bloggingandy!

And...we're back

2007-11-01T23:31:00.000-05:00

So, yep, I’ve decided to resume the blog. It’s been a while since I posted here (probably near the end of NFL Europe, in July), mostly by my own choice.

Just to make it easier, let’s do this in Q&A format. Isn’t that cute?

What have I been up to since the last blog?

The end of NFL Europe was nuts. I went to Frankfurt for the World Bowl and watched a great game. I got to spend an awesome week in London with Jane. I flew from London back to Frankfurt (the flight got delayed, and I arrived in Frankfurt at 2 AM) only to turn around and leave Frankfurt for JFK Airport in New York at 8 AM.

I pretty much stepped in the door and got a phone call: NFL Europe got shut down, as we had heard all along.

I got to actually spend almost a month at home in New York, to blow off the steam of NFLE and relax before heading back to sunny California. Chilled with the parents, cleaned up some of the house, played some Playstation, unpacked from Germany, while also unpacking from the last year in San Francisco (and also some Vanderbilt stuff) so I could re-pack again.

Moved to California, and I’m back with the 49ers now. Good times.

What are you doing with the 49ers this year?

Well, interestingly enough, I’m getting the chance to do a little more this year. I’m getting to take on a little more responsibility with the publications part of the PR staff. I’m working with the game programs, the alumni newsletters, and all that stuff.

It’s awesome. It’s almost like doing the stuff I did senior year at Vanderbilt, when I did editing for the sports section of the paper. It’s sweet.

Are you working a lot?

Yeah, a bit, but it’s fun. That’s just what it’s like during the NFL season. I always put it to people this way: think of how much you see the NFL in the news during the season. Someone’s got to manage it, right? (I wish I was that important, but, you get the idea.)

***

That’s really it in a nutshell. There are all kinds of interesting bits that I hope to recall and blog up as time rolls on. Actually, the accumulation of interesting stories are kind of what inspired me to come back to this.

Just since the time part of it is going to be nuts, the updates will come as I can do them, or as interesting stuff happens.

For instance:

- I had my first earthquake this week! It was a 5.6 on the Richter scale, which, according to the locals, is moderately strong. At first, it felt like a large truck was driving by. Then, the walls shook a little more, and it got louder. That’s when I realized, “Oh, I’m in an earthquake.”

It was nothing too crazy or earth-shattering (hahaha!!!!). I didn’t even move off the couch—although, as I’ve been told afterwards, maybe I should have hid under a doorway or something.

- I got the OK to work at Super Bowl XLII in Phoenix this February. Score.

Those are the good times so far. There’s more to come (like, where I live, and interesting stuff like that), but I just wanted to get the ball rolling once again. More to come, friends.

Exit Plan: World Bowl and London

2007-06-24T14:43:00.001-05:00

Well, that's it folks: the season is over.

Last night was World Bowl XV, in Frankfurt (where I am about to fly out of, to go to London) (we'll get to that in a moment). Interesting parallel to the Super Bowl: for most of the World Bowl, it was pouring, just like in Miami 5 months ago.

Luckily, Commerzbank Arena--home of the Frankfurt Galaxy--has a kind of retractable umbrella-like roof, so all the rain stayed off the field. It was chilly for a late June night in Frankfurt--I'd guess that we had about 60 degrees with a good breeze. (Despite the umbrella top, the stadium remains an open-air arena.)

Let me just say that we watched probably the best World Bowl ever. The Hamburg Sea Devils--huge underdogs--came out the champions. We're due for a small recap.

***

I can tell you exactly why the Sea Devils won the World Bowl. And it all has to do with the US PR Assistants.

If you recall from our debaucherous trip to Hamburg, their PR assistant is the wonderful Joe Trahan. We roomed together in training camp, and kind of by nature, we competed in lots of ways this season. Our press releases at one point became a war of arms in a way, with him putting out a 45-page release after my 38-page release, and so on. (I'll argue for quantity over quality.)

But in training camp, and just in talking about the various strengths and weaknesses of our teams, I had one goal in mind: I wanted my team to finish about Joe's. That's it, just that simple. Nothing against Joe--he's a great guy, it was good rooming with him, and hanging out in Hamburg was fun. I just wanted my team to be better. His teams, much like mine, have always been eternal losers. Between he and I, one of us would be out of the cellar.

So, since I wanted to finish above him, of course, we got swept by Hamburg during the season, we finish in last place by far, and they end up winning the World Bowl and he gets a ring.

I even told Beth (Frankfurt's PR assistant) during the week that she had to watch out, because I was going to be rooting for Frankfurt and thus, they are cursed. I texted her before the game and said, "Break the curse!" But alas, the curse lives on, and the best team in the league this year lost in the championship to the only team I wanted to beat this year.

***

The game, like I said, was incredible. Hamburg's QB, Casey Bramlet (Washington Redskins) set a World Bowl record with 4 TD passes. He threw for 300-something yards, too. Wide receiver Marcus Maxwell--yes, San Francisco 49ers allocation Marcus Maxwell--was plain unstoppable. He finished with 5 catches for 120+, with 2 TDs. A

t times, he was just dominant, just constantly beating Frankfurt/Vanderbilt alum Bill Alford on the corner. Physically, Maxwell just outmatched him. Not only is Maxwell 6'3", but he is athletic, and just a physical demon.

Had Frankfurt not gone down 13-0 to start the game, they might have had a chance. But, their defense could not stop Hamburg whatsoever. Their only drives where they didn't score were on a missed field goal and two punts.

But wow, what an exciting game. 48,000 people. Now, we’re left to wonder if the greatest World Bowl ever played will be the last World Bowl ever played.

***

My experience at the World Bowl was pretty sweet, too.

As I explained, I really had nothing to do this week. Even right before the game, I resigned myself to just hopping on an early shuttle to the stadium and just hanging out. But as I was getting on the shuttle, I ran into an old friend who we might recall from our earlier blogs: David Tossell.

Yup, the same David Tossell I helped out during the Super Bowl, at the NFL International booth. He was doing well, and he needed help getting some stuff to a VIP booth at the stadium. No problem.

When we got there, he asked what my game day duties were. I shrugged, and he admitted that he planned on watching the game from the cushy VIP seats and sipping on a few cold ones (sodas). He invited me, and I took about a tenth of a second to accept.

So, I watched the World Bowl from a plush leather chair right around the 40-yard line. Then, with about 5 minutes left in the game, I wandered onto the field to help get player quotes. That was it. A pretty sweet deal, if you ask me.

***

As with the absolute elation that I'm sure Joe felt, and continues to feel, I'll remember one image of this game for a very, very long time.

Any of my frequent visitors know that Frankfurt's PR assistant, Beth, has pretty much been my best friend during this season. We shared a lot of the same issues at times, and we ended up being each other's sounding board throughout the season.

I'm not going to lie, that's most of the reason I wanted Frankfurt to win. Yeah, I wanted to finish above Joe, but that was a moot point anyway. I really enjoyed Frankfurt, and their stadium, and their fans. But, more than the Frankfurt Galaxy, I was rooting for Beth.

She's a trooper. She worked herself just about to the brink of insanity during World Bowl week, even more than during the course of the season. Her entire family was here this week, and from working 40 hours a day, you just don't get a chance to see them.

Since her team did pretty well this season, I kind of experienced success vicariously through her, as much as I could. We'd always wonder if you'd rather have less to do and lose games, or work like crazy and win games. At times, each of us wanted to be in the other's shoes.

I wanted her to win. I wanted her to experience what it was like for hard work to come to fruition. Not that you need a championship to validate your work, but--come in, it's a championship. After winning the championship, you always look back and say, "Well, we won a ring, so it was worth it." After winning the championship, you think about all those mistakes you made during the season, and about most of them, you say," Well, I guess it was okay, because we won a ring." And, after all the suffering, and agony and misery that you endure for the 3 months you're here, winning that ring just ices it. It's the prize inside the box of Cracker Jacks. I'm sure as hell not eating the box of cracker jacks again, but I'll be damned if I'm not proud of digging that thing out of it.

On the flip side, there's nothing worse (I'm told) than making the championship, coming so close to calling yourself the best, and then losing it. And therein lies the heartbreaking image that will last with me.

After the game, I was doing around the field getting game quotes for the post game press release. I saw everyone that I wanted to congratulate--Joe, a few of the former Berlin Thunder guys on Hamburg, Marcus Maxwell, and some of the Hamburg staff I knew.

Walking by the near sideline, I can't remember if I felt a tug on my sleeve, or a tap on my shoulder, or if I even heard a voice over the blaring celebration. I kept walking where I was going but turned around, and there she was.

It's so hard to describe the look that I got. It was a good ten, fifteen yards away, but we looked each other right in the eye. The emotion had just been sucked out of her. It was that expressionless, yet crushed twist on her face. Beth is a fighter; but for the first time, she looked defeated. She's one of the warmest, nicest people I've ever come across working in this business; yet the stare I got right then was this penetrating, death-of-the-warmth glare that even made me sad.

All I wanted to do was go over there and hug her, and tell her that it's going to be okay. But, it's a good thing I didn't, because nothing I could have said or done would have made any difference, really. And now, thinking about it, the rest of that look in her eyes makes sense. Call it helpless, call it powerless, but the look embodied what makes sports such a thrill and so damning all at once.

After the championship, there is no tomorrow, no second chance to prove to everyone that you are the best. Everything you did up this point really doesn't matter. And now, you've just lost the last game of the season, the last chance you had to show your stuff. There's nothing that will change you from being second place. And accepting an ending that isn't at the top of the mountain is a very difficult ending for a fighter to swallow.

I spent so much time this season enjoying pieces of victory through Beth. This time, I just turned and kept walking to avoid that same helpless feeling.

***

I knew I wouldn't see Beth after that. And I don't know when I'll see her again, either.

That's what made parts of this season feel like summer camp, you know? You meet people and live with them for what, in your little world, feels like an eternity. You come together, and you even form deep and profound friendships along the way. Then, all in a flash, it's gone, and you all return to your normal lives wherever it was you came from. After that, crossing paths with any of these people becomes purely coincidence.

I never really anticipated how sad the end of this season would be. Some of the players I became friends with, we all knew that last Friday was the last time they might ever step on a football field. Some of the staff and personnel people I met? They all live in Germany. Who knows when I will see them again?

And then, there are people like Joe, and Beth. I work in the same business as these people. We share experiences and, inevitably, help each other out along the way. But never again will we climb the same mountain that we just conquered (in our own little ways).

Something I've realized through all of this is that the single biggest factor in experiences like this are the people. People will make your experience wonderful, and people will make your experience hell. Like all of the PR assistants in this league, I had my share of both. Luckily, I think I'll remember the better people when I think back about this experience.

***

I realize this entry is getting a bit long, but I didn’t even get to the exciting part of today yet. I’m in London!

I had quite a trip getting here—cancelled flights, moved gates, going through security twice, going through passport control twice, almost getting arrested for being in Germany for too long (but, it ended up that the passport controller just can’t count), then being on the wrong lines…it was quite a trip. But 7 hours later, here I am, in bright (dark and cloudy) and sunny (absolute downpour since the minute I got here) London.

Since it’s 7:30 PM on a Sunday, and I’m essentially at the airport, I’m calling it a night. I had some English/Mediterranean dinner at the restaurant in the lobby, and now, I’m done. Tomorrow, I’ll be wandering around London until Jane arrives, so I hope to come back with an enjoyable account of getting lost in the English capital. Cheers!

A Reminder And A Review

2007-06-22T21:07:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I haven’t blogged in a few weeks. For starters, my bad. It’s been an interesting mix of events in the last few weeks—nothing really major (ie—blogworthy) has really popped up in my life, yet since the last time we spoke, it’s been a complete whirlwind.

My last few entries were pretty football-heavy, so let me go ahead and get the majority of the football-talk out of the way.

As some of you predicted, from my mere association with the team, the Berlin Thunder were the worst team in NFL Europa this season. We finished on a 6-game losing streak, became the second team in league history to lose every home game in a season, and didn’t throw a touchdown pass since our Week 4 comeback win against Cologne (which was also our last victory).

Interestingly, by the statistics, we were one of the best teams in the league. We had the second best offense and the third best defense. Chris Barclay pretty much ran the league this year: he had the second best all-purpose yardage season ever, the third best kickoff return season ever, and became the Thunder’s single-season—and CAREER—rushing champion. Damn.

But, as you’ve surmised from reading my other entries, we were great at finding ways to lose games. In our last game, at Amsterdam, we blew yet another lead with 5 minutes left in the game. That’s 4 of our 8 losses that we lost leads for the first time, late in the game. That’s just painful.

Just as well, however…we knew my team couldn’t be a winner.

***

Let’s just go ahead and get this out of the way: yep, Amsterdam was tons of fun. I toured around the red light district, and peeked into a few coffee shops (but did not sample). In the afternoon, I took the train into the middle of downtown and just wandered around for an hour or two. I managed to stumble my way into the red light district—bear in mind, it’s like 3 PM—and for anyone who ever needs a quickie in the mid afternoon on a weekday, let me just tell you, the afternoon talent available is sub-par. Save your money for nightfall.

The road trip was a fitting way to end our season. The train ride from Berlin was 6 hours. Our trip, however, stretched out to a cozy 11. Ugggghhhhhhhh. First, one of the switches on the train broke. So, we had to call a mechanic and wait on the tracks for 2 hours before he got there.

Once that debacle was taken care of, we came up to a stopped train about an hour later, right over the Netherlands border. Why was this train stopped, you ask? Well…it seems they ran over some guy on a scooter, and killed him.

…

So, they had to clear the train off in—and I mean this—the wilderness of the Netherlands. We called up the Admirals (the team we were playing against) and they helped us charter a bus to pick us up and get us into Amsterdam. The bus itself took 2 hours to get there. Then, the bus ride itself was an hour and a half. We got in around 11. Good thing we had a night game.

Although, the extra rest really didn’t help that much.

***

Well, here I am in Frankfurt, Germany, the site of this year’s World Bowl. Funny, this blog started with my work at the Super Bowl, and now here we are at the mini-Super Bowl.

Don’t expect the same kind of cool encounters, though. In fact, I’ve really done nothing this entire week. I haven’t been given any duties (despite my efforts to help others), and I’m just not allowed to go to other events with everyone else (like tonight’s VIP party). Seriously, all I’ve done this week was help my boss, Cem, carry some photocopies from a copy shop back to the hotel.

Besides that, I’m staying at the downtown Marriott—a nice hotel, if I say so myself—and eating the staff breakfasts and lunches every day.

On one hand, it has been nice to use this week to sleep off the drudge of the season. But on the other hand, I could be doing that at home. And in the meantime, 5 or 6 people have been going crazy with all of the work they have this week, and people like me have been freeloading the whole way.

I haven’t even been able to tour about Frankfurt that much, either, since it’s been dark and rainy most of the week. There really isn’t that much to see, anyway. It’s a banking city. There are lots of big, bank headquarters, and lots of big hotels to have banking conventions and meetings.

So, that’s how my season ends, alone in a hotel room in Frankfurt waiting for tomorrow’s World Bowl, between Beth’s Frankfurt Galaxy and Joe’s Hamburg Sea Devils. Should be a good one (1 PM live, NFL Network) (with a life performance from rock legend Meat Loaf!) (yes, Meat Loaf).

***

I feel compelled to touch on this, since it’s now been talked about on ESPN and ProFootballTalk.com: the rumors of NFL Europa ending after tomorrow’s World Bowl.

Of course it’s possible. Then again, rumors of NFL Europe/Europa ending have been happening at the end of every season for the past ten years or so.

Some people say that this new league Mark Cuban is starting could be the new NFL developmental league. Maybe so, but the NFL isn’t going to cut ties with its own league—of fifteen years—for some other league that hasn’t even played a game yet, and won’t until after the next NFL season ends, at the earliest. And, if that becomes the case, much still has to be decided about this league—much less get billionaires like Cuban to agree that starting a minor league NFL is worth their time and money.

One of the points made at PFT was:

“Finally, the developmental benefits aren't as compelling as they used to be. … Think about it— at one point a list of European success stories could be rattled off pretty quickly (Brad Johnson, Kurt Warner, etc.). We can't think of the last guy who starred in Europe before becoming a big deal in the States.”

True, the number of starting quarterbacks that played in NFLE has gone down (the most recent success story was Jake Delhomme, who played in Amsterdam in 1998 and Frankfurt in 1999, before becoming Carolina’s starter in 2003). But what about guys like Brian Waters, who played on the offensive line with Berlin in 2000 and has been named to the last three Pro Bowls with the Chiefs? Bills punter Brian Moorman, who played in Berlin in 2000 and 2001, and has been to the last two AFC Pro Bowls? Or Adam Vinateri, who played with Amsterdam in 1996? Marco Rivera (Packers/Cowboys Pro Bowl guard), Scotland in 1997? Dante Hall, Scotland 2001? Jon Kitna, Barcelona 1997? Damon Huard, for crying out loud? Frankfurt 1998?

I could continue, but my point is that just because NFLE isn’t producing Super Bowl winning quarterbacks doesn’t mean it’s not producing stars at all. The purpose of a developmental league isn’t to produce Hall of Famers. It’s meant to give the players who a) need more professional experience or b) just fell through the cracks a second chance. If those players become future Hall of Famers, then, that’s outstanding.

Also, PFT goes on to point out that with the projected success of the London game next season, and the possibility of future games in the English capital, that the league is no longer necessary as a tool of international growth. That couldn’t be farther from the truth—and, think of this: Germany has been promised regular season games in 2008 and another in 2009, I believe. (Maybe 2010…) You think if the NFL pulls the plug on NFL Europa now, that the Germans will welcome them back for one single game with open arms just 12 months later?

One other point they made at PFT—which contributes to plenty of this talk—is that unless you’re an avid follower of the league, you wouldn’t know that the championship game is being played tomorrow. I wouldn’t quite peg that as an indicator of the league’s downfall, since even in its heyday, you barely knew what was going on in this league.

…but I could go on about ways to improve the promoting of this league. In the interest of my future, I’ll keep those to myself.

***

That being said, my experience in this league sure was quite a ride.

There is no doubt in my mind that I’m better at what I do than I was when I got here. I know that. It’s just the things that I had to give to get better, and some of the ridiculous experiences I had to go through to get there.

Being here for such a period of time is a pretty emotionally taxing experience. On top of that, some of the people I lived with—not including the players—really weren’t very friendly people, and moreover, I found out pretty quickly that I couldn’t trust anyone. As a result, I pretty much just kept to myself when I was in Berlin.

