"what if?"

(to spell out the metaphor in the picture, we are the guy diving hopelessly. the guy with the ball is our dreams.)

there are questions in life that you must answer. sometimes, these questions are born out of pure curiosity. sometimes, they are born out of life experience. our flag football season this spring was born out of the latter. in the spring of 2007, kiker and i were asked to play on a flag football team. i had not played an organized brand of football since the age of 12 and the idea sounded fabulous. running routes. catching passes. pulling flags. it sounded like great exercise and a wonderful way to pass the time between the end of the church basketball season and the beginning of softball.

it wasn't. kiker, myself, and a couple other guys from our softball team joined a group of ex-high school athletes that, from the start, took this venture into the realm of not-so-competitive flag football quite seriously. well, they took the games quite seriously. if the entire group ever showed up for practice, our fortunes may have been different. we had our terrell owens. our guy that was "always open". we had our reggie bush. the guy whose athletic gifts gave you the false impression that he was going to impact the game in a far greater way than he ever did. we had our "role players", a category that i was placed in and fine with. i would run the routes that i was asked, unaware until about game three that they were decoy routes to draw defensive attention away from terrell owens and reggie bush. and then, we had the argo brothers. heath and clint are two nice guys, both of which i consider friends. but they should never play flag football together. clint has "coached" high school football. heath has played a lot of madden and ncaa on playstation. i am not sure either of those qualifies one as an expert on the flag football field, but that is not the real point. the real point was that their relationship, or lack thereof, on the field was so uncomfortable that we were hard pressed not to leave the field each week as fast as we could in the hopes that we wouldn't be asked back out the following week. flag football, 2007, was a waste of our time.

in theory, we should enjoy flag football. that's what kiker and i thought at least. having been on the field, we saw our competition and knew that we had enough friends and co-workers that we could put together a product that might win a few games and redeem the prior season's failures. right? absolutely. we started asking around, putting names on paper and came up with an eleven man roster that we felt could compete in the c-league as well as enjoy each other's company, win or lose. even before week one, signs pointed to the season not being exactly what we had drawn up. we had problems getting folks to practice. we had issues with guys saying "i'd like to play" and then hedging when it came to giving up a sunday afternoon. we had a couple guys that liked "the idea" of playing a lot more than actually playing. we were in trouble before the season opened. i just didn't want to see it.

week one came and our season peaked on our first drive. i wish i could tell you i am kidding. but i am not. we could not have scripted coming out of the box any better. we got the ball first. i was 5 for 6 on the drive. i threw a touchdown pass. we completed the point after attempt. and we were up 7-0. high-fiving. feeling good about ourselves. patting each other on the back. life could not get much better. it was 1:15 into the 2000 alabama-ucla game and we were freddie milons dancing into the endzone. wait a second. did i say the 2000 alabama-ucla game? the game that saw alabama take the lead on a punt return and then, in a moment, find themselves down 21-7 with no chance of getting back into the game? yep. that's the one. and that was our season.

had i a clue that our season's everest was going to be that first drive, i wouldn't have changed anything...i don't guess. i am not a quitter. but it certainly would've helped with the perspective that i could not find after four weeks. "but we're better than this, guys! remember that first drive??? we just need to figure things out." but we weren't better than that. just like freddie milon's punt return, our first drive was a fluke. beginner's luck. chance. god giving me the finger. whatever. and the season went downhill from there. we never scored more than 13 points in any one game. we never forced a punt. we were slow. we were unorganized. sometimes, we didn't even have the seven guys you are supposed to start a game with. we. were. horrible.

but we answered that question. that, "what if?". what if we played another season with another group of guys and we tried to have fun with it?

we would still suck? oh, cool. thanks. read you loud and clear. if there was a bright spot, it was that i never got in my car angry with a teammate. i never didn't want to come back. and that's a testament to the guys i went to war with. granted, we were carrying knives into a gunfight, but i would pick the same guys again. no doubt about it. i am thankful for good friends and good attitudes. that, more than our play on the field, will define the birminghamandcheese when i look back on our experience from the future.

next spring, after basketball ends, there's a good chance that i am going to keep my sundays free and clear of flag-football. do something with the family. watch the braves in their home reds. i won't have to worry about "what if?", not as it relates to flag-football.

and i think i am ok with the answer.