Casual
MATUS, VICTORINO
Casual TEAM MCDONALD'S For most people, New Year's and birthdays are the annual events that remind us we're getting older. Another year, another birthday. But for me, that prompting comes in the...
...Those guys, for reasons apparent, weren't invited back last year...
...That our bodies have had it...
...And everyone supersizes...
...Now, none of us is quite 30 years old, but we're getting close...
...And for the time being, we continue to eat as if we had the metabolism of 18-year-olds...
...And most of my teammates thought the same: To take down an opponent not by tackling him to the ground but rather by pulling off tiny flags attached to his waist with Velero...
...And once, a player brought his buddy from college who was hit so badly we had to take him to the hospital for an ultrasound...
...And injuries began to mount...
...The first years after high-school graduation, we played from mid-morning until mid-afternoon...
...Not the kind you watch, the kind you play...
...But college life, free of required phys ed, had an impact on our play...
...Same time, same place, even same rf^ weather—in 10 years, the Saturday after Thanksgiving has never failed to produce a crisp autumn morning beneath a cold blue sky...
...A favorite post-game meal is the Surf 'n' Turf (Big Mac and Filet-O-Fish...
...The teams are usually seven on seven, and everyone, at some point in the game, gets the ball—and gets crushed...
...We'd take a ' short half-time break, guzzle down some Gatorade, and then head back to the field to inflict | further damage...
...VICTORINO MATUS...
...But when we / step onto that field, it's as if we were still in high school...
...Some of us are indeed married, some have children...
...After the big game, both teams head over to McDonald's for a second Thanksgiving feast...
...One of us still plays despite pins in his upper arm from an arm-wrestling contest gone awry...
...To end a decade of tackle football with humiliating flags would be to admit we were all washed up...
...Still, we kept on playing, knowing that pain and punishment awaited us...
...And every year it is played the same way: full-body contact, with no padding or protection whatsoever...
...Just not now...
...Most of them had played varsity football in high school, and one was playing at the college level...
...One player, who had previously suffered a dislocated shoulder, aggravated it when he was monster-tackled...
...There probably isn't a better example of male stubbornness (and possibly stupidity) than this...
...Now that will be the final insult...
...But for me, that prompting comes in the form of football...
...That we will someday go from tackling to touching is inevitable...
...But last year, we came up against our younger selves: my classmates' younger brothers...
...Every Saturday-after-Thanksgiving for the past 10 years, my high-school friends and I have joined in a classic game of football...
...Come to think of it, the eventual shift from tackle to flag football might not even be the ultimate proof of our getting older...
...Some of us had taken up smoking and were just plain out of breath...
...It's awfully hard to consume $10 worth of McDonald's, but after the game, some of us come pretty close...
...we're all more or less resigned to this by the time we're 30...
...The very notion sent shivers up my spine...
...So maybe George doesn't have to play...
...As the years fly by, that post-Thanksgiving game is a jealously guarded constant in our lives...
...But a few weeks ago, two players brought it up: What if we used flags...
...Perhaps an even crueler blow will come the day one of us forgoes the Double Big Mac for a Grilled Chicken Salad...
...This time, there was no escaping the knowledge that we weren't the athletes we had been in 1990...
...Then two years ago, my team faced a motley crew who were strangers to all of us but one—and even he scarcely knew these distant in-laws and assorted hangers-on...
...It was a slap in the face...
...That was the last time we saw him...
...One of us pleaded that if we play again this year under tackle rules without protection, we'll lose George, and "he's got to support a wife and kids...
...Obviously, though, they were out for our blood— especially their wiry quarterback, who had a shaved head and tattooed arms...
...It was an unpleasant experience, with a few personal scuffles, and in the end they ripped us to shreds...
...In the back of our minds, there's long been a nagging question we have chosen to ignore...
...We lost badly...
...Receivers were starting to slip and fall, and the quarterback's beergut made him less agile and more prone to getting sacked...
...Another time, a friend with a size 15 shoe stepped on a guy's neck...
...True...
...My friends and I took comfort in the thought that that game was an aberration...
...With each Thanksgiving that passed, our guys were looking heavier and running slower...
...some still live in Jersey, while the rest have j gone to big cities...
...Bloodied knees, gashed lips, sprains, and pulled muscles...
Vol. 5 • November 1999 • No. 11