Since I was around so much and I just kept working, I feel like the expectations of me from certain areas of the team were just unrealistic. Eventually, it got to the point where I was simply a garbage disposal of work, and I wasn’t expected to do things like, leave the hotel, or attend team functions when I could be home doing work for someone else. (I’ve told some of you about the time I was yelled at for getting lunch.)

It’s funny, because if you ask the people who knew what I had to go through—the PR staff, the GM, and the head coach—they think I did a great job. It’s a lot of the people who had no idea what I had to do—and ended up expecting ridiculous things from me—that leave this experience thinking I’m a terrible worker.

The sad thing is, there was really nothing I could do about that. On most days, I’d work from 8 AM to about 1 or 2 AM, and yet I’d wake up to being yelled at about why I didn’t take care of something.

I went into this experience as confident and self-assured as I possibly could have been. But, I was just telling my dad how, at times, I equated this season’s worth of experiences to a boot camp. Eventually, you can only take so much before you break.

On top of that, some things here were the complete opposite of how they were in San Francisco. With the 49ers, everything was all about communication, and a team effort. Everyone knew what was going on, and how they could pitch in. Here, to call communication poor was an understatement; it was non-existent. Getting anything done meant overcoming someone that stood in your way. By the second half of the season, I realized how much extra time I needed to portion for things like, an injury report, because I realized all the people I had to deal with and all the hoops I had to jump through.

The funny thing is, with all this difficulty I encountered among the staff and coaches, the players were great. They’re some of the best guys I’ve ever been around, and I wish most of them nothing but the best of luck. I even look forward to seeing some of them around the league in the future.

And, to a large degree, the experiences I relayed above were about a very select, small group of people. The PR staff with the Thunder—Cem, his assistant Folke, and the PR intern Benja, were just awesome to work with. They’re good at what they do and they’re a fun bunch. I’ll always be pulling for our head coach, John Allen. I really feel like he has a great future ahead of him, and I cannot wait to see him succeed. Our GM, Joe Cealera, always had time to stop and talk to me, to get to know me and to understand the work I was doing. Our operations director, Phil Hickey, would bend over backwards to help me if I needed it. I’ve even had some members of the media thank me at times during the season for my work.

As a result, the Thunder have made it clear that they want me to come back next season. Will I do it? It’s hard to say. A lot of it depends on what is going on in my life a year from now. Of course, the goal is always a full-time job, in the NFL or otherwise. But, if that’s not going to happen, who knows what I might do?

One thing that is cool is I’m now 2-for-2 in being asked back by teams I’ve worked for. (I guess no one has caught on to the whole losing streak thing yet.)

***

On Sunday afternoon, I’m out of Germany for good. Mostly.

I fly off to London, for my four-ish day vacation (on Wednesday night, I fly back to Frankfurt, so I can fly to JFK on Thursday morning). I can’t even tell you how excited I am. I’ve always wanted to see London, and I get to hang out with Jane, who I haven’t seen in quite a while.

Then, it’s back to New York for about three weeks, before I re-pack my life and head back to San Francisco. Expect another update after the World Bowl, or from London.

My, That Was Very Commodore-Like Of You

2007-06-03T14:49:00.000-05:00

I would say that it felt like getting kicked in the balls, but I don't even think that adequately describes what happened on the field last night. We lost. Yeah, just like usual, but this was no ordinary loss. With 9:02 to go, we were up 22-3. With 1:30 to go, they were up 25-22, and it was pretty much over.

But the story of this game requires a little more detail than that.

***

For those keeping track, we played the first-place Frankfurt Galaxy last night, the same Frankfurt Galaxy that beat us 35-7 in a demoralizing beating a few weeks ago at their place. We knew we were better than that, and even though we were officially out of the World Bowl picture after losing last week to Hamburg, we wanted to play better than that drubbing the last time.

Especially because we were playing this one at home, where we WERE 0-3 so far this season.

So, in comes big bad Frankfurt. They're in first place, looking to get a little closer to the World Bowl. (as we explained last time, they couldn't clinch this week.) Also for those keeping track, you know that our story this season is that we play between 2 and 3 quarters of football a game, and if we lose, it's because we get obliterated in those quarters that we essentially don't show up. In both our wins, we've won because we've played exceedingly well in the few minutes that we showed up.

So, our aim coming into this one? Play a complete game to our potential. We know that when we want to play, we can come back from 21 down against a team that's tied for first (Cologne). So, let's go do it.

Since we were playing Frankfurt this week, and they're NFL Europa's baby, the game was live on NFL Network. Plenty of players' parents and families were in the stands (as we'll get to later). We didn't want to lose 4 in a row--both overall, and at home. We didn't want to secure a losing record for the season. And we wanted to wash away that beat down they gave us last time.

So, we come out, and on our first drive, Chris Barclay scores a touchdown. (That's our first touchdown in the first quarter this season.) Barclay would end up having a huge day, by far the best day that any one player had for us at all this season.

They come back on offense, and even though they get down into our red zone--they even scored a touchdown at one point that got called back--we held them to a field goal. Our guys start to feel like we can play with these guys. Confidence is growing.

Mostly uneventful second quarter. We trade a few punts. But, I must point out, Key Play Of The Loss #1: a missed 50-yard field goal midway through the quarter.

This is a good time to point out our kicker odyssey we went through this week.

On Thursday, we come to the conclusion that our regular kicker, Andrew Jacas, he of the 50-yard field goal record in NFL Europa, sufficiently injured his quad in last week's game, to the point that he cannot kick this week. So, we get on the phone with D.J. Fitzpatrick, who punted with us in training camp.

Keep this timeline in mind: we call him Thursday. We tell him that he's going to kick off and kick field goals for us on Saturday. He gets on a plane Friday morning. He lands in Berlin Saturday around 1:30 PM. We kick off at 6. He opens the game with a kickoff--presumably his first kickoff since Notre Dame, in 2005. On probably zero hours of sleep, after a trans-Atlantic Flight which took off, at this point, over 20 hours ago to his body.

Next up? A 40-yard field goal to give us a 7-point lead over the best team in the league. It could be the first field goal he's kicked in almost a year and a half. I doubt he's eaten yet in this country so far...maybe a banana during pre-game.

It's up...and it's good!

Holding, on linebacker Tim Clarke. 10 yard penalty. Repeat the try.

Okay, D.J. (by the way...this couldn't have happened to a nicer, down to earth guy.) 50-yard field goal--yes, a 4-pointer here in NFLE--which, I assume again, he hasn't even attempted since he placekicked at Notre Dame his senior year. Even then, I doubt he had to kick many 50-yarders in his day. Check that, I don't think he's ever attempted a 50-yarder after a flight across the ocean. And I don't think he ever will again--I found out later that he's spent the entire last year training to be a full-time punter.

To his credit, it was right on line. From my angle, it appeared that someone got a piece of it, but either way, it fell short.

Keep that in mind: 3 points that we had, called back for holding, and a short 4-pointer.

We trade punts for the rest of the second quarter. Time of possession in the second: Frankfurt- 2:42, Berlin: 12:18. No points scored for either side.

We come out in the second half, feeling full well that we can beat these guys. We've been killing them in the run game. Barclay had 73 first-half rushing yards. So, we come out in the third quarter, and we run, run, run run......run. 12 called runs on our first drive, and six in a row to Cal Murray, who eventually bulldozed in for a 1-yard touchdown.

Enjoy this post-touchdown sequence: PAT attempt: blocked by Bill Alford (go dores!). Offsides on Alford, rekick from the 1. PAT attempt good, offsides on someone, retry from the half yard line.

We bring in the offense. For a half yard, we're going for two. And we get it! Another Cal Murray run. We're up 15-3.

They come in and go three and out. We come out and run, run run.....run. Here's one sequence of ball carriers during this drive: Barclay, Barclay, Barclay, Murray, Murray, Barclay, Barclay. Followed by incomplete pass, incomplete pass. Up to that point, we called about a million runs, and drove from our 17 to their 27. We call two passes, and the drive dies. So again, we need to put the scoring into the hands of the probably now-delirious D.J. 44 yard field goal.

Short. You can't blame the kid one bit. But remember this.

So their quarterback, J.T. O'Sullivan--one of the best in the league--is coming out firing. To make matters worse, our ends keep losing contain and he can scramble for first downs almost at will.

End of the third quarter. We're up, 15-3. Time of possession in the third quarter: Galaxy-3:02, Thunder- 11:58. Time of possession over the last two quarters combined: Galaxy-5:44, Thunder-24:16. And we only scored 8 points!

The fourth quarter essentially begins with O'Sullivan getting picked off by safety Chris Harrell.

We come out, with 13:49 remaining, up by 12 against the most potent offense in the league, in a game where we're dominating the ground game, and do this: false start, incomplete, incomplete, incomplete, time out. (Luckily, a defensive penalty gave us a few yards and another play.) Next play? 62 yard completion! Then a wide receiver reverse! Then a rushing touchdown! We're up 22-3 with 10 minutes to go! They need a miracle to come back!

....let's just keep going, shall we?

So, when you're down big at the end of the game, what do you need to come back? You need quick scores and quick defensive outs. Frankfurt comes out, and J.T. O'Sullivan proceeds to do this: 18 yard completion, incomplete, 30 yard completion, 20 yard touchdown pass. 22-10. That took 1:15. Again, in this time span, he could have waited for his receivers to run back to Frankfurt--he had that much time in the pocket. No pass rush to be heard of.

They kick off to us--but don't go onsides, just a regular kickoff. We come out and, first throw an incompletion, but then run for a first down. There are about 7 minutes left, we're up 12 at home, and we're running the ball like crazy. Chris Barclay just went over 100 yards--on his 11th carry, our first 100-yard rusher of the year.

Then, Key Play #....whatever: on the next play: Cal Murray runs for no gain. Gets called for taunting. 15 yard penalty, making it 2nd and 25.

A league official (who I will not name), who was at our game, came up to me on the sideline and said: "Andy, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you're going to lose this game because of that taunt. I can feel it."

That's when the feeling started in my stomach.

Anyway, we were winning, so of course our offense couldn't dig themselves out of 2nd and 25. Tom Malone comes in to punt--and he has a habit of not punting well when we really need him to. 26 yard punt. Their ball, just over 5 to go.

On my NFL Network headset, I can hear the play-by-play guy, Ari Wolff, say: "You know, we left Frankfurt for dead about ten minutes ago, but if they can get a quick score here, this could be a ball game."

And that's when the feeling in my stomach started growing. I started remembering Travis saying, to the NFL Network crew in our production meeting, "You know, I feel like if we play four quarters of football, this is a good football team. Our problem is that we play two or three quarters." By that math, our two or three quarters of good ball were up.

Here we were, at home against the league's best team, fighting desperately to win at home for once, to save our dignity after suffering our worst defeat of the season against them last time--and here we were, up by 12, and looking at our sideline, you could see the seams start to unravel. Everyone started to realize, wow, our defense hasn't stopped them yet this quarter. Our offense started to realize, man, we gave them a chance to get back into this game. But still, no one could have possibly guessed how this epic meltdown could, or would, go down.

J.T. and the Frankfurt offense come on the field. On a 9-play drive--all passing plays--he goes 7 of 9 for 82 yards, culminating in a 6-yard touchdown to the tight end. How long did it take? It was their longest drive of the second half--2 minutes, 23 seconds. 22-17 us, with 2:45 left. And they had all 3 time outs.

"Still," Ari Wolff said to a live audience watching on NFL Network, "as strong as Chris Barclay and the Thunder rushing attack have been so far, all they really need is a first down or two on the ground, and this game is over."

We come out and, after Murray runs for no gain and they call a time out, I start to realize that there's no way we're going to run on this play. As my mom says, "You feel it in your bones." I knew, in MY bones, that we were not going to run on this play.

After all, we still had to let them back into the game.

To everyone's credit, the play worked beautifully. Play action, naked bootleg. Travis threw a strike to a wide open Charles Davis. Hit him right in the chest and Charles goes down with it, I assume to protect the ball and not fumble or lose it. He had it right over the first down marker. The game was just about over.

As he falls down with it, his impact on the ground makes him drop the pass. Incomplete pass.

"Why are they throwing the ball here?," Wolff asked his audience. "That wasn't a very good idea."

You could feel the collective air start to get sucked out of anyone associated with the Berlin Thunder--fans, staff, and players included. Everyone started to realize that yes, it was going to happen.

But it's still third down, and Barclay is on fire, so we've got a shot. We come out, and...Travis drops back to pass. Again--it was a well-called play that was about to work. Travis threw a great ball in Carlton Brewster's direction--Brewster ran an out. I mean, when you throw it to the league's leading wide receiver who's wide open, it's never a bad idea, right?

Brewster slipped and fell. It sails out of bounds. Fourth down, and our drive took exactly 4 seconds off the clock. One guy threw his helmet as he came off; Brewster couldn't believe he fell down; Travis was, undeniably, frustrated after throwing two perfect, first down balls, neither of which hit their man, and may have sealed his team's fate.

I started to recount all of the games I'd lost in my career in football, remembering telling anyone who'd listen that my teams, unquestionably, are losers. And that I don't know what it's like to win, and I don't know how to win. I do know though, for around 80 times, what it's like to lose, and the many various ways to lose. You can lose big, or you can lose a close one; you can get blown out, or you can blow them out and just come up short; you can lose with turnovers, or you can lose on defense; you can get outscored, or you can just not score enough; you can lose with nice guys that aren't very talented, and you can lose with awful guys that have tons of talent; of course, you can lose with awful guys that have no talent; you can lose with smart guys that try really hard, but just aren't big enough; you can lose with big guys that just don't care and don't try; and then you can lose the games like we're watching right now, the kind of game that makes you embarrassed to wear the colors your wearing, when you can almost hear the other team on their sideline saying afterward, "Man, we had no business winning that game." Those are without question the worst.

"What the fuck is wrong with your guys?" the NFL Network director said to me over the headset. "This is why you're 2-5, Andy! And it's why you're about to be 2-6!"

The blood poured into my cheeks. I knew what was about to happen, but I still didn't want to believe it.

Before Tom Malone even came onto the field to punt, I turned to our equipment guy and said only one word: "Amsterdam." He knew what I was talking about.

I was referencing our Week 3 loss, on this very field, to the Amsterdam Admirals. We dominated the game for 3 quarters and 13 minutes, and we outgained them by almost 200 yards. We won the turnover battle. Our defense was playing a great game. Their entire day, all the time they played well, came down to just 12 plays. That's it. They had a 35-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter. That was one. We led the entire game practically, 10-7.

We had the ball with about 7 minutes left in the game. Our offense was playing great. We came out and, presumably, went 3 and out. In came Tom Malone, punting from our 27 yard line. His punt limped through the air for a grand total of 29 yards and bounced awkwardly out of bounds, giving them the ball at their 44.

I still remember Tom coming off the field, one of the best punters in college football history suffering through a season of just plain inconsistency, and watching him throw his helmet and tell me, "That's one of the worst punts I've ever had in my life. We're going to lose because of that punt."

I didn't want to believe him then. But, I watched Drew Olson and Amsterdam's offense come onto the field, and the same thought process I had during our game crept back into my consciousness.

They come out, and--taking up 4 minutes, 32 seconds--run an 11-play scoring drive, taking their first lead, 14-10, with 30 seconds left.

When Travis came onto the field, I saw the look on his face, and it reminded me of Jay Cutler, during any of his first three years, when he would trot out against anyone, during a close game, and I saw the same look on his face: we're not going to win this game. I've seen this before: A Georgia Tech defensive end sacking Cutler, stripping the ball, and a Tech defender recovering the ball to end the game.

I didn't even want to watch as their defensive tackle came up on Travis from behind, stripping the ball, as one of their defenders picked up the ball all by himself, ending our 30 seconds of disbelief.

As I watched Tom come onto the field to try and stave off their offense for a little longer, I remembered.

Tom's punt, for the record, went 34 yards, giving Frankfurt the ball at their 46.

During the commercial break, I hear the director of NFL Network giving out orders for the next segment. Update the standings to reflect Frankfurt's victory and Berlin's loss. Update the World Bowl scenarios and pitch next week's game as a possible World Bowl clincher for the Galaxy.

They hadn't even taken the field yet, and already our loss had been assumed, to a live audience in America! Has it come to that, seriously? I generally try not to take games too hard, but already, I felt humiliated.

Not that it really mattered in a few minutes, anyway.

What did J.T. do? Incomplete, 17 yard completion, 11 yard scramble, 26 yard touchdown pass. 30 second scoring drive. The score was 23-22; they came out and went for two.

From where I was, their end zone was on the opposite side of the field. J.T. ran left, got tackled, and was called short of the end zone. No good. We lined up to receive the kickoff.

The back judge--who had been standing at around the 20 yard line for the conversion attempt--came running up to the referee and signaled at the conversion attempt was, indeed, good.

In my years of watching football, I have never--ever--seen a back judge, 20 yards away from the play, convince the head official on the field that he had a better vantage point of a play concerning a matter of inches, and have the referee overturn the conversion and make it good almost a whole minute after he called it no good.

Coach Allen, of course, was furious, for the same reason I described above. 25-22, and we were about to get the ball with 1:39 left and, because of whatever mistakes we made during the half, we only had 1 time out left.

In only Andy fashion, we come out and throw an incomplete pass and get a penalty called on us. And in true Andy fashion, when it's crunch time, we can't take a few steps forward without taking a few steps back. Get a few yards, penalty. Get a great completion, and it takes us 20 seconds to call a play. We drop a pass. A lineman misses a block and Travis has to throw it away.

We're at the 50 yard line with 27 seconds left. False start. So, now we're 55 yards from the end zone, we've called our last time out, and we have less than 30 seconds to go.

Do I need to tell you what happened next? Incompletion, interception (by one of our former players), game over.

I put my hands on my knees and just stared at the ground. I thought I was going to vomit.

I went to midfield once the clock mercifully hit zeros. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw their PR assistant, Beth, who is pretty much my best friend during his whole season. I wanted to walk over and tell her that she's going to the World Bowl, but I was too embarrassed to even look at her. I just turned and walked away.

Fourth quarter possession time: Galaxy-5:25, Thunder-9:35. For the game, we held the ball for 40 minutes, 2 seconds. They had the ball for 19 minutes, 58 seconds. 40 minutes!

They did not call one running play in the entire second half. J.T. threw for 333 yards--the most in the league this season--and 3 touchdown passes, all in the last nine minutes of the game. More or less, J.T. O'Sullivan scored 21 points in about 4 and a half minutes of ball time.

Losing a game like that is a team effort. You can see a number like that and say, "Wow, your defense lost that one for you." But, that's not entirely true.

