in our pockets. What more do you want from me. This win led right into the draft hype that was to be announced the day following the championship game. We were told by our coaches that the games we just won probably will not have any change on our draft stock but that we all looked pretty good out there.
It was finally draft day and here I am decked out in my finest clothing and was at the expo center by myself. A lot of the other players had other family members or someone who they were familiar with them and I was all by myself. I had never considered myself to be a person who could be affected by being lonely. When I am playing football I have the other members of the defensive line standing together to repulse the enemy. As one, we push and struggle with one goal in mind. Stop the play and get the ball back to our offense to score. So from the moment I got to the USA and was put on a prospect team until now, I was always with other people. So you can bet that the homesickness hit for just a moment before the waiting began.
The Draft went on and on and the first rounders being called up pretty quickly and delivered their hats and jerseys. Names kept on being called. A few of my kiwis were snatched up early and still my name was on that board waiting to be called. They do not always tell stories of what it feels like to wait when you are by yourself. First you play the hello game. You nod and wave at anyone you might recognize for a brief moment. Then people sit near you and you try and strike up conversation and hope you can find something mutual to talk about. Thankfully the draft makes that easy as everyone there is thinking about just two things: Football and the prospects of the day. Then you sit there and wait and wait and wait. I think I was happy to go at 17. It is a good number. A prime number. It meant that I was going to be one of those unique prime players. At least in my mind it did. I had some good talks with the Coyote scouts during the prospect games that they were watching and left with a pretty positive outlook on the team and I was not disappointed in the least.
But I digress, I seem to get lost in thought when I am not on the field looking at the next player I have to overcome. Here we are getting off the plane and I am talking about my experiences leading up to this moment. I guess it is safe to say that this will be the first pieces of many that have me attempt to learn and understand the customs and cultures of these weird American mongoloids. We are going to be doing deep dives on Kansas City culture, hot spots for a touring foreigner, as well as important tips by your local Mongolian Horde leader.
My first stop was to get some recommendations of the best place to get some beef in this city. After spending some time away from Mongolia, I was hungry for some meat that was finger lickin good and would fill me up so much that I would not be able to make my way home without some help. So I spent the time getting the other draft picks on the plane with me to agree to my plan and that we should go straight to some place to eat some food. A couple of the guys were not really up to it at first, but I reminded them that we did not have to pick the closest place. Let us take our time and really get to one of the places that people highly recommend. So we hit up our team manager and the internet to find what would be the best bbq spot in the city. Turns out the number place is also inside a bar and is only a 50 minute drive away. So before we know it were on the highway in two different vehicles with all our gear piled in the back driving to this grill spot that is only open on weekends. We get there and order and sit back. I guess I am officially starting my life in the ISFL with some good meat. If this is any indication of how my careers is going to. I think ill stay if all the meals are like this.