We dropped a first down pass at the end--and a receiver slipped on another one. On that note, we called passes when our team was reeling emotionally, and when our running game was doing great. We had a taunting penalty that killed potentially a game-icing drive. Travis had pressure that forced him to throw a few balls away, or inaccurately. We dropped an interception (probably the only good defensive play of the fourth quarter). Their successful two-point conversion still has our coaches angry. And remember, we had hit a field goal earlier and got it called back for holding. Then, his two attempts that missed fell short. Without that holding penalty, this game was tied. Without that two-point conversion call, we still won the game.

I couldn't even imagine how our coaches--or our players!--must have felt. But this one, for me, hit me right in that spot in the middle of my stomach where the ulcer burns, like a little reminder of that "curse," that losing spirit that follows me wherever I go, and trying to think of something that didn't feel like acid, I asked myself: just what does it feel like to win?

***

The sick thing is, I've experienced this type of loss before. (Have I really lost that many football games, that I've suffered an epic, once-in-a-lifetime loss twice already?)

A few of you might remember in 2004, when Vanderbilt hosted a still-lowly Rutgers football team coached by a young Greg Schiano. It was actually my first week of working at The Vanderbilt Hustler, but I was not writing for sports quite yet. (I wrote for the science section first!)

I forget if it was Homecoming, or Parents' Weekend, or whatever it was, but it was an occasion, for whatever reason. Anyway, we played lights out in the first half, and went into half time up 20-3. It was on TV, or, the score had been updated on TV, to the point where I was receiving congratulatory text messages during half.

We even stuck with them in the third quarter. We both scored two touchdowns, and they failed a two-point attempt on one of them. We went into the fourth quarter up, 34-16. That's an 18 point lead! At one point in the third quarter, we were up 27-4. That's a 24-point lead!

They threw a TD pass with about 11 minutes left to go in the fourth. We fumbled about a minute later, and they threw another TD pass on the next play. (Their 2-point attempt failed.) In a span of about three minutes, the score went from 34-16 to 34-29, and you could start to feel the Commodores remember that they were, indeed, those lovable, losing Commodores.

We came out and, in typical Vandy fashion, ran, ran, and ran unsuccessfully, punting the ball to them with 6:01 left. They staged an 11-play, 68-yard scoring drive, culminated by a 1-yard touchdown run by Brian Leonard--his fourth TD of the game. They went for 2, and got it. With 1:11 left, they had taken their first lead, 37-34.

Already, people were texting me to tell me that ESPN was showing our once-in-a-lifetime meltdown during game breaks. "Are you really losing??"

We come out and Jay gets sacked. With 11 seconds left, Jay throws up a desperation chuck down field, and....caught! 66 yard gain! We're in field goal range!

Flag. The refs called that Jay crossed the line of scrimmage before the throw. (To this day, I still swear that he didn't.) 5 yard penalty and loss of downs. Sack, game.

For whatever the occasion was that weekend, I remember after their QB--Ryan Hart--took a knee, and Rutgers celebrated their epic comeback on our field, fireworks went off over the stadium, celebrating whoever it was we were celebrating that day. (The picture on the front of the paper on Monday was Coach Johnson standing with his hands on his hips in disbelief, as fireworks go off behind him in the sky. Classic.)

I remember walking home, thinking I had seen a once-in-a-lifetime collapse, and getting text message after text message after phone call. Pete's text: "Did you seriously lose that game?" Devin's text: "That's a joke, right?" Krosche called. My stomach was at my feet; I remember it well.

Actually, I remember it even better, since it happened yesterday.

***

After having to take a taxi home at midnight to drop off papers to our video guy, I knew I had to get out of the hotel. If I sat there alone in my room, or sat there and talked to the players, I'd feel even worse. I just took a taxi over to the Galaxy hotel and got a few drinks with Beth, before calling it a night.

It was good to see her. Like I said, she's probably my best friend here in Germany during this whole experience. I felt bad that I just couldn't even stomach looking at her after the game.

I have absolutely zero impact on the wins and losses of my football teams; that makes things both better and worse. Better, because during any old loss, I can enjoy my sense of detachment and just chalk another one up to the "curse." But worse, because I really start to wonder, really, what am I doing wrong?

I must say, this one hurts much more than that Vanderbilt loss--no question. I live with these guys, I'm friends with these guys, and I share experiences with a lot of these guys. I see how hard they work, I talk to them about the game, and I watch them do what they're talking about on the field. To watch a game like that--where so many of them did what they wanted to, and played well, and we still lose--is just heartbreaking. Barclay had as good a game as anyone on this team will have all year (over 250 total yards). We outplayed them for...well, three quarters and 4 minutes.

The lessons for these guys will continue. They're here to learn in situations like that. For me, this is just about my 80th loss in my 7 or so years of football. I start to wonder how many more lessons there is for me to learn through the pain of my teams, how many more times I can convince myself that all of these heart wrenching experiences are just building up to some great personal experience. I mean, heck--I'm experiencing the same lessons twice now.

...I go through that entire thought process, and I tell myself, "I have no impact on the wins and losses of my football team." But, when you're a part of the team--and I do feel like a part of this team, in my own way--it's still going to hurt.

They are a good team, there's no question about it. This is just one of those losses that you'll never forget. For the second time, in my case.

***

This entry took me over 2 hours to write, and it's about 11 pages in Word. And all I've really talked about is our game yesterday, sadly.

I'm getting over whatever cold gripped me in Hamburg. I successfully slept it out of my system. I'm glad I got the sick thing over with now. I wouldn't want to get sick during the World Bowl, or while I'm in London, or during the week or so that I'm home. (Anyway, I know I'll be sick during training camp with the 49ers, so hopefully I can hold off until then.)

On a more positive Commodore-related note, I got a picture after the game with Galaxy cornerback Bill Alford, a Vanderbilt alumnus himself. I'll post it when I see it.

The season is just about winding down. We have two Friday games left, then the 2007 Berlin Thunder are all through.

Kind of a downer entry, I know, but, man, yesterday sucked. Next week, we host the Rhein Fire, who won their game tonight in a 41-38 shootout, giving us sole possession of last place in the league.

But then again, I wouldn't have it any other way, would I?

File This One Under World Bowl Elimination and Parental Advisory Stickers

2007-05-28T17:30:00.000-05:00

Well, quite the interesting weekend we had. It’s a long post today, but a goodie. You might want to put the kids to bed, in case you don’t want to teach them some new words (or at least words they wouldn’t learn until they are older).

***

We’ve been just about eliminated from World Bowl competition, after we lost to Hamburg 17-7. (My recap isn't up yet.) (All of our points came on field goals; a 3 and a 4 from Andrew Jacas.) (Jacas now holds the record for most 4-pointers in a season, with three.)

We’re in fifth with a 2-5 record. The only reason we aren’t last is because we beat Rhein in the opener, and they have the same record.

(Warning: some serious football talk follows…)

At the top, we’ve got Frankfurt and Cologne at 5-2, followed by Hamburg at 4-3. Amsterdam is still mathematically alive at 3-4, but needs some serious help, while Hamburg—in a sense—controls their own destiny.

This weekend, Cologne plays Hamburg. If Cologne wins, they clinch a World Bowl berth. Frankfurt plays us, but a Galaxy victory wouldn’t clinch their spot quite yet.

See, the third tiebreaker in NFLE is Points Scored. If Cologne beats Hamburg, they would sweep the season series, and could do no worse than tying Hamburg’s season record. So, they would be in. But Frankfurt—who finishes with us, Hamburg, and Cologne—only beat the Sea Devils in their first meeting by 3.

Like I said, Amsterdam still has a shot, but they need a lot of help.

***

What exactly has our problem been this season, asks the casual football fan?

Well, I’m no coach (and I know a few of our players that frequent this blog), so I’ll keep the opinion to a minimum.

In the typical NFL Europa season, the teams that win generally “click” around Week 3 or 4. Meaning, they start to wise up to certain points of the game, and learn how to overcome some of the shortcomings they have. Unfortunately, we’ve made the same mistakes from Week 1 to now: red zone—both offensively and defensively—third downs, and shooting ourselves in the foot with costly penalties and turnovers.

It’s no one’s fault—we’re just that team right now where, on any given play, if 10 guys are perfect, that 11th guy is killing us. On a team like the Patriots, that doesn’t happen. But, we can’t seem to catch a break.

Some people would also call that a lack of playmakers, but I don’t think that’s completely our problem. Both Carlton Brewster and Chris Barclay have proven that they can make plays when called upon; that goes for Travis Lulay, too. Same on defense: Dave Tollefson has 4.5 sacks, Jameel Dumas makes plays at linebacker, and no matter who we seem to plug at safety, they rack up tackles (first it was Etric Pruitt, and now it’s Chris Harrell.)

It’s just not bouncing our way this season.

***

On a side note, our late 49ers pickup, Vickiel Vaughn, has really impressed people in his short time here. He plays fast, aggressive, and smart, and he’s finding more time on the field because of it. Hey, what can I say: look at the 49ers over here. Vick is making it happen; Marcus Maxwell, despite not playing this weekend against us, leads the league in touchdown receptions with 5; defensive end John Syptak, a street free agent that San Fran sent over, has 3.5 sacks; Tavares Washington has started the entire season on the o-line with Rhein. I know Jermaine Hardy plays a bunch at safety, too.

***

The game was only half of the weekend, however. Wow.

I think the rest of this entry needs a disclaimer, so here we go:

When I started this blog, the primary purpose was to relay my experiences to you, my friends and family and whoever else is reading. Not all of the experiences were good, and not all the experiences were bad. And, not all of the experiences are PG-13.

I understand that some potentially important people read this, and anything I post here could, in the future, come back to get me. But thankfully, I’ve done nothing illegal or immoral since I’ve been here, nor will you see anything like that in this post. Like I said…I’m merely relaying experiences, things that some people might not be able to experience back in the States.

I also understand that there are some people that read this blog that might not want to hear about some of those experiences. So, to my friends and family that share this with others, or to those of you with (after this weekend) more innocent eyes than I, I warn you: the rest of this post relays a rather…interesting evening’s worth of experiences.

On one hand, I didn’t want to post potentially incriminating stuff, but first off, like I’ve said, I didn’t do anything wrong. I just found myself in some pretty interesting places. And second, if I write a book some day, I’ll put this in it anyway, so I might as well get it out there now.

If you normally share this blog with others, please use your discretion this time around.

***

I guess the best way to begin this recount is by describing our tour guide for the evening: one Joe Trahan.

Joe is the PR assistant with the Sea Devils. He interned the previous season with the Detroit Lions, just like Tara did (with Rhein). While I consider myself primarily an explorer of the culture, Joe really knows Hamburg’s nightlife in and out.

That’s not to say Joe is a drunken mess; not at all. Joe works incredibly hard at what he does, and it shows in what he attaches his name to. He absolutely takes care of his work before he plays, and all of the league media that I’ve spoken to have only said great things about him.

But he knows how to party. And he knows where to party in Hamburg, it seems.

That being said, I stayed an extra night in Hamburg on Saturday, while the team hopped on the bus on Saturday night, right after the game, and trooped home. (They got into the hotel around 2:30 AM.)

I, however, hauled my life over to the Sea Devils’ team hotel, changed quickly, and took the team bus to the team after party.

For starters, let me just say how neat it was to take another team’s bus—after they won—to their after party. No one on the bus knew who I was except Joe and defensive end Seante Williams, who started the season with Berlin. He was excited to see me, too, I think. I came on the bus and he yelled, with a big golden-toothed smile, “Look at this foo, dog!” (word for word.)

Their after party location was wild. WILD. It had three floors; the first was just like any other club, with poles and table dancing. The second floor was the same, but an open air club with a bigger bar. The final, top floor just had a bunch of tables—and another bar—in case you simply wanted to get sloshed sitting down. The girl-to-guy ratio, combined, was, I’d guess, 3-to-1. Complete insanity.

Well, as long as you had a Sea Devils wristband (which I had), you could get in, avoid all the lines, and get free beer. Dangerous.

Anyway, a few vodka-Red Bulls later (eeuuughh) and some shot called a Sea Devil Special, which I think was a shot of vodka after pouring a sugar packet into your mouth, Joe was getting a little saucy. I saw a few people around there that I knew, including the aforementioned Marcus Maxwell, who I got to talk to about his season, and how excited we both were to go back to San Fran.

Joe had explained to me earlier the path our evening would take. Let me just say from the get-go that I did not object one bit. Hey…I’m all about the experience, like I said before.

Anyhoo, our next stop was a strip club which Joe wanted to try out. (Secondary disclaimer: this was the first strip club I’ve been to.) We didn’t stay long, because apparently, it wasn’t that good.

Joe wanted to show me a little more of what Hamburg had to offer. He reminded me on the bus ride over here that, any vice you wanted to cure, you could do it in Hamburg: Gambling? Drugs? Alcohol, sex, weed? You name it. Apparently, we took a little bit of that circuit this particular evening.

Our next stop? A few blocks away, at one of the local brothels. Which was a walk through the main prostitute street.

For what it’s worth, all Joe kept telling me was how much they will jump out at you and try to get you to “buy in.” What I think he meant was, if you look at them right in the eye, they will think you want to, um, spend some quality time with them. On the way to the brothel—the way to the brothel—the WAY to the brothel—he must have struck a conversation with two or three of the prostitutes. Clearly, he wasn’t looking to inquire about their services, but apparently, this is how it’s done, you know, if you wanted to do something like that.

We eventually made our way to the brothel, which, might I add, had sliding glass doors at the entrance. Classy, almost like a hotel. (Like the hotel we stayed at in Hamburg.)

The building was laid out almost like Kissam Hall at Vanderbilt, if every light was red. Every door inside was, maybe, four feet from the next. Hanging outside every door was, it appeared, the woman who sold her services for that room.

Here, it became slightly more difficult to avoid contact with them. Just based on how small the hallways were, and how interested they became when anyone walked through, you almost had to bump into every girl there. If you didn’t, they would grab onto your arm or your shirt sleeve and try to pull you back to them, almost forcing you to make some kind of contact with them.

In that sense, it kind of reminded me of all the people who sell bootleg DVDs and sunglasses on Canal Street, and how you need to learn to walk the streets before you stop getting harassed by every random dude selling scarfs and rugs in Chinatown. Obviously, if you walk down the street whistling and sounding clueless, they will all stop you and try to push their product onto them. Same deal here: the more reason you give them to think you’re interested, the harder they’ll try to sell.

Plus, if they know you’re American, they amp it up a little bit. I don’t know if that means they prefer Americans, or if we have more money, or if we’re just bigger suckers. But, as I’ve pointed out before, I somehow stick out like a little ol’ American tourist, so this didn’t help my cause at all.

(In case you’re still wondering at this point, no, I did not buy anything this particular evening, services or otherwise.)

Just by the nature of the setup—and Joe’s willingness to explore the place—you end up talking to a few of these women. I can’t lie—most of them were rather attractive, and they spoke English well. (They were dressed the part, too.)

After I met back up with Joe, he let me in on a little secret: the brothels were the cheap places to go, if you didn’t have much money. If you wanted the “best,” you have to be willing to spend a little more—and to venture into the red light district.

So, off to the red light we went. (Third disclaimer: this was the first red light district I had been to.)

A description I’d previously heard of the red light district really fit the bill perfectly: it’s like window shopping for Victoria’s Secret mannequins. It’s a bunch of girls sitting in what looks like department store windows, just watching you as you walk by. When no one is around, their windows are closed, but they can open them from the inside if you walk up to them, or show a little interest.

The first thing you have to do, naturally, is take the whole walk and gauge the “available talent.” (What is this, the NFL draft?) Then, you make your pick, go chat, and see what the prices are.

Joe, as we had discussed before, didn’t have any intention of acquiring any of the aforementioned “talent.” But, that didn’t stop him from inquiring within, either.

I felt like an idiot standing in the middle of the red light district watching Joe talk to these random girls, so I picked one out and, being the little nice guy I walked over, struck up a conversation.

I don’t even think she told me her name. She had long blonde hair and looked, I’d say, in her mid 20’s. She opened her window, and gave me a strange glance—that look like, “I don’t think you know what you’re doing.”

I said, “Hey,” which probably immediately gave away a) I was American and b) I really didn’t know what I was doing.

She replied, “Where are you from?” I said, “New York.”

“They don’t have anything like me in New York.”

Taken aback, and enjoying my new role as an accessory to prostitution, I immediately replied, “No, they do not.” This was easy!

“So, what are you looking for?”

Oh, here we go. I didn’t really have anything in particular in my head—in either one—that I was “looking for”.

So, naturally, I countered, “Well, what are you offering?” The million dollar question.

“Well, for you, fifty for a BJ. Anything more than that, we can talk.”

Fifty Euros?! That’s three hundred chicken nuggets!

“Fifty Euros, huh?” I just wanted to make sure I understood properly. That’s a debate technique right there.

“Well, fifty will get you a half an hour.”

That just created more questions—and before I got any more entangled in what I had already created, I looked around for Joe, who was actually standing right behind me and grinning like an idiot, as he’d been listening to my entire ridiculous exchange with this woman.

That would do it for our red light district foray, as we headed back to another club. Joe had a little more of an agenda than I did that evening, and around 5 AM, I grabbed a 10 Euro cab ride back to his hotel in the pouring rain.

I laid in bed, reflecting on what I had done that night, and all I could think of was, no, they had nothing like her back in New York. And how three hundred chicken nuggets would last me WAY more than a half an hour.

***

Naturally, I’m suffering from a bit of a head cold following that whole ordeal. It could have been a wide variety of things that made me sick, as you could gather from this entry.

But seriously, I always get sick at the start of the season/school year and the end. The last time I was sick was in Tampa, and the next time I’ll be sick is training camp with the 49ers. The time before that I was sick? Super Bowl. And before that? Cancun, over spring break senior year.

We host the Galaxy this week at Olympic Stadium, where we’re a resounding 0-3 this season.

It’s reaching that point in the season where lots of people just want to go home. I must say, I’m holding up pretty well. I don’t feel particularly homesick, but of course, I miss a few things from home. The top ten, you ask? Well, it just so happens I’ve been thinking about that:

1) Playstation 2. Sorry, it’s true.

2) Consistent internet. Wherever you go in this country, if you expect internet, you have to pay. If it’s free, it has to be terrible.

3) A car. It’s a freedom you don’t realize is so important in your life until you lose it (for 4 months).

4) Clean clothes. Yeah, clean clothes. In this entire hotel, we have one mini-sized washing machine and one mini-sized dryer, which takes about 3 hours to complete. That’s for 50 football players, 10 coaches, and the assortment of staff that live here as well. I’ve done laundry three times since I’ve been in Berlin.

5) Chicken parm. On that note, Outback Steakhouse, too.

6) Physical activity. I can’t remember the last time I’ve jogged. Actually, when I feel like it’s been so long since I’ve done anything, I run up and down the hallway a few times just to remind my legs that I still care. It’s not that I don’t—I just really don’t have the chance to do anything.

7) Baseball. I really couldn’t even tell you anything that has happened at all this season. Yankee Stadium, too.

8) Saturday afternoons. When every day seems the same for 4 months, you really lose track of what day means what. I miss having that feeling that, for the next 4 hours, I have nothing to do and nowhere to go.

9) CVS. It’s impossible to get any of the pharmaceuticals that I need out here.

10) Having a place that I can actually call home. Living out of a hotel has its perks, but its downfalls, too.

***

On that note, let’s call it a night. I’m trying to sleep-out this head cold I’ve got. After all, with Beth coming into town, I need to show her that Berlin can still kick it with Frankfurt. (PS, check out her blog, The Awkward Papers, linked on the right, to see an awesome picture of me.)

Pre-game post: Hamburg

2007-05-26T04:52:00.001-05:00

Alright, so, the pictures from last time are up. You can find them here (or here) and in the links section on the left, under Third Set.

It’s gameday, at Hamburg. Not going to lie—I didn’t get to see any of Hamburg yesterday. Our 3 hour bus ride took 5 hours (construction, traffic, rain), so we got in exactly at dinner time, and team curfew (me included?) was at 11.

Plus, the team leaves right after the game, and gets in to Teltow at 2:30 AM. …I think, however, I’m staying with Cem overnight in Hamburg. So, maybe I’ll get to see something tonight.

This is our only bus trip of the season, since, in theory, Hamburg is so close.

It’s rained ever since we got here. It’s been a strange trip: the rain, and the curfew, and our bus was pretty small (I couldn’t even stand up in it, so you could imagine how our offensive linemen felt), and it had my two biggest pet peeves so far in this country.

First, air conditioning. For whatever reason, there is a nationwide resistance to air conditioning. I understand that some people might not like to be cold, but, I would guess that the bus was about 80 degrees, with an ostensible amount of humidity. Players were sitting with their shirts or pants off because it was so hot. The bus DID have air conditioning, but it did about as much as waving a business card in your face did.

Next, curtains. I don’t understand the functionality of a 2-foot curtain for an 8-foot window. And, that is another nationwide occurance. Either the curtain only covers the top quarter of the window, or it goes the other way, and covers little parts of the left and right side of the window.

With the air conditioning, I understand—it just might not be big in this country. But with the curtains, that’s just functionally illogical. Do you buy sunglasses that only cover half of your eye? Or a hat with a hole in the middle of the brim?

…anyway, things are going well. The hotel is nice. Big game today. It kind of feels like the 49ers Thursday night game against Seattle.

The 49ers just lost two awful games, to the Saints in New Orleans and the Packers at home. Then we had to go on the road—in a very, very short week—and take on a pretty good team in Seattle on Thursday night.

People weren’t very optimistic. They thought—rightfully so—that if the 49ers played the way they did in their last two games, Seattle would destroy them. (Especially playing on a short week, in prime time, on the road, in a monsoon, against the defending NFC champions.)

As it turned out, the 49ers played a great second half, and beating the Seahawks 24-14 was arguably their signature win last season (maybe up there with Denver).

I get the same feeling from this team as I did from the 49ers that week: Yeah, we haven’t played so well the last few weeks, and we’re playing a good team on the road. But, let’s just worry about how we play and let the rest sort itself out.

We’ll see what happens.

***

Then, after this, the season only has 3 games left (not including the World Bowl). This season truly flew by. Either way, I’ll be at the World Bowl in Frankfurt though, whether we’re there as a team or not. It’s pretty neat that I’ll get to the Super Bowl and the World Bowl in the same year.

***

That’s all I’ve got for now (yes, short entry, I know). Check back after game day.

Berlin Thunder: 2-4...ruh-roh!

2007-05-22T19:55:00.000-05:00

(That's a Chris Gearing imitation of Scooby Doo in the title. Direct any complaints to him. Thanks. Smooches!)

This entry is kind divided in half…some of it is from the train ride home on Monday, and some is from right now (2 AM, Wednesday morning).

I think you can figure out which is which.

***

On the train home from Frankfurt. We got slaughtered yesterday, 35-7.

That familiar feeling keeps coming back to me in these games: that same feeling I got during Pelham football games, and Vanderbilt football games, and some Titans games from senior year, and some 49ers games from last year. That feeling that, “Maybe we can just hang close with these guys.” Then, reality sinks in and they run away with it. Like, we’re just hopeful that we win—not that we’re expecting to. (That’s a Mike Nolan-ism for all of you who are keeping score.)

The game started as usual for us: three and out. We punted, and they ran it back for a score. About 90% of the team packed it in..they were done. Beaten. Just like that, four plays into the game. We never threatened.

Just like Vandy and Pelham before that, we rolled out the red carpet for their running backs. They ran for 201 yards on us, marking almost 400 in the last two weeks. Sha-ron Edwards, one of their running backs who played for the Thunder in the first half of the season, had over 80 yards and a touchdown. Charles Anthony, a guy they cut after training camp and signed back because of injuries, had 101 yards and 2 touchdowns. Yes, a guy they cut and a guy we gave them destroyed us in the ground game.

I kept trying to explain to Scott last season in San Francisco that I really don’t know what it’s like to win. You know how some people are just winners—like, no matter where they go or what they do, they’re always in the middle of the championship race? I seem to be the complete opposite. I’m always in the thick of the bottom of it.

It’s not that I can do anything about it. It just sucks, that’s all.

***

Before I left for Frankfurt, I asked everyone what the good tourist things to do there were.

Almost everyone responded the same: there are none. It’s a boring city.

And, it’s not that I’d call it boring. It was like Indianapolis or something—it’s just a city. Frankfurt is the financial capital of Germany: everything there is a bank or a bank headquarters. It isn’t like Berlin or Cologne, where there are tons of historical things to see. It’s just a city.

They had a fun little downtown area, and Beth and I (and Cem eventually) found home in a tourist-trap Irish pub. I even had the “Galaxy Special,” thanks to Beth. It tasted like a strawberry milkshake, and it looked like one, too. There was a rumor that it had some liquor in it, which after having the entire drink, I could not confirm.

(FYI—Beth is Frankfurt’s version of me. Except she’s a little redhead. Take that for what you will.)

Besides that, I took the weekend to relax a little bit. The wear of the season starting to hit everybody, myself included. The losing doesn’t help, obviously, but you can tell that guys are starting to get irritated and ansy. Some guys just want to go home, and they act like it. Coaches have shorter fuses, with everyone—myself included. People don’t want to do the little things anymore. This is the part of the season that’s just difficult to get your job done, because no one is any fun to be around.

As you read from above, it’s something that I’m used to.

***

Frankfurt’s stadium experience was pretty neat. It was easily the loudest crowd we will see all year. In number, it was close to the 30,000-strong crowds we saw at Rhein and at our home opener. This crowd was just crazier. Even in the fourth quarter, up 35-7 with the game easily in hand, they were loud.

The stadium itself had some interesting qualities to it. Rather than have a retractable roof, they put up a retractable umbrella. Seriously, if you could picture a stadium-sized umbrella above the stadium, you’d probably have a good idea of what I mean.

There were about 30 poles reaching from the top of the stadium and meeting in the middle, acting as the umbrella spines, while also holding up the Madison Square Garden-esque video board and scoreboard at the middle.

Even though it didn’t rain, I saw a few pictures of the umbrella in action. It’s really just a big, tan umbrella that covers just about the entire stadium. It must be cheaper than a retractable roof, but there were some parts of the stands—and the playing field, especially at the corners—that still would suffer from the elements.

***

Cool events in the last week:

Went to dinner with a few of the coaches and our general manager, Joe Cealera on Thursday. We ate at a place called Felix, which is apparently one of the more trendy clubs in all of Berlin.

I didn’t understand how we’d be eating dinner an upscale club, but around 9 PM, when they pulled all the tables away and about 30 of the most unbelievable girls I’d seen in my trip walked in, it all made sense.

We even got a little VIP section in the back, which was cool.

I got to eat dinner with my parents before they left, too, meaning I got to see them three times in the week they were here. Funny enough, Chris Gearing ate with us, where he met my family for the first time. Yes, my little brother (fraternal, not biological) met my family for the first time in Berlin.

I’m getting pretty good at the subway-train-bus system here in Berlin. Really, it isn’t that complicated. Everyone has their own comparisons, but the layout and simplicity matches only the T in Boston.

***

New Linkin Park CD: Pretty good, for those who are wondering. It’s a totally different sound from what they’ve put out before, but I like it. Now, everyone is saying that Linkin Park has “matured” as the years have gone by. Are you calling their old sound immature? Or their fans, for that matter?

It reminds me a little bit of how Incubus changed with “Make Yourself.” People don’t realize that before that CD, with songs like “Drive” and “Stellar,” they were mainly a grunge, punk band. Take a listen to “S.C.I.E.N.C.E.” if you want to hear an Incubus that you’ll never hear again.

All in all though, I like it. Check it out.

***

Okay, back to Wednesday-at-2:30.

Yeah, it’s 2:30, and I’m updating my blog. Today was a pretty neat day, so I wanted to get it out there!

Coach Allen cancelled practice to give the players the day off (and I assume to give the coaches a chance to game plan). Instead, we had a team trip to Sachsenhausen—the site of the biggest concentration camp of the Nazi regime. It took us about an hour to get there, putting it right outside of what’s considered the “suburbs” of Berlin.

It was as cool as a concentration camp could be, really. I mean, I love stuff like this—I’m a museum and a history guy, so this is the type of stuff I wanted to see when I got here. Granted, a lot of it was…pretty disturbing.

When they said this was the biggest camp, I really didn’t grasp just how big this place was. It was about the size of Vanderbilt’s campus, or, like, a couple of city blocks. This place was huge—and according to the camp information, always FULL of prisoners.

Lots of the buildings or still standing, or at least have been renovated well. Obviously, their living conditions would make a janitor’s closet look like the Hilton. Some of the original beds still “stood” in the prison cells. I put “stood” in quotes because most of them were just straw heaps on the concrete floor.

At this camp, they killed their prisoners by hanging them, shooting them in the head, torture, and incineration—no standing gas chambers. They did, however, start testing the gas chamber here, by piling 30 Jews at a time into the back of a cargo truck. They would fill the truck with carbon monoxide, thus, obviously, killing everyone inside.

The truck then drove outside the camp, where they would pile the bodies up and burn them.

Lots of the “human ovens” still stood, and were in good enough condition that you could get an idea of how they had to contort—or cut—a person to get them to fit in there. Truly sickening.

This camp also housed some of the major medical “research” of the time—essentially, when people would get cut up and messed around with. One of the nastier recounts was from a doctor who administered “tattoo removal,” when they would just cut off the skin, or the entire body part, of the tattoo on your body.

The two most disturbing things from the trip:

1. Going through the prisoner cells. In some of the cells, the name of the person who lived there was posted on the wall. Families had come back and put up plaques, or memorials, or dedications to their family member who might have died in that cell. That was an incredibly eerie feeling: seeing a picture of someone who might have died 65 years ago, a few feet from me. Of course, in the picture, they were young, and healthy, and probably successful. They all died withered, starved, sun deprived, alone, tortured, and not sure why they were there.

2. The patches marked, “Ashes of Unnamed Victims.” Apparently, in 1996, some people found areas of ground that went a few feet deep in ashes. Yes, human ashes. After people were burned (alive or dead), they would sometimes just scoop up their remnants and dump them into these piles—like, a human dumpyard. There could be between 300 and 500 people’s worth of ashes just heaped into these unmarked, unknown piles. The grass grows on them differently; you can’t miss them.

Some of the players got really disturbed by the whole thing. To my complete surprise, and enjoyment, a couple of players wanted to follow me around so I could explain to them some of the historical background of what happened here. (Special thanks to Mr. Moskowitz, Mr. Capposella, and Mr. Orfei. go pelicans.)

I took a whole lot of pictures. They’ll be up soon.

***

I also had dinner downtown at a place called “Andy’s Diner and Bar” (I ran the place!) with Chris Gearing. Had a chicken sandwich, fries, and mozzarella sticks. Incredible.

I almost walked right through some major German movie premiere on the way there—they had the red carpet and everything, and there were a whole bunch of media there taking pictures of the movie stars as they came in.

As one of the German kids put it, “They’re making a big deal about nothing, really.”

Geez…that sounds a lot like how it goes in America.

***

This week, we head to Hamburg to play the Sea Devils one more time. They score a ton of points. We’ll see how that goes.

***

To round things up tonight…it looks like I’ll be spending a few days after the season ends in…(drum roll) London! The clincher: Jane (yes, that’s the Explo Jane!) will be there with her family, outside of the city a bit. Translation: a free place to stay, a built in tour guide, and the suburbs. Count me in.

That’s it for this evening/morning. I’ll come back once the pictures are all up.

Mid-season stretch

2007-05-15T15:16:00.000-05:00

Well. We sure got beaten on Sunday.

The final score was 24-10, but I don’t really think it was even that close. We hit a field goal on our opening drive, and then got shut out until late in the fourth quarter. Their running back, Derrick Ross—freakin’ beast—set a franchise record for rushing yards on us. He had 140 something yards.

I truly believe Ross is quite a football player to keep an eye on. It’s ironic that he was allocated by the Kansas City Chiefs, because I would best compare his running style to Larry Johnson. Ross just drags people, almost consistently gaining 3 or 4 yards after initial contact. He has tremendous burst for a back with such a strong frame, kind of like Johnson. He’s a good receiver, and when he has the ball in his hands, he exudes my favorite running back quality: anger. He runs angry. Very angry.

This raises an interesting point: one of the scouts told me during training camp that he believed the Kansas City Chiefs allocate some of the best players year after year in NFL Europa. Based on this season’s performances, I’m inclined to believe him. Ross leads NFLE in rushing yards by almost 150 over Berlin’s own, Chris Barclay. Our starting right guard, Rob Hunt, could possibly play in the League. He has that Denver Broncos kind of guard body: technically sound, but very athletic. The Chiefs also allocated Omar Jacobs, who was practically declared our starting quarterback in February, but injured his ankle during training camp. (Whether Jacobs would have been the starter anyway is debatable.)

Anyhoo, our kicker, Andrew Jacas, missed two more field goals, to drop to 5 for 10 on the season. Their quarterback, Erik Meyer, threw 3 touchdowns on us for the second straight week. Ugh.

My game report can be found here. Next week, we take on the first place Frankfurt Galaxy.

***

Our loss to the Centurions dropped our home record to 0-3. We’re 2-0 on the road. Fairly interesting.

Speaking of home, the Olympic Stadium experience has been pretty neat. The stadium itself is nearly 90 years old, having been built for the Olympics during Nazi Germany. It feels like it, too; no elevators from field level to the top of the stadium. That wouldn’t matter, except everything I need during the game is in the press box, which is located at the very, very top of the stadium, about 150 stairs away from where I spend the entirety of the game.

Suffice to say, my legs feel extremely, extremely sore the day after games. It’s a great workout.

We average between 10 and 20 thousand for our home games, which is slightly better than the league average. Rhein draws around 30 thou per game, while Frankfurt usually tops that. Hamburg and Amsterdam hover around 10,000, while Cologne says they get 10,000 per game—but that’s questionable. When we played there last week, the announced crowd of over 10,000 looked suspiciously like 5,000 to me. Maybe less.

Cologne’s stadium, RheinEnergieStadion, is the only other road stadium I’ve seen so far besides LTU (with the Rhein Fire). Cologne’s stadium looked kind of like LTU from the inside, just with no retractable roof, and about 25,000 less fans. To close off the middle section of the stands during the game, they put up a painted mural of what looks like an ancient Roman democratic meeting; all of these robed figures with spears, screaming. (As Beth noted, “Maybe their 10,000 counts the painted people.”)

With my NFL Network headset on, I couldn’t hear any of the fans. …oh yeah, I wear a headset during games. I hear the NFL Network production feed, and in theory, I chime in with injury updates or helpful things from the sidelines. I generally just listen to people getting chewed out by the producer during the game (which is pretty entertaining, actually).

Even though we only fill Olympic Stadium to about one fifth of its capacity, it gets decently loud in there. My dad said, “This is the loudest empty stadium I’ve ever seen!” I’m sure the drums/whistles/horns contribute to that, but, hey, we take what we can get.

I’m pretty pumped to see Frankfurt. All I’ve heard since training camp was that Frankfurt was the loudest place to play, with the craziest fans. I love that atmosphere.

Frankfurt is, from what I understand, the financial capital of Germany. A bunch of banks, I guess. I’ll have to report back when I see it myself.

Oh, by the way—I got to see the ancient cathedral in Cologne, which is a pretty big tourist site. It was built by the Romans, and it is HUGE. I’ve got pictures of it in the Second Photo Album (see the links to the right). I convinced those with me to take the stair trip to the top—all 550-plus, steep stairs. That was an unbelievable workout.

***

It's rained almost every day for the last week. I went to the Berlin soccer team's home finale, and it poured. They lost, too, which had nothing to do with the rain; they're just bad. In the three games I went to, they went 0-2-1.

***

I haven’t had a chance to address this yet, and a few people have asked, so, here we go…

Yes, I got a chance to see the results of the NFL Draft. It actually started the exact moment we kicked off against the Amsterdam Admirals at home.

First: I am one of the many who felt shocked that the Dolphins passed on Brady Quinn. It wasn’t so much that they actually let Quinn slide; it’s who they picked instead of him. Didn’t they learn from the Vikings’ pick of Troy Williamson a few years ago, or the Panthers’ selection of Chris Gamble before that? They essentially took a kick returner in the top 10. I’m not saying that’s a worthless pick—obviously, Devin Hester showed how important a returner can be—but, taking a return specialist who’s very raw at his natural position in the top 10 is not a very good idea.

Case in point: Ron Jaworski, one of my favorites to watch on ESPN, tried to show off Ted Ginn’s route running skills by showing off three fly patterns (that’s when the receiver just runs deep). What does that prove? We know Ginn is fast. Showing that he can run deep doesn’t tell me he can play wide receiver, and that’s what I’m not convinced of.

Besides, I’ve kind of given up on taking anyone that touches the ball from Ohio State.

Curious about that one? Take a look at all of the former Ohio State skill players that have been drafted in the last few years: Michael Jenkins, Chris Gamble, Maurice Clarrett, Craig Krenzel, Santonio Holmes (who wasn’t awful in his first season, but did have legal problems and took most of the year to get on track), Drew Carter (who could be incredible if he stopped getting injured), Jonathan Wells…beyond that, the names get slightly obscure. Like quarterback Steve Bellisari, who I’m pretty sure does TV now, or wide receiver Reggie Germany, which is funny because I’m in Germany right now. David Boston was good for a while—he was picked 8th overall in 1999—but he got way, way too huge and tore up his knees. I’m fairly certain he had some steroid allegations against him as well.

On defense, or on the offensive line, the picks are solid. (I included Chris Gamble in the group above because he played both offense and defense, and he has done little at this point to prove he belongs at cornerback.)

…anyhoo, the Browns were wise to give up next year’s pick to nab Quinn. Granted, that pick next year could be a high selection—Quinn might not be ready to lead this team to a 12-4 record next year—but, Quinn appears to be one of the most pro-ready prospects since…uh, I guess Matt Leinart last year.

Crap, the Patriots are going to be good next year. I’ll stop there.

***

I had a really cool moment on Saturday, the night before our game.

The other two games last week were both on Saturday night. Once we finished up our NFLN conference call, I hopped on the office computer and pulled up the games on the NFL Europe version of Gamecast, when our head coach, John Allen came in.

We pretty much stayed in here and “watched” the Rhein Fire-Frankfurt Galaxy game, while we talked about the result of the earlier game (the Amsterdam Admirals, his former team, lost a close game to the Hamburg Sea Devils), why they lost, how the Admirals’ head coach differs from him, and what his offensive philosophies are.

It was awesome. It’s one of those things that the average football fan really kills for: I got to pick the head coach’s brain about his football philosophy.

Coach Allen is considered one of the brighter offensive minds in the league; while he was offensive coordinator of the Admirals over the past 3 seasons, his offenses were generally at or near the top of the league. Last year, with Gibran Hamdan at quarterback, his offenses threw for…a lot of yards per game.

But, like some of the best coaches, he doesn’t force an identity on a team; he lets the personnel dictate their identity. Sure, he may love to spread it out and run a Playstation offense, but if he has a few great running backs, he’s not going make them into Texas Tech just because. That’s a very smart way to coach an offense, and a theory I personally believe in.

I got to run a few situational play calls by him to see what he thought, and surprisingly, I thought mostly correctly on most of them. I mean, when you’ve watched over 170 hours of football practice over a 7 month period and you play Madden for 10 years, I guess you pick a few of these things up.

***

This season has gone really, really fast. It’s funny—I’m excited to be here, excited to see my friends when I go home, and excited to go back to San Francisco. I suppose that’s a good thing.

I’m fairly certain that I won’t be driving out there this time around. I’m figuring that I’ll get back to the States around July 1. Last year, I started the drive to San Fran on July 8. Granted, I got there early, but leaving early gave me some space in case I needed extra time; it isn’t like I would want to leave later this time around.

So, it would give me around 8 days to relax, then pack my car and drive across the country. I’d also probably be doing it alone, because I can’t make Chris miss two anniversaries in a row.

All of that put together, means I’m probably flying. I’d ship my car back to SF, much like I shipped it from SF back to NY. I’m going to guess that I’ll probably even live in the same place.

I think that's all I've got for now.

For your futher enjoyment...

2007-05-12T04:32:00.000-05:00

Just a few quick housekeeping notes:

- I've added a link set on the right (at the top) with links to my photo albums on the Kodak site. I'll post the links to newer sets of photos as they're uploaded. A few people have said they have problems looking at the pictures, because it asks you to log in. You can avoid it altogether--just click the first picture on the album, right in the middle of the page, and you can look at the slideshow without logging in.

For those of you with Facebook access, there's a new album on there too, with some of the photo highlights. It's on my profile.

- While I'll post the links to my newest stories in these entries, I'm going to put up another link set with all of my stories on them.

- Congrats to all the newest Vandy grads!

That's all I've got for now. I'm about to head over to the team walkthrough, then to a soccer game, and then NFL Network conference call. Catch ya later.

Oops, I Did It Again

2007-05-11T17:56:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I did it again. I went a really, really long time between updates to this here blog. And while it’s really convenient and lame to say that I’ve been really busy, it’s sadly true.

Every week around this time—a day or two before the game—I sit down and write a page or two to put up on the blog. Inevitably, I get pulled away, don’t get a chance to finish what I’m thinking, and after the game, a lot of it no longer applies (or would take heavy editing to make fit).

But I must say, I’m really impressed/surprised by how many people read this thing, or at least have commented to me about an entry. Some good friends that get the weekly updates anyway—and some that I’ve lost touch with—have tried to keep track of this crazy journey I’m on. To you all, I thank you. (You love me, you really love me!)

I guess the easiest way to do this is to start from…now, going backwards.

***

The family is here. They’re staying downtown at the Hilton. (Walter Curry: “And you’re still at the Marriott in Teltow?! Damn.” Taking on my new binge of Andy The Adventurer (I’ll get to that in a bit), I decided to take the bus/train/subway to find them.

Every month, all of the players and staff get an unlimited public transportation pass. It works kind of like the Metrocard. Basically, I can ride all trains, buses, subways, and whatever public transportation there is out here, for free.

So, since we stay essentially in the suburbs/boonies, it takes about an hour to get to downtown Berlin. Yeah, quite a schlep.

But, it was good to see them. We had dinner, and they got me a goody bag: shampoo, conditioner, allergy pills, gel, you know…the American essentials. They just got in this morning, so they didn’t have much more in them than a beer and a meal.

FYI—Hilton hotels are really, really nice. Like, damn.

Anyhoo, by complete luck, Chris Gearing, my final little brother from Lambda Chi, is spending all of May here with a Vanderbilt class, which we call a Maymester. (Oh, us Vandy kids…we’re so clever.) He was only a 15 minute U-Bahn (subway) ride from the parents, so I hopped on and met up.

He’s got a pretty sweet set up. He lives with the other 10 or so Vandy kids doing the trip. We got a drink, reminisced, gossiped, and spread evil rumors about people.

But, the fun part of this trip was getting home. I really had to dig deep into my exploration bag of tricks for this one.

All I had to do was hop the subway two more stops, then the S-Bahn (train) that goes back home would pass by. But, the train only went half way. They said why it stopped halfway in German, which of course, meant nothing to me. So, I got off, and like many other people in the station, stood there clueless.

I went outside to scope out where I was. Potsdamer Platz—right by where the ‘rents are staying. A bus drove by that had a town name on it that seemed kind of familiar. Feeling karma—and the effects of a few beers—I hopped on to see where it would take me. (Yeah, I know, I should be dead in an alley or something at this point.)

All I had to do was get to Zehlendorf. From there, the bus that stopped at my hotel would pick me up. As luck would have it, according to my map, this bus would go right to Zehlendorf. Sweet!

An old man got on the bus. Here’s what I gathered from the conversation he had with the bus driver: “(German German German German) Zehlendorf?” “No, but you can (German German German German German).” Damn it.

So, I decided to further test fate with my life: follow that old man to wherever he was going. When he got off, I jumped off and kept a few paces behind so…you know, it didn’t look like I was following him.

Well, I’m not dead, and I’ve still got my money. Guess I won this one.

***

So, we’re 2-2.

Like most teams so far in this league, we can’t win at home. (0-2 at home; 2-0 on the road). Since it’s kind of late and I’ve got a big day tomorrow, I’ll relay the whole game experiences thing in a bit. We play at home on Sunday…

***

I haven’t told many people this yet, so let’s let the cat out of the bag: I’m going back to San Francisco to work with the 49ers for one more season. I’ll be doing essentially the same internship that I did last year.

So, that raises the question that some have posed to me: Do I think I made a mistake coming to NFL Europa? The answer: absolutely not.

When I took the first internship with the 49ers last year, I thought all along that it would take at least two full-season internships before I’m seriously considered for some of the full-time job openings in the NFL.

Some people have asked, “Don’t I consider working with NFL Europa a full-season internship?” Well, yes and no. It’s not really the same as a full NFL season. That isn’t a knock on what I’m doing here at all. What I’m saying is, the experience I’m getting here is entirely different, and that’s what makes this all worth it, regardless of what I do afterward.

During an NFL season, when I intern someplace, it’s more like this: learn the way the league works. Understand what is expected of you, and of the full time staff. Meet those expectations, and assist others as much as you can. Y’know, intern stuff.

Here, it’s entirely different. I’m in charge of things—sometimes, with no other authority to defer to. I might screw up, and so be it, as long as I learn how to do it the right way. You’re going to be tired, but you’re still going to have a lot of work to do. You figure out how to make it through working double digit hours, 7 days a week.

It’s not so much the procedures and inner workings of NFL Europa that I’ll take with me when this is done: it’s things like, learning what coaches expect of a PR staff. How to talk to very important league officials, and dealing directly with the league for certain issues. How to be a good host.

One of the biggest things I’ll take with me is this: no matter how much you love what you do, you can’t let it consume you.

I’ve let that happen for the majority of the early part of the season. I have no problem saying that I love what I’m doing. I really have no problem working for tons of hours during the week, because I really enjoy it.

But you have to take advantage of the opportunities to enjoy how far you’ve come—especially in a place like this.

***

Let’s see what’s on tap for tomorrow: Team walkthrough. Going to the Berlin soccer team’s last home game. NFL Network conference call. Maybe seeing the parents at some point. Then, game day on Sunday. Woot.

My next update will be a little more about the game experiences themselves, and my experience here overall. I just wanted to get something up so everyone knew I was still alive.

Check back in a few days.

Berlin Thunder: 1-0

2007-04-15T12:50:00.000-05:00

Berlin 15, Rhein 3. (NFLEurope.com game summary)

That’s it, my first professional road game, in the books. Wow, how freakin’ cool that was.

We’ll do this one chronologically, from the travel over to Düsseldorf.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Friday was pretty much a complete travel day. We got on the bus to the train, which would take us to a bus.

The train to Düsseldorf was nice! Apparently, I rode in the “first class” car, so I had plenty of room and cushy seats. I also beat defensive line assistant coach, Mike Jones (who?) in Madden twice (1 retire at halftime).

Friday night, we went out. The downtown area in Dusseldorf is pretty cool. If I’d compare Berlin’s downtown to New York City, then this one had the same atmosphere as, like, Nashville. It wasn’t packed with exclusive places, but fun, gimmicky places.

I had lots of cheap German beer, which, by the way, is really good.

I also got locked out of my room by our assistant trainer. That was awesome. He also missed the bus and train back to Berlin on Sunday, so he’s in deep doo doo anyway.

Okay, let’s get to the good stuff: game day.

Rhein plays at this stadium called LTU Arena. It’s pretty new, and I’ve been told that they put on a good show. I spent most of Saturday relaxing before the game. We hopped on the bus around 3 PM.

LTU Arena. I’m not even sure how to describe this thing. Try to picture it: it’s a stadium, similar in shape and architecture to the new Cardinals stadium in Arizona. It’s got offices and hotels and stores and things all around it. But then, they take the entire area—stadiums and surrounding buildings--and cover it with an exterior shell, kind of like aluminum piping. From the outside, you can’t see any of the buildings that comprise the stadium, or anything. You can’t even see all of the different things inside pretty much until you’re right under the stadium itself. It makes the whole complex look like a giant spaceship, but it also gives the arena this immense feeling, like you’re about to fight an entire legion of warriors in the coliseum.

When we approached it on the bus, all conversation stopped. It wasn’t out of fear, or shock. These guys wanted to get in there. They wanted to play, and they wanted to win.

Once we got there, we hit the locker room and checked out the facilities. PR office. Cafeteria. Press conference room. Good to know.

The setup inside of this place was amazing. Every kind of room or facility you might need during the game, in terms of the game-day operation, like those rooms listed above, are right down a staircase beneath field level. If I needed to check on a score or get something copied, I could do it from a 2-minute walk away. That’s really clever.

Once we got that squared away, I checked out the field.

Woa.

From the inside, it REALLY looked like the new Cardinals stadium. There was a retractable roof, which, at 2 and a half hours before game time, was cracked just so slightly, allowing a beam of light to travel across the field as the hour rolled by. For a mainly indoor arena, the grass was in pretty good shape. I imagine it becomes harder to maintain as the season wears on, so it’s a good thing we played there first.

You know how in most stadiums, all of the seats are the team’s color, or the sections alternate team colors? Well, at LTU, almost every seat is a different color. From the field, even without one person sitting in the stands, the stadium already looks packed.

The Fire staff expected to break their team’s single game home attendance record, which was 30,090. (They did, by almost 200 people.)

Once I finished ga-fawing at the inside, I went over to the NFL Network truck to meet up with the production crew. We have the same crew calling our next two games, so I chatted with them for a bit. Their producer is from New York. (And the air conditioning in their truck was off…it was a sauna in there.)

Basically, when I go into the production truck, I’m doing a few things: first, I let them know if we have any absolute changes in our starting lineup. They need to get their pictures and graphics prepared. Then, I make sure that the rest of their info on our lineup is correct. We talk about some of the things they’ll be showing during the game.

Since their commentators weren’t there, that was that. I wouldn’t see them till after the game, when I pick up a tape copy of the broadcast. (The commentators were in the US. They called the game by watching the NFLN’s broadcast, and taping a voice-over.)

The Fire put on a pretty good pre-game deal, I must say. Their “Fire Party” was huge. There were all kinds of bands and vendors there, with little kids games, TVs—pretty impressive.

The whole pre-game is kind of a blur. I was so nervous, so excited, thinking about what I was doing, but thinking about everything and anything else at the same time. I watched the pyrotechnics test from the field, which was pretty sweet. They shoot all kinds of flames out all around the field during their pre-game show.

I hung out with Tara, Rhein’s PR assistant, for most of the pre-game. I think we were both a little nervous.

Around 6 PM, I got settled into my spot on the Thunder sideline, where I would stay for the whole game. My main game duty is to call up to the press box with injury updates. During halftime and post-game, I make sure all of our players get in alright. After the game, I watch over our guys that are with television cameras.

Just like I had heard, their pre-game show is a spectacle. The way the arena is built, the field captures a good portion of the noise, even with the roof open during the game. With the roof closed, it shocked me how loud 30,000 people could sound. Whistles, horns, clappers—and chants. Chanting.

It felt like the fans were going the entire pre-game. The loud speaker would play three drum beats: Boom. Boom. Boom. Then, everyone would yell, FIRE!

It’s mesmerizing, and if you’re not completely focused, I’m sure it can be incredibly intimidating. It puts you in a trance; it felt like I was going into this tribal war, surrounded by the native village.

Once the pre-game show started, the whole experience caught up to me. I wasn’t just at my first professional road game. I was at a world-class arena in another country. I didn’t feel like an employee watching a game from the sidelines. I felt like I was with my team about to get a good fight.

I thought of all of the good luck signs during the day. Italian food for lunch. My power tie. Cem’s wearing his World Bowl ring from 2004. I couldn’t remember the last time my team had won a season opener.

And Rhein is pretty good, from what I’d heard.

(boom boom boom.) FIRE!

Could you have pictured this, ten years ago? Five years ago? I started to think about how I got here. NFL Europe. I wish all the guys from high school football could see this. I wish all the people at Vanderbilt could see this. Hey, Rhein had a guy from Vanderbilt. Andrew Pace. Good guy.

(boom boom boom.) FIRE!

I started getting frenetic. My brain was spread over my entire life. I knew I was going to forget to do something during the game. What am I forgetting? What else can I do? I need to call my parents. What if I forgot something I needed at the hotel? Or in Berlin? Or in America? I got a little short of breath. My heart started pumping. It’s hot in here.

(boom boom boom.) FIRE!

Hey, calm down, Andy. If there’s something you forgot, it’s no use to you to think about it now. Just focus on the task at hand. Wait, what task at hand? My job was to watch the game and call with the occasional injury report. I hope no one gets injured.

(boom boom boom.) FIRE!

Yeah…calm down. Everything is going to be okay. Remember, you’re here for a reason. And if you make a mistake…learn from it. Yeah.

(boom boom boom.) FIRE!

I am here for a reason. I’ve made it. I’m at a road game. I’m with people that look at me like teammates, and not some random intern. Well, for the most part. I think.

(boom boom boom.) FIRE!

I have made it. A flood of emotions hits me like a tidal wave. I love what I do. I’m so glad I love what I do. I couldn’t imagine what I would be doing right now if I had stuck with biomedical engineering. Probably failing classes at a fifth year senior, still at Vandy. God, I love what I do.

(boom boom boom.) FIRE!

I thought of all the late nights I spent that senior year at Vandy, all of my friends out partying like crazy, and me, at home, catching up on all of the things I didn’t have time for during the day. All the Friday and Saturday nights I stayed in to work on stuff. All those nights I just wished I hadn’t spread myself so thin. Preparing resumes and cover letters until 3 AM. All-nighters to write speeches. All those Thursdays where I was out of my room from 8 AM till 8 PM, working at Vanderbilt Media Relations, then going to the newspaper office. Then spending that Friday night working at the Nashville Kats game. Then spending Saturday covering the basketball game. Then fraternity meetings on Sunday. Then, I could start my work. I remember all of those nights in February where I regretted every second of all of that work. And I thought, man, I am so glad I did it.

(boom boom boom.) FIRE!

I thought about this season with the 49ers. I thought of sitting in my old room with Chris, telling him that one day, I would be a 49er. A fairly innocuous promise, made as a freshman or sophomore in high school. I remember how proud of my Chris said he was. And then we drove to California. That was awesome. That whole season was awesome.

(boom boom boom.) FIRE!

I was so happy. Sheer excitement over the realization that I could, in fact, do this. I can do this. I’m making it. All of those times I doubted myself, and all the times I still do. I can let up a little bit. I’m going to be okay.

(boom boom boom.) FIRE!

I thought of all of the people I wished could be here to see this. I felt the tears start to well up in the back of my eyes. I wish mom and dad could see this. Chris would love this. Franklin would have really enjoyed tagging along this time. Chris Gearing gets to Berlin soon. I tried calling Meghan last night, but she wasn’t there. I wish she was here, too.

(boom boom boom.) FIRE!

Just before the tears started to fall, the lights went out. Flames starting shooting from everywhere. A man on fire ran around the outside of the field. (Don’t worry, it was planned.) A horse ran by. Fireworks galore. I thought I would have ADD by the time this was over.

The teams ran out for introductions. They sang the national anthems of Germany and America, and then, the roof opened, revealing the crystal clear evening sky in Düsseldorf.

And then, I wanted to get out there and play. So badly. Finally, I focused.

The game was strange, but interesting. Good defense. The first half score was 4-3. Yes, 4-3. In NFL Europa, field goals of 50 or more yards are 4 points.

We had chances to score more, too. Our offense drove down to the Rhein 10-yard line, but the snap was mishandled, and we lost it.

Ryan Hoag played one snap in the game: a blocked punt. Then, he re-injured his ankle. We may not see him for a while. (I told him, “Hey, you’re on pace to block 10 punts this season.”)

The Fire got their 3 after they drove to our 1-yard line, and we held them. Safety Chris Harrell was EVERYWHERE. He was unstoppable on the goal line.

Andrew Jacas (pronounced “ha-kus” and not “jackass,” as the media said after the game) his another 4-pointer in the third quarter. (“So Coach, talk about the performance of Andrew Jackass…”)

And then, there was Travis Lulay. He played really well. Very efficient. The lone touchdown of the game was a 61-yard Lulay scamper in the 4th quarter, which sealed the deal. He came off the field all pumped up, and everyone was going nuts. Still looking jazzed up, he sat down and said, “Man…I am tired.”

Other players worth mentioning: Wide receiver Carlton Brewster could not be stopped. Chris Barclay averaged more than 5 yards a carry. Lauvale Sape and Walter Curry, the two defensive captains, played well. Curry had a sack, and Sape should have had another. Jameel Dumas was everywhere at linebacker; a fumble recovery, a pass defensed, and an interception on our goal line. He rocks.

We won. Post game press conference. Post game meal. A few beers with Cem. And then, I called it a night. 9 AM bus in the morning.

Beth (Frankfurt Galaxy) beat Mike (Amsterdam Admirals), 30-18. Sam (Cologne Centurions) beat Joe (Hamburg Sea Devils), 18-14. We get the Hamburg Joe’s next week, at Olympic Stadium. (Olympiastadion!)

Which brings me here, the train back to Berlin. I’ll be on several of these throughout the season. I am exhausted. I think I am finally sick, too. I have no voice.

At least I lost it on the field.

The Rise, Hysteria, and Gametime

2007-04-12T16:40:00.000-05:00

What a week. Wow.

When I say that I'm going to try to post more often, I really do mean it. But this was one of those weeks that seemed like the bullets just never stopped flying. wow.

I guess we should start on Monday.

Generally, that's a day off for the players. But since we've had no games yet, the players came in on Monday for a special kind of practice; it was a fan day, where all kinds of fans, kids, adults, whoever, could take part in practice and run drills with the players.

Honestly, it was awesome to watch. The guys on the team really got into it. They tried to get the kids into as many drills as possible, and cheered and yelled like crazy. The fans LOVED it. They got to run into offensive linemen holding bags. I saw a little kid "knock over" a running back. It was just a really fun event that worked really well.

After that, we got into a regular practice schedule, as we start our season on Saturday against the Rhein Fire. But...wow, what a ridiculous week.

I've been up till about 3 AM for the past two days, getting up at 8 (which I know isn't that early, but, hey, I'm a big sleeper). This week, I've written three stories, finished and sent out a press release, and conducted my first production meeting over a conference call.

There was a theme to this week: me, coming crashing back down to Earth. Now, it's time for a bit of Andy's head.

If there was one part of my experience with the 49ers that I'd say I really needed to work on, it was lightening up. I really love what I do, and I hate getting things wrong. Those two things put together make me take everything about this job really really seriously. Looking back, I would say, probably too seriously.

I would be so afraid of messing things up, that I wouldn't really let myself have any kind of personality. I'd just try to be a machine, do nothing but produce work as perfect as I possibly could. It's not that I feared the consequences of my mistakes--I just hate making them. I feel like if my work is not perfect, then that means there is something wrong with it. And I cannot accept that.

Mom says I'm too hard on myself, that everyone makes mistakes now and then. But now, we enter two new revelations that I've had.

Before I went down to Tampa--actually, I can remember thinking about this on the plane--I remember thinking to myself, "Okay. Let's focus on being a little more confident during this experience. You got chosen for a reason, it's okay to have a little self assurance." Especially in the first few weeks, I really made an effort to be a little assertive, for a change.

That, combined with what I let myself think next, has really crushed me.

Like I said, mom says I'm too hard on myself. Everyone makes mistakes, she said. I forget who it was, or when, but at some point in Tampa, I remember seeing someone really important make a small mistake. Nothing catastrophic or life-changing, but, like, something was forgotten or omitted. I said, "Hey, even the people in charge make mistakes. See, it's okay if I screw up once in a while."

The only problem is, I'm now letting myself feel more confident and letting myself make mistakes. Those two things do not go together. In fact, I'm making mistakes, trying to stay confident, and no longer having the fear of death of making another mistake.

That's not what got me here. I'm letting myself not try to be perfect. I'm letting myself be mediocre.

I realized this last night, after a week of consistently screwing up.

It's just little things, too, you know? Like, I'll send off an old copy of the roster, or, like, I tried e-mailing NFL Network some information for the broadcast, and the e-mail didn't go through correctly, or I'll tell someone something that's wrong.

Like, Tuesday. We did our team photos. I had heard all along that it was going to be at Olympic Stadium, but every player that I told, they said, are you sure it isn't someplace else? As far as I knew, it was at the stadium, but of course, it really was where everyone thought it would be.

Three or four people almost missed the picture, and it would have been my fault. And, it isn't like I wasn't being careful or anything. I had been told the pictures were at the stadium. I was just wrong.

Or, earlier that day, Cem had made the photo lineup, and included a player that we had already cut. Why? Because I forgot to delete him off the roster.

It's been going like this since training camp. Generally, I've been able to chalk that up to getting settled into a new role and gaining experience. But this week, I had my crash.

In San Francisco, I'd get really, really rattled after I screwed something up. I'd get all wide-eyed and clueless, and I'd start over-thinking about everything I did. You know how football players say they play their best when they don't think, and just react? When I would screw things up, I would think about everything. I'd let everything get to me. People would see me, and be like, "Is everything okay?" I would look absolutely shell-shocked and crushed from something like, not catching a punctuation error in an article.

Those are the kind of things I wanted to begin to eliminate during this experience. It isn't so much overall confidence I need, or even to let myself make mistakes. I'm searching for that balance between trying to be perfect, but not destroying myself when I'm not. In San Francisco, I was at one end of the spectrum. Right now, I'm at the other.

That is, until this week. I felt that same shell-shocked feeling this entire week, like I was just stumbling through everything I did, and taking every mistake and misspelling like an over the hill boxer. Constant shots to the gut, and not being able to recover.

And when I'm like that, I just seem so wound up and stressed out. It's not even that I'm stressed out. (I am always wound up, however.) I just have that clueless, hopeless, endless worry look on my face.

Today was really bad. Or, at least, I would say it's really bad, but as every person I've talked to has said, it wasn't bad, it went just fine, and I'm too hard on myself.

We had our conference call with NFL Network, in something that is called a production meeting. In production meetings, the crew that will be calling the game speaks with a group of players and coaches to get to know them, get an idea of how the team is doing--just to get some good information to talk about on the air.

Picture the setup: usually, these take place in person. With all of the people being in all different countries, however, we do ours on the phone. I decided we would do ours near the cafeteria, in the coaches office, because we scheduled our time around dinner time, at 6 PM. (That's noon in New York, where we had people in on the conference call as well.)

The lineup was daunting. They wanted our head coach (John Allen), offensive coordinator (Don Lawrence), defensive coordinator (Adrain White), both quarterbacks (starter Travis Lulay and Bruce Eugene), running back Chris Barclay, wide receiver Carlton Brewster, tackle Sam Gutekunst, defensive end Patrick Finke, and defensive tackle Lauvale Sape. That's a lot of people to coordinate with.

We figured that coaches would go for about 20 minutes, and players for about 10. I had a schedule all drawn up, and we would go from 6 PM to 8. All the players and coaches were fine with it.

From the getgo--not even before the conference call started!--we had problems. The call-in number that we received didn't work.

I sat there with Coach Allen and Coach Lawrence, staring at the call-in number, looking at the phone, dialing it, and feeling terribly embarrassed. I couldn't even dial a phone correctly. What the hell was I doing?

The first rule in working in PR in pro football, in my mind, is that you cannot interfere with the function of the team or its coaches, or surprise them with anything, or waste their time. Right now, I was wasting the time of two people that I really did not want to waste.

Eventually, we finagled it to work. It was 6:20, so everyone on the phone was already pissed. I told them that the information they gave me didn't work, so I felt justified for a few seconds. That didn't last long.

We ended up going through all three coaches by 6:40. No player was scheduled until 7 PM. I was standing there as our last coach finished, and I thought, Oh, crap, I have 20 minutes of dead time.

I was FRANTIC. In the old days, at this moment, I would have an absolute breakdown, a complete de-evolution right there. While I would like to say I calmed myself, I really didn't, because, to put it lightly, I was screwed unless I got someone on the phone 5 minutes ago.

A few players that were scheduled later on happened to be in the cafeteria. I calmly--barely--asked some of them to see if they wanted to go early. One guy said he wanted to eat first. Another had just sat down. Travis Lulay had already been great for me, doing a story last night and a press conference earlier in the day--it would really be unwise to push even more.

I got Bruce Eugene on. Listening in on the call and peeking out into the cafeteria, I began to talk players into re-arranging the schedule. 6:55. 7. 7:05. 7:10.

I got everyone covered. One after the other, we got them knocked out, except, Chris Barclay.

Now, Chris is great. He's a really nice guy. Anything we've needed so far, he's been up for it, and been an all-star. He was originally scheduled for 7 PM. By 7:15, I had given up hope that he was simply late, and resigned myself to the doom that he forgot.

Call to the room. No answer. Anyone seen Chris? No, not for a while. Call the room again. Left a message. Hey, have you seen Chris?

Yeah, he went out to dinner with the running backs coach. He'll be back in a few hours.

My heart fell through the floor.

Luckily, I had the coach's phone number--that's Wanja Mueller. He's a Berlin native, and a national coach. He's great--he's a great coach and an awesome guy.

Luckily, with Travis Lulay in the room, I've heard him answer the same questions a lot already, so I could step our for a second and call Coach Mueller. I asked if Chris was with him, which he was.

"Is everything okay, Andy? Do you need him?"

"Well, just a little. He missed his conference call with NFL Network."

"His con...NFL...oh. Oh, man. Here's Chris."

Chris did forget. Not intentionally. He was sorry. Totally understood. In an ultimate moment of clarity, I solved the challenge of getting him on the conference call anyway.

Once Coach Allen got on the conference call at 6:20, I messed around with the calling numbers on my cell phone and figured out--kind of--how to make it work, with an alternate number that was down on the sheet. I asked Coach Mueller, "In about 5 minutes, can you have Chris call this number?"

It worked. Right on cue, once Lauvale Sape was done, Chris chimed in and did it.

He did it. We even managed to get some extra players in. All in all, it went well, and all of our players did a great job.

The meatloaf and stringbean casserole I had for dinner might have been the best tasting meal in my life. I sat down with Jasper Harvey and Travis, who said to me when I sat down, "So, are you going to make it, buddy?"

I am now.

------------------------------------------------------

I make it sound like this week has been a massive failure. While I would have you believe that, some great stuff has gone on this week, too.

My first two stories have been posted on NFLEurope.com and berlin-thunder.de. My first one, a feature on Jasper Harvey himself, can be found here (NFLEurope.com) and here (berlin-thunder.de); and the first installment of Travis Lulay's diary can be found here (NFLEurope.com) and here (berlin-thunder.de).

Jasper is a really great guy. The night we talked about the feature, I'd say we just talked about stuff for about two hours. He told me stories of his friends in the NFL, his journey from going undrafted, to Washington, to Philly, then to NFL Europe, the stories of him getting signed, the story of him getting cut--I pretty much got the Jasper Harvey story.

It gave me some really amazing insight into the life of an undrafted free agent. Those guys really have to fight to make it. It is NOT easy.

I sent out our first regular season release today, which I'd love to post a link to if it were online someplace. I'll get on that.

About today's press conference: I had the duty of informing Travis and Lauvale Sape (they are both two of the five team captains) that they would be attending, and speaking, and telling them what to wear (and kind of what to expect).

They were both incredibly understanding. I told Travis about it, then did our first diary installment. He is a stellar guy. Not only is he the starting QB and a team captain, but he's getting married in July, about two weeks before he has to report to Seahawks camp.

I went down to Sape's room to tell him about it. He was on the way out. I asked him if he had a second. He said, "For sure, man! Come get some food with us."

That's the kind of guy he is. Sape is just a really, really inviting guy. He's the kind of guy where you'd go talk to him for a quick second, and he'd try to invite you in for dinner, to chat, and just be friendly. That's so cool, and so refreshing.

So, I went to the "doner place," which is the Turkish restaurant down the street. It's pronounced "dooner." It's like a pita sandwich, with...some kind of wonderful tasting meat, and lettuce, and vegetables. It was incredible.

But anyway, I walked over there--about a 15 minute walk around Teltow--with Sape, defensive end Seante Williams, and linebacker Dominique Sims. That was awesome. We just talked about anything, and we all got to know each other. We got doners and watched the big soccer game on TV; it was the quarterfinals of the Champions League, which Munich was playing in. We talked a little bit about the conference call, which he was fine with, then walked back and talked some more.

All the ideas you have about football players--or, that I still have sometimes--are wrong, so often. So many of these guys are just regular guys, and they'll act that way, as long as you be yourself.

That's one area where I feel I have succeeded so far: not being so star struck around these guys. In San Francisco, it took pretty much all season for me to feel comfortable around some of the players. Even through the end of the season, I still wasn't very good at talking to players. That was an area I HAD to improve on while I was here, and I feel like I've done that okay.

----------------------------------

Well, here I am, at 1:15 in the morning, now Friday, April 13. (Oh, no, it's Friday the 13th.) We leave for Dusseldorf in about 8 hours. I haven't packed yet. I'm listening to Rascal Flatts, who I swear has got me through this week.

Don't get the wrong idea from all of this: I'm having a great time. This experience is incredible. Berlin is awesome. I can't wait to travel and be in a real football game.

This is a learning experience, and, right now, I'm getting some hardcore learning. All things considered--new job, lots of responsibilities, new country with a whole new language, etc.--I'm holding up pretty well. I'm not depressed, homesick, lonely, sad, etc., so I can't complain.

Yeah, I miss a few things. Playstation 2 still, even though the players put one in the lounge. That helps me get my fix. The things I always miss are the people, and being able to stay in touch with anyone. I'm becoming friends with lots of the players here, which certainly helps that part of it.

If there's one lesson I've learned over everything so far, it's this: life is short. There is no time for waiting on things or people. If I want something, I've got to go get it.

That's something that I've believed before, but now I feel it. I know it. I'm 23 years old; yeah, I'm not old, but my future now isn't traveling around and figuring my life out. It's getting a job and being relatively stationary. It's establishing myself...getting married...thinking about a family. Focusing on the things that make me successful.

I don't have much more time to say, "I need to work tonight, I can have fun tomorrow." All we have in life are moments. Those moments are becoming more and more precious, especially during a time like this, which I'll never be able to experience again.

Even if this experience ended right now, that's something I could say I've taken to heart. Now, I'm trying to pack so much life into such little time, here in Europe. (That may have something to with my struggles!)

I can't look back on my life in 70 years and have all of these things that I wish I did. That would be really unfortunate. I'm not going to let that happen.

At least, I can absolutely say that going to Germany will not be in that list.

---------------------------------------------------------

Quite a long entry we've had here. I've got some more work to do, then time to pack for my first professional road trip ever. Be back on Sunday.

Post-birthday update

2007-04-08T17:35:00.001-05:00

12:30 AM, Monday, April 9th.

My birthday was on Friday! Seriously, it's about time. I felt like I was 22 forever. Not that I'm in any kind of rush to get older, but, I feel like 23 is a serious birthday. It's the "out of college" birthday. I'm not just some college student anymore. I'm, uh, an overseas intern.

Physically, I still feel like I'm getting adjusted. I get tired in the middle of the day a lot. (Maybe I AM getting old!) This made the birthday celebration rather interesting...

...so. Thursday, we had a "staff dinner." That was awesome. It was all the coaches and the office staff, just there to get dinner and get to know each other. Coach Allen said stuff like that doesn't happen around the league. It seems like he really wants to promote a "family" atmosphere around this team--which is great, since all the players already get a long really well.

This was the convergence of a couple of really crazy realizations:

1. I'm turning 23. I'm not a kid anymore.
2. These people regard me as part of the "staff." I'm not just some intern who's around for the ride.

I spent lots of the night contemplating that. Seriously, I can't remember the last time I've felt so ingrained into the "team" like I am right now. Yeah, I live with the players, so of course I'll always be around them and what they do.

But, it seems like they trust me. Not that they shouldn't, but a lot of them have put trust in me pretty early on. For instance, I ask a player how he's doing, and while some guys might tell me they are okay, even if they had a bullet wound, some of these guys will actually sit there and tell me they aren't good, and tell me what's wrong. To this point in my career, I haven't been regarded that highly by a player.

They'll tell me, seriously, how they feel about certain things with the Thunder (which, honestly, have been mostly really good) and how things went with some of their NFL teams (which are extremely interesting to hear). I was watching tape before with two linebackers, Mike Mendenhall and Tim Clarke, and they were just telling me why it's so important to watch tape, and talked about the things they saw. That's so freaking cool.

..sorry, I got sidetracked about my birthday.

Staff dinner, that was cool. Friday, I took it easy too, because I wasn't going to do anything without Cem, my boss.

As it turns out, my Saturday celebration would be rather short.

We had practice Saturday morning like usual, but then, I got to attend my first live soccer game! We went to Olympic Stadium to see Hertha BSC, the home team of Berlin. Apparently, they are really bad. I didn't care, though. I just wanted to see a live game!

I had every intention of taking it slow at the game, because Saturday night, we had a team party at this club downtown. That was sure to be fun.

...well, I had two liters of beer at the game. This picture is me and Cem, each with one of our liters of Warstiener. (Apparently, it's the popularity/frequency equivalent of Bud Light, but, not a light, and it doesn't taste like water.)

I thought I was such a big man. I thought, hey, whatever, two liters of beer, what's the problem?

My stomach disagreed. Three bratwursts later, and after the game, not only was I tanked, but my stomach was killing me. I figured I should lay down for a while.

What a drunkenly stupid idea. The bus to the club left at 8. When I opened my eyes at 9:30, I started to get ready until I saw a clock. I still felt a little drunk, too. Man, I'm such a lightweight.

Got to work on that.

The game itself was pretty bad. The team Hertha played was one of the worse teams in the league, and they only managed to tie. Getting to see the stadium rocking, though (at a little over half capacity) was pretty sweet. I bet that place was nuts for the World Cup.

Today, the team made an appearance at a promotional event called "Run for Fun," which sounded like a 5K kind of promotion thing. (This one was 3 miles, which our head coach and GM ran together). I got to see the team mascot for the first time: it's a big bird named, appropriately, T-Bird.

As a side note, at the end of the season, I will probably never want to hear "Thunderstruck" by AC-DC ever again.

Oh, hey, I managed to get my first photo album up with the Kodak camera. This is the stadium tour and the arrival into Berlin. I believe you can access it here... or if that doesn't work, try here.

Pretty soon, the U.S. Thunder site will have some Andy Lutzky-errific updates. I'll keep ya posted.

Random things that are different so far in Germany:

1. On keyboards, the Z and Y are flipped. Typing "Lutzky" is an adventure.
2. In German, the term "Happy Birthday" is nonsensical. On someone's birthday, you say the equivalent of, "Congratulations and good health."
3. Beer. Wow, beer. So far, the best I've had is the hefeweizen (a Bavarian beer). Warstiener is pretty good, too. We had some incredible beer on Thursday night, one that you can only find in two places all over Berlin (which was also Bavarian).
4. How could I have come this far and not mention Euros? Besides things just costing more in general over here, less Euros just mean more. Like, 20 Euros is a big deal. I got two liters of beer at the game for 12 Euros. 12 bucks at a Yankees game might get you some flat soda and peanut shells from the floor.

Things I miss (besides the obvious, like family, a car, etc.):
1. Sorry, the top of the list right now is the Playstation 2. Not being able to play God of War 2 is killing me. I did get a great Madden fix in today, though (oh yeah, I bought a PSP). I played Jameel Dumas, one of our linebackers. I won one game in OT, another he ended at halftime (it was really bad), and we had a great game cut off at the third quarter.
By the way, Jameel is a great guy. He went to Syracuse. It looks like he'll be one of our starting linebackers. He will be one of the subjects of a weekly blog on the U.S. site.
2. Chicken parm.
3. April baseball.
4. A consistent internet connection. The one here at the hotel is spotty, at best.
5. The NFL Draft. I really don't know what I'll be able to do without watching that.

Those are the toppers right now. I'm sure the list will grow.

I've got to get to bed. Big day tomorrow; we have our team photo, and "Fan Fest" at the stadium. More to come.

First game this week. At the Rhein Fire, in Dusseldorf. Get pumped.

The Arrival

2007-04-04T15:23:00.000-05:00

Well, ok. I’m kind of almost settled here now.

Posted below are the last few days of entries, but I’ll explain things from today’s point of view first.

Today was the first official day of work. When they told me that the Thunder had the best facilities of any NFL Europa team, they weren’t kidding—we have a real, real office, with a really nice locker room, and better practice fields than we had in Tampa.

The office is, I’d guess….30 people. All of them are really, really nice. I’m also very impressed by not only how many people here speak English, but how well they all speak it. I almost feel dumb for not speaking another language fluently. (I try to talk to our Mexican players in Spanish, but they’re better at English than I am in Spanish…)

It’s chilly here. I’d say it was about 45 degrees today, with a stiff wind. (7 Celsius.) Not too bad, but after spending a month in Tampa, and 6 months in California, that’s a wake-up call. I’m in a windbreaker and jeans. (yes, jeans at the office.)

We also had a tour of Olympic Stadium today, where we’ll be playing our games. It’s…freaking AWESOME. I’m trying to post the pictures…once I have an internet connection worth anything, I’ll get them up here.

I’m still kind of tired, and honestly, a little drunk…I had my first two real German beers tonight; a light, then a dark, hefeweizen. Strongly recommended.

Scroll down for a recap of the traveling from yesterday (and, the day before…wow, we traveled for a long time). The first post is from the plane, and the second is live from Berlin.

Sorry this is kind of ramble-ing...but, I am beat. And adjusting to German beer... (Meghan already got a drunk dial.)

But on that note, I need to call it a night. I am EXHAUSTED. The updates will be more frequent from now on. Also, I’ll post some sweet pictures once I can.Hey…it’s my birthday on Friday!

__________________________

So, a few weeks ago, Beth, the sassy PR assistant with Frankfurt, sent me a text message. “So, do you need me to send you the link to your blog?” She’s quite the saucy one, but, she’s right.

Sorry for the scarcity (ie, ZERO) updates since I hit Tampa. I don’t know why I thought I’d be able to maintain a blog during training camp. Football training camp is usually completely nuts…waking up before the sun, working well past its departure, and then doing it all again the next day.

I’m sorry. Again. I promise it won’t happen again.

What makes it so nuts, you ask? Well…a couple of things. First, training camp typically means a team has a ton of new faces to deal with. With NFL Europe…well, every player is new to the team. So, much of the work in the first two weeks is getting acquainted with the players, making sure that you’re around to answer any questions you have, and so on.

One thing we did was individual interviews with certain position groups, so we could get to know the background stories of our guys. I must say, we have some really interesting, great guys on our team. I’ll get to that in another entry.

Second, this is really the first time I’ve had this much responsibility before. I must admit, at first, it was really overwhelming. Never in my life had I forgotten so many things people told me, or just done things blatantly wrong and not even noticed. It took me a good week or so to really adjust to it. It isn’t like I had too much to do and just got swamped; I just needed to adjust. I hadn’t been THAT busy since I was doing Watermelon Bust back at Vanderbilt, and even that had some down periods. Some days during camp, it would be full speed ahead from 6 AM to 1 AM, for a few straight days.

After a few days of that, I was really starting to crack. There was one day where I was just braindead. I couldn’t shut off a car alarm. I dropped 100 copies of rosters on the ground. I fell asleep while I was changing my shirt. I was just a total mess.

But, not only did I eventually adjust, but things started to calm down toward the end. Lots of the work during the first two weeks were getting our players’ media bios all squared away, and finishing off the Thunder’s pre-season release, which, if I figure out how to post on this site, I’ll do it.

Well…Tampa went by in a heartbeat. I didn’t even unpack while I was here. (I pretty much wore the same outfit for three weeks anyway. (that sounds disgusting, but, it’s really not what it sounds like. I washed my clothes.) (Once.)

That being said, I’ve continued my streak of updates when I fly; I’m on the plane to Germany right now.

This is kind of surreal. Remember how it didn’t hit me that I was going to Tampa, until pretty much a few hours before I left? It took even longer this time.

Part of that was because I didn’t have much of a chance to sit around and think about things. Being busy keeps your mind off it. Packing my bags, I didn’t really feel anything. The five hour bus ride to Miami, it didn’t really bug me.

(The travel itinerary: Five hour bus ride to Miami, to board a nine hour flight to Frankfurt, followed by a three hour flight to Berlin.)

Checking my bags, whatever. You know when it hit me? Sitting in my seat on the plane, as we’re taking off, I looked out the window and said, “Bye bye, America.”

That’s when I looked around, and said, “Holy crap, I’m going to Germany.”

I just sat back in my seat, closed my eyes, and contemplated that for a moment. Damn. How the heck did I get to this point? What’s going to happen over the next four months? What am I going to do without my Playstation 2 for four months?!

***

I guess they dig the interns here: So one night in Tampa (the eve of my first day off), a whole bunch of us went into downtown Tampa. My boss, Cem (pronounced Gem) and I started off at this club, whose name I forget, which was so-so. My roommate, Joe, the PR intern—I mean, U.S. PR assistant—with Hamburg, was at this club across the street, with a line that went around the block. He insisted that I went over there. So, Cem and I stood in line (surrounded by 16 year old girls, which was just fantastic.) (sarcasm.)

All of a sudden, out walks Joe. He waves his hand and says, “Come with me.” Cem and I blindly followed. Joe walks to the front and says, “We’re with the NFL.” Not only do we skip the line, but we got VIP wristbands! Woot!

It was my first time being at VIP in a club. It was pretty cool! The room was much smaller and, clearly, the entrees had much more freedom as to what they did while in the VIP confines. I stuck with my Miller Lite and observed the scene.

You could buy a bottle of champage for pretty cheap. They had little rooms off to the side which—well, I couldn’t tell what was going on in there. I could see that you could buy a cigar and get a seat on a big, cushy couch. The other doors in this room were closed, meaning, I assume, they were in use. For what, I was left to guess.

And beyond that, the club had two more levels above the VIP area. One story up with the Latin music room. Wow, Latina girls can dance. Then, the last level was “The Roof,” which, appropriately, was on the roof.

On a crystal clear night in Tampa, feeling about 65 degrees with a light wind, this was clearly the best place to be. It offered a neat view of the area we were in (Ybor City), and you could get drinks up there, too.

Yup, Joe has balls: That’s really typical Joe. I need to give credit to the guy. He really has no fear in those situations. Where I’m just fine hanging out with a drink in the regular area, however he figured out that just saying “NFL” got us the red carpet treatment, he did.

That’s how he rolls. He’ll just start a conversation with anyone and go with it. He’s an interesting guy; he seriously reminds me of another side of me, a person that, with a few experiences going in different directions, I easily could have become.

Joe is driven by the desire to prove his doubters wrong, and to make his enemies look second-class. (I call him Gilbert Arenas.) He seriously busted his ass during training camp; his motivation, so it seems, was his distaste with previous work experiences, and his desire to show them that he’s better than that.

He’s with the Hamburg Sea Devils, who I affectionately call “The Team of Stars.” We’ll get into that later.

Nap time.

__________________________________________

I’m in Berlin.

Quite a day of traveling I’ve had. Buses, planes, buses…I’m pretty beat.

Last time I wrote, I was mid-way between Miami, Florida and Frankfurt. That was a long, long plane ride.

The airport in Frankfurt felt like what I imagined purgatory to be. We weren’t in our final destination yet. It was 6 AM at the airport, so it was eerily silent and empty, and foreign feeling (I wonder why?). No one knew what to do, and we all just sat there for 2 hours for the next leg of our trip.

I’d say 99% of the team passed out on the 1-hour flight from Frankfurt to Berlin.

When we got off the plane in Berlin…we had a Fan Fest waiting for us! Cheerleaders lined the entrance from the gate. Fans with Thunder flags and banners stood waiting. Okay, there were like 50 fans—but it was pretty cool!

Taking the bus from the airport over to the hotel, all of the players were wide awake, but silent. We were all looking out the bus, taking in our surroundings. Every now and then, someone would chirp out something that caught their eye out of the window, but other than that, it was mostly silent fascination of another world in another language.

It’s really incredible. When we got here, the team planned a whole big day of touring for us—that way, we can beat jet lag.

The bus tour itself was okay, but it was just neat to see part of the city as soon as you arrive. I’d hate to sit around in a city like this for days and can’t be able to say that I had seen anything.

Anyhoo…we got to check out Brandenburg Gate, and some of downtown Berlin (which really, really reminds me of downtown NYC), and Checkpoint Charlie, which also had a pretty neat WWII museum.

I’m trying to put my pictures up on the Kodak Easyshare, but I have almost zero internet at the hotel…bear with me.

Hard Rock Café for dinner. Burgers and fries. How (yawn) American.

In case you can’t tell, I’m rambling-tired.

Anyhoo…tomorrow’s the first day of work. I’ll give back something juicy then.

The Migration, Volume 1

2007-03-10T16:37:00.000-05:00

Okay. So, I'm in Tampa. (By the way, like the new layout?)

Forecast: Let me first say the obvious: the weather is gorgeous. When I arrived on Wednesday, it was about 75 degrees, with little humidity and a nice wind. It's heated up a bit, and got a lot more humid, but it's a lot nicer than what New York was when I left that morning (9 degrees, wind, snow).

There are palm trees (and beautiful women) everywhere. Just driving around Tampa, on any given street, it could be lined with palm trees (and beautiful women).

Hotel: My hotel, the Mainsail, isn't really a hotel; it's like an extended stay. It's sah-weeeeet. I'm rooming with the PR assistant (note, we are PR assistants, not interns) with the Hamburg Sea Devils. Since it's a business suite-kind of thing, we each have our own nicely-sized room. There's even a porch (we're on the first floor), a living room with a couch and big chairs and a TV, a volleyball court right outside my little quad, and a housekeeping service that does our dishes (and did I mention there were lots of beautiful women?)

Andy's first day: Wednesday was pretty slow. Since I left at 6 AM in the darkness and snow, I slept for much of the afternoon. I got dinner with the other PR interns, Maik Matischak (the director of communications for NFLE), and Joachim Haas, the PR director of the Frankfurt Galaxy. We had Chinese buffet; I managed to avoid peanuts and soy. (I mostly just ate dry sushi.)

We went out that night to a place called the Green Iguana. (what, are there other kinds of iguanas?) (seems most of the places to go here go by a similar formula; they are "Color" "Object". The other good place to go in the area is the Blue Martini. I expect the next best place is the Purple Lampshade.) Anyway, yeah, the Green Iguana. Wow, there were lots of beautiful women there...

Andy's second day: Players arrived on Thursday; I met lots of the offensive skill position players on the team. Omar Jacobs, our starting quarterback, is a really nice guy. He had his picture taken in a Berlin Thunder jersey, which I'll post once I've got it. Actually, pretty much all of the players that I met were really nice. Steve Sanders, one of Berlin's wide receivers, and a teammate of Omar Jacobs at Bowling Green, is a good guy. Walter Washington, one of our quarterbacks, got screwed out of dinner, though. I gave him a cookie. Nourishing.

I also got a league phone. Now, I carry a Blackberry and a Nextel. The right side of my body weighs like, ten pounds more than my left. Yeah, the whole click thing is cool, but I haven't met one person that's out of high school that genuinely enjoys using one of those phones.

Andy's third day: Let's see, what else is going on....oh yeah, I got kicked out of my room for an hour yesterday (Friday, I think). Why, you ask? Well...here's the thing. From Wednesday until Friday, everyone stayed here at the Mainsail. Then, on Friday, four teams go check into their team hotels, and two teams stay at the Mainsail (luckily, I am one of them; Frankfurt, for instance, is staying at a Howard Johnson's. Nothing against HoJo's, but....)

Anyhoo, so, with all of the staff checking out and players checking in, lots of the reservations were simply juggled around. It seems that from Wednesday through Friday, the Mainsail had Andrew Lutzky staying in Building 600, room 109. From Friday until April 2, they had a guest by the name of Andrew Lutsky. Which, apparently, is a completely different person.

So, you could imagine my surprise when, after getting my free coffee from the lobby, my keycard didn't work, and the front desk told me that I had checked out. And that there was no one by my name staying at the hotel anymore.

I called the woman in charge of the hotel bookings; she was, understandably, incredibly busy that day. She said, "Tell me what is wrong and I'll call you back when I get a chance." I said, "I have no hotel room." She said, "....oh." She then told me she'd call and take care of it.

I told the front desk that she was going to call them and see what the deal was, and that I was going back to my room. They said, "No, you need to stay here."

So, at the front desk, I sat for an hour, watching my team and Hamburg check into the hotel; nothing happened.

Finally, Berlin's football operations intern, Hansen (maybe the busiest person I've met here so far) saw me in the lobby, and asked what was up. I told him, I have no room. He checked his records, and by his papers, he had me checked into the same room I was in the whole time. We talked to the lady at the front desk (not the same one that told me I had checked out and that I couldn't leave the front desk). She said to me, "Are you sure your name isn't spelled with an S?"

Yes, I was sure.

"Oh, we just had it spelled wrong. You can go back to your room."

...kill them....kill them all...no...just walk away....just walk away, Andy.

I ate dinner with the coaching staff on Wednesday. They're all relatively young guys, considering some of the other coaching staffs have been around for a while. I guess it's a reflection of our head coach, John Allen, who is the youngest head coach in all of NFL Europa.

So, I got up to get some ice cream after dinner, and Coach Allen sat down in my seat. Someone said, "Andy is sitting there." He went, "Andy Lutzky is sitting here?! I better go get another seat!"

The coaching staff let out a few "oooooh's" after that. Adrian Clarke, the defensive coordinator, said, "Hope you didn't unpack!" Funny guys.

(Now watch me get fired tomorrow.)

Joe (the PR assistant from Hamburg, my roommate) and I had a random encounter last night. I got some pizza at the restaurant in the clubhouse. On the way back, this crazy looking lady came out of one of the buildings and said, "You two, stop. How old are you?"

Joe: "23."
Me: "15."

She looked at us. "I have some beer we need to get rid of. Do you want it?"

....so, after checking our ID's, and asking us four or five times if we were really over 21 (both before and after looking at our ID's), and asking if we were with any minors, and asking if we were going to give the beer away to anybody....she gave us 40 beers, a bottle of wine, some brownies, and a bag of chips. Jesus.

So, I spent last night having a Becks (und....und...und BECKS!!!), eating some pizza, and watching Mission Impossible 2.

Andy's fourth day: The second wave of players arrive today (or, are arriving now, I suppose). I, however, spent my Saturday with Franklin Petr, watching the Tampa Bay Devil Rays take on the Philadelphia Phillies in some spring training action.

Since it's probably something I'll never have a chance to do again, I'm glad I got to see a spring training game. I love the semi-professional feel of it. You know what I mean: maybe 100, 200 people watching a game, full of players you've never heard of. There were no stands in the outfield. The mascot was banging drums right as the Phillies swung at pitches, which I thought was awesome. Need I even mention, the girls were gorgeous.

I figured this would be a great time to try out my new camera.

That would be Jimmy Rollins, taken from about 45 feet away. Here's Ryan Howard, taken from about the same distance:

Very sweet. Can't wait to try this thing on the field.

I ate dinner tonight with Gerran Walker, one of our wide receivers (allocated by Pittsburgh). Very nice guy. He almost didn't make it down to Tampa; the league office never notified him that the travel arrangements had been made. Luckily, he called Delta to see if they had anything booked in his name, which they did, for the next day. Yikes.

Summary: All in all, things are going well so far. Everyone--staff and players alike--are still getting settled in, so everything still has that disorganized/panicked feel to it. Pretty much everyone I've met on my team so far has been a very nice guy. Some of the other PR staffers haven't had as much luck, so I suppose I should consider myself lucky.

My allergies are going absolutely nuts here. I forgot how itchy eyes and a scratchy voice, living in California.

I've added another link in the links section to the right: it's a blog of another of the PR assistants, Beth. She's going to Frankfurt, after spending this past season with the New York Giants. For further insight, I highly recommend checking the blog out; she's a saucy one.

Tonight, I think I'm going to go see 300 with Joe...I was told that I should expect to see lots of people get cut up. Awesome. Expect an update tomorrow or within the next few days.

And now, a word from reality

2007-03-07T00:12:00.000-05:00

I realize I haven't posted in about a week, but in all honesty, nothing really noteworthy (blog-worthy, I guess?) has happened. I've been writing bios for the players on the Thunder, playing lots of Xbox 360, and seeing some people before I left.

Ah, yeah, leaving; at this moment, it's 12:15 AM, now Wednesday morning. My plane to Tampa, Florida, leaves in 7 hours and 10 minutes.

Just to be clear, here's how the traveling will work in the near future: NFL Europe has their training camp down in Tampa. I'm not flying to Berlin quite yet. I'll be in Tampa for about a month, starting tomorrow. I leave the States for Germany on April 2. So I'll be stateside for the next few weeks.

So, my flight. Yup, it's pretty early. I leave for LaGuardia at 5:45 AM. That's awesome. I get to Tampa around 10:30 AM. (The flight is direct, which, from talking to some of the other PR interns, I should feel lucky for.) My first meeting is at 7 PM tomorrow, when I meet the rest of the interns (along with the two I worked with at the Super Bowl), and Maik Matischak, the Director of Communications for NFL Europa.

That means that, if everything goes swimmingly, I should have a good 8 hours to nap and explore the surroundings of the Mainsail Suites, where I'll be staying, at least for a few days. You see, once the American players arrive on Thursday and Saturday, they relocate the teams to other hotels, which become the team HQ for their time in Tampa. One team stays at Mainsail, which, from he 360-degree tour on the website, looks like a nice place.

We'll have our practices at the Ed Radice Sports Complex, for any Tampa natives (or rabid Berlin Thunder fans).

Not a bad move: This morning, when I woke up, the temperature read, 9 degrees. That was a complete lie to anyone who walked outside and was greeted with nipple-hardening winds. It couldn't have gotten any higher than 30 degrees today, and looking at my little weather reader here on FireFox, tomorrow's forecast calls for some kind of flurries, and 24 degrees.

At this very moment, in the dead of the night in Tampa, it's 55 degrees. Tomorrow's forecast? 78 and sunny. The 10-day forecast is a lot of the same, with one day of possible scattered showers. I'll take February humidity in Florida, in exchange for arthritic agony in New York. So much for global warming, huh?

As for Berlin: And right now, in Berlin, it's 46 degrees. It looks like they're having a bit of a rainy spell over there, as the high for the next few days teeters between the 40's and 50's with showers.

According to weather.com, the average high for April (I won't see Berlin in March) is 55 degrees, with an average low of 39. May ranks at 65/46, and June at 71/52. From the averages, it doesn't get much warmer than that in Berlin, as June and July's average highs are 73, which are the highest of any month, and their lows are 55 and 54, respectively.

Moving, are we?: So, what does one pack for a 1-month stay in balmy Tampa, Florida in the early springtime, immediately followed by a 3-month stay in chilly-then-springlike Berlin? Well, I charted down what I packed in my bags (partly so I know where everything is, partly because I'm a big ol' nerd): 5 pairs of jeans, 5 pairs of khakis (2 tan, 2 black, 1 olive), 5 sweaters, 4 polo shirts, 9 various t-shirts, 11 pairs of boxers, 11 pairs of dress socks, 9 undershirts, 15 button-up shirts, sweatpants to sleep in, a suit, 1 blazer, 1 sportscoat, a bathing suit, 2 pairs of shorts, a fleece, a leather jacket, a brown belt, a black belt, a brown watch, a black watch, flip flops, 2 US to European power converters, 2 pairs of mesh shorts, the various chargers that go to the various electronics, my new camera, a LOT of Claratin, soap, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, the various other toiletries, my passport, an external hard drive, headphones, and, of course, this very laptop and the accessories that apply.

I tried to pack light. I really did. And, in some ways, I think I did. The 15 button-up shirts is absolutely excessive. By the fifth week, I'll probably be in a 5 or 6-shirt rotation. 10 pairs of pants is also a waste. But, I could have gone a lot more, and this all fits in my bags, so I consider it a victory.

Quick hits:

Well, that was great timing: not a week after I wonder what Linkin Park is up to, they announce the details of their new CD, titled "Minutes to Midnight."
Daylight Savings Time has now officially moved up three weeks. Now, at 2 AM on Sunday, March 11 (this Sunday), you'll need to "spring ahead." Huh? From the article: "The change was caused by the passage of the federal Energy Policy Act of 2005. The U.S. Department of Energy will study the effects of the change and Congress has the right to revert to the original Daylight Savings Time schedule once the study is completed. Since 1986, the U.S. has observed Daylight Savings Time from 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in April until 2 a.m. on the last Sunday in October."

Very interesting. Unfortunately, the effects of the change may be more widespread than energy usage, as a great deal of the software on our computers and other devices (phones, iPods, etc.) aren't equipped to deal with the change in the time change. It's not Y2K, but those of you who depend on your computer to alert your times, beware. If you're going to manually change the time on Sunday (as most of your devices won't change on their own), be mindful that many of them, like cell phones and laptops, will automatically jump another hour back three weeks from Sunday. And, in October, when all those devices try to "fall ahead," you'll need to take the hour back off, as DST has also been extended by one week on the back end. "Fall ahead" doesn't happen now until the first week in November.

Maybe this is all a dream: For the last week and a half or so, I'd been wondering when it would hit me that this was happening. I thought it would hit me when the draft happened, and I got my rosters; not really. Maybe when I started writing the bios for all of the guys; nope. It sure didn't sink in during the week when I was playing Xbox. As I started to run final errands and pack, I began to realize that my time was running short, but not that I was moving, if that makes any sense. The last meal with my family seemed normal. Finalizing packing just seemed like, well, finishing up packing.

It really hit me twice, in two different ways, today: I got really excited about it when I was talking about European plugs with one of the other interns (go figure, way to nerd it up, Andy). The prospect of going off and doing something unknown is just a pretty exciting concept to me.

I got really sentimental when I said goodbye to my friends tonight. I'm a people person. That's just how I roll.

And I'm sure it will hit me more and more times tomorrow and will continue to do so, until it's a 100 percent reality.

Next update: from Tampa Bay, Florida.

Berlin Thunder: Wir haben begonnen!

2007-02-26T22:05:00.000-05:00

Now that things are actually happening, I think it's time for a sizable update.

First off, something I neglected to mention last time. So, my car came in from the cross-country shippers. The guy couldn't really take his 80-foot truck into Pelham, so I agreed to pick it up on 95 after the New Rochelle toll plaza (sketchy). Everything checked out, so I signed off on it and drove off.

On the way home, my sun roof shattered. Yes, shattered. Into hundreds of pieces of safety glass. It came through the little holes in the sun roof cover, too, so there's glass all over the car. It sounded like an explosion on the roof of my car. So now, until the sun roof piece gets into the repair place, I'm driving around with a duct tape fiasco on the top of my car. Just awesome. I'm sure that worked really well in the snow we got last night, too.

Now, onto international matters: the NFL Europa Allocation Draft and Free Agent Draft happened last Friday. I got to watch a little bit of it online, which was interesting. Also, the group of pre-draft allocations were announced a few days before that. Here's Berlin's current roster now that the dust has settled.

Very interesting. If you're a fan of the Berlin Thunder, you've got plenty of reason to be excited. Probably the most recognizable name among this list is Omar Jacobs, who at one time, was a Heisman Trophy candidate. As a sophomore at Bowling Green--coached under Urban Meyer--he threw 41 touchdowns and only 4 interceptions. That ratio is the best in Division 1-A history. His 4,002 yards led the nation as well.

Jacobs is what many people figured the next generation of quarterbacks would be like: big (6'4"), built (224), mobile (4.59 in the 40-yard dash, 300 rushing yards and 4 TDs during that sophomore year), and very cool looking (it's all in the dreadlocks).

While he fell to the fifth round of the 2006 NFL Draft (picked by the Steelers), he was just starting to put it all together in the preseason. He completed 22 of 34 passes for 275 yards, including a 13-for-18 effort with 179 yards and a touchdown in the finale against Carolina. He stuck for a while on their practice squad before being released, and spending time with Philadelphia's practice squad.

He was allocated by the Kansas City Chiefs.

We had a conference call this morning with Jacobs and head coach John Allen. Jacobs said in his opening statement, “It’s a privilege to be part of NFL Europe. I think I’m going to a great situation with the Berlin Thunder. I’m very excited just to be there, to get the experience and get to play football. It’s an opportunity to showcase my talent at that level again.”

The Thunder might also have one of the most talented running backs in NFLE this season, with Chris Barclay. He was the ACC Player of the Year as a senior in 2005, finishing with 1,127 yards on 218 carries (5.2 yards per carry) and 10 touchdowns He finished his career at Wake Forest as the school’s career rushing leader in rushing yards (4,032), scoring (240 points), rushing touchdowns (40), and all-purpose yards (4,930).

At 5'10", and around 180 pounds, you can expect that Barclay is quite a shifty back.

“We’re very fortunate to get Chris," John Allen said. "I was in Cleveland Browns camp this past summer as an intern, and Chris was there. I had a chance to see Chris Barclay play in person, and I’ll tell you, we’re getting a heck of a back. He’s very explosive, he has great speed. He has very good receiving ability out of the backfield. I think he’s a person, that when you look at what we do in the one-back system here in Berlin, and what I had in Amsterdam, he fits that mold. He’s able to get outside with his speed. I think he has great vision. I think he will have the opportunity to showcase his talent.”

Barclay spent most of the season on the Browns' practice squad, but was elevated to the 53-man roster late in the season. The Browns allocated him overseas.

If you scan the results of the free agent draft, you'll see that one of the selections came from Vanderbilt! Yes, Bill Alford is headed to Frankfurt. Go Dores!

So, now that my roster is set, I've started writing media bios for each of the players. Once we get to camp, we put all of the bios for all of the players into one book for distribution. It's interesting see how much some of these guys have bounced around professional football. Here, for instance, is the transaction history for Bryant Shaw:

Returns for a third season in NFL Europa after being allocated by the Washington Redskins… Originally signed as an undrafted free agent by the Dallas Cowboys on April 17, 2000…Released by Dallas on August 27, 2000…Re-signed by Dallas at the end of the 200 season and allocated to NFL Europe’s Scottish Claymores, posting 15 tackles, four sacks and three passes defended …Released by Dallas on September 2, 2001… Selected by the Berlin Thunder as a free agent in the 2002 NFL Europe Free Agent Draft…Recorded a sack during the 2002 NFLE season, as he helped the Thunder win World Bowl X…Activated by the Grand Rapids Rampage of the Arena Football League, July 3, 2002…Traded by the Rampage to the Colorado Crush on October 22, 2002 after Colorado traded rights to 11th and 12th pick in the 2003 AFL Expansion Draft to Grand Rapids…Started all 16 regular season games in 2005 and all three playoff contests, including Colorado’s ArenaBowl XIX victory, and posted 11.0 stops, 2.0 sacks and a fumble recovery on the year…Signed with Grand Rapids on November 9, 2005…Released by Grand Rapids on April 18, 2006…Signed by the Detroit Lions on April 20, 2006…Released by Detroit on August 8, 2006…Signed by the Washington Redskins on January 23, 2007.

That, my friends, is what we call a survivor. This will be his third stint in NFL Europe; his last stay was five years ago.

Enough about NFL Europe for now. Has anyone seen the NCAA Men's rankings lately? A quick look at the ESPN/USA Today Top 25: T21) Virginia Tech, 23) Vanderbilt, 24) USC. Not only are those three schools that you NEVER see in the Top 25, but I've got reasons to cheer for both schools through friends. (Yup... HOKIE HOKIE HOKIE HI TECH TECH VPI SOL-A REC SOL-A RAH POLY-TECH VIRGINIA RAY RAH VPI TEAM TEAM TEAM! and sure, fight on.) I'll be pulling for a Vandy-USC-VT-IU Final Four, for sure.

But, expect Villanova to make a pretty exciting run, too.

I'll be back with some more tomorrow and later this week.

"I call him gamblor!"

2007-02-21T18:23:00.000-05:00

For better or for worse, I've returned from my one-night craps outing at Mohegan Sun. I didn't make as much money as I thought I would; in fact, I didn't make any money at all. Yes, the perfect streak of me coming out smelling like roses from casinos has come to a drunken end.

Thankfully, I only came out down $270. It could have been a lot worse; most of my craps losses came in the first hour or so, while I spent most of the next 6 or 7 hours playing consistently mediocre. I'd play small-ball, the roller found their rhythm, I bet on them as a show of confidence, and they'd throw a 7.

My streak of good rolling crashed and burned as well. My first two or three turns at rolling ended up fantastic. Most of the money I made/kept for a while resulted from my tosses. Then, as a sign from the gambling gods that my luck had officially run out, I came upon a rather miserable routine; establish a point, 7-out on the first roll or two. I might as well have been wearing my Alex Rodriguez shirt. (Thanks for rubbing it in, Ozzie Guillen.)

One highlight of the weekend, or of any weekend with Chris for that matter, is the endless supply of Simpsons that we can go back and forth on. Since we happened to be at a casino, who can forget the classic gamblor episode?

If you're ever at Mohegan, I recommend the po' boys from Bubba's, which is upstairs in the casino. Great service, and incredible sandwiches.

Take it easy, Norv: In case you live under a rock, you've heard that the San Diego Chargers have hired former 49ers offensive coordinator Norv Turner to be their head coach. That's great for him. Norv is a terrific guy, and he has got a near all-star cast assembled on the south side of his home state. He's even got Ron Rivera as his linebackers coach. Even with all of the staff turnover they had this off-season, you've got to think that they've come out of this just about as good as they possibly could have. They're still in the discussion as the top team in the AFC, or the NFL, for that matter.

My good buddy, Matt Maiocco from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat pointed out today in his blog, that whoever replaces Turner will be the 49ers' fifth offensive coordinator in five years. Simply incredible. (As a side note, his blog is a must-read for any 49ers fan.)

Whaddya mean, Barq's has bite?: Anything you read about the San Diego Chargers these days talks about them as "having the most talent in the NFL." That doesn't just mean that they have good players at all of their positions. The Giants have good players at most of their positions; that didn't turn out so well. The Panthers have good players at pretty much all of their positions; they terribly underachieved.

"Having the most talent in the NFL," in this case, means that they have just got playmakers out of the wazoo. Almost every place you look where you need a playmaker, they're covered. LaDanian Tomlinson is already in the discussion as one of the best running backs ever. Antonio Gates fits the Chargers' offense perfectly and dominates as a pass-catching tight end. Receivers Vincent Jackson can flat out control the passing game at times (it's tough to cover a 6-5, 245 pound guy that can jump), and Eric Parker compliments him and Gates very well. Their offensive line is loaded with young talent.

Their front seven is straight-up sickening. One of the best unknown players in the NFL, nose tackle Jamal Williams, is the prototype interior lineman to build a 3-4 defense around. They can afford to play two good, young defensive tackles out at end (Igor Olshansky and Luis Castillo) because their linebackers are so darn good at pass rushing. Say what you will about Shawne Merriman: he's probably one of the best defensive players in the NFL. They just signed Shaun Phillips to a contract extension through 2012, who, by the way, had 11.5 sacks this year. (Merriman added 17 of his own, playing in only 12 games.) Donnie Edwards, considered an undersized guy for an interior 3-4 linebacker, had over 140 tackles (according to ESPN.com) and grabbed 3 interceptions.

Their weakness, you could argue, would be in their secondary, where they have spent a slew of first round picks over the years. A quick peek over at DraftHistory shows that 3 of the Chargers' last 6 picks in the first round have been defensive backs. (Their other three picks? Merriman, Castillo, and Eli Manning, who turned into Phillip Rivers.) They even used a second round pick in 2000 and two second round picks in 2003 on defensive backs as well. That's six picks in the first two rounds on defensive backs since 2000. In 2001, they picked Tay Cody in the third round. They really should be one draft pick or free agent from fielding two young, talented secondaries. Yet, it's still an area of concern.

Parting shots:

The NFL Europa allocation draft is on Friday. While most of my team has been announced via roster allocations, there's still a bunch of player movement still yet to be determined. Once I've got the final official roster, I'll put it up. Stay tuned.
Whatever happened to Linkin Park? Didn't their last CD come out my freshman year of college?
Happy birthdays this week: Pete Monaldo and Chris Krosche.

Back in the airport; Nashville edition

2007-02-18T15:45:00.000-05:00

Somehow, I seem to do my best/most frequent updating in airports. That's quite a statistic. Above, you'll find the birds-eye view after the Commodores beat the Gators at Memorial Gym yesterday.

Nerd alert: I don't know what it was, but for some reason or another, I had zero ability to access the Internet in Nashville. My Blackberry couldn't check mail or access websites. My laptop told me I had an invalid IP address (what?) which could not be fixed without unplugging everyone in the frat house from the Internet. Not even the technology experts could figure that one out. I guess all I needed to do to fix everything was leave. That's heartwarming.

Oh yeah, college WAS fun: So last night, we had a frat party. It was "preps vs. punks." I wore, for the most part, what I wear to work, which I guess qualified me as a prep. Why did I leave this again? Endless supply of beer; drunken phone calls; 3 AM Quiznos (euughhhh); and lots of upset Florida fans.

What....the hell: I did happen to visit Nashville on the coldest weekend ever. It was around 20 degrees last night, with a stiff wind that made me cry and tested my desire to live. In typical Nashville fashion, the city wasn't prepared for cold AND precipitation at the same time, so they had no salt or sand anywhere. As a result, all roads and sidewalks were covered in a sheet of ice. Sweet. That made the walks to and from the Holiday Inn (11 PM, 3:30 AM) both tearjerkers.

Old links to know: Here are the links from my Super Bowl blogs from 49ers.com:

Sunday, January 28th (looking very intern-ish)
Monday, January 29th (Me and Ronnie Brown)
Tuesday, January 30th (Media Day)
Wednesday, January 31st (Frank Gore and I looking mean, me and Emmitt Smith)
Thursday, February 1st (Prince...so hot right now)
Friday, February 2nd (looking very intern-ish again)
Saturday, February 3rd (my name is spelled wrong...)
Sunday, February 4th (the game day recall)

Sports things to know:

Vanderbilt might get fined since its fans stormed the court after beating #1 Florida yesterday. Since this would be their second offense, they are subject to a $25,000 fine. From Andy Katz's blog on ESPN.com: (Vanderbilt head coach Kevin) Stallings said an administrative official told him the storming of the court was "money well spent."
For future reference: The penalty for dumping a TV star for a super model is a baby. Courtesy Tom Brady.
Michael Irvin is out at ESPN.
Randy Johnson thinks he can continue the trend of big-time free agents fizzling in New York, then leaving and regaining their stardom.
What is the point in having the NBA's second-year players beat the crap out of a group of mediocre rookies every year?
The NCAA might take back some of the clock changes they made last season.
One of my favorite web sites, DraftHistory, has posted a review of the difference between having the #3 and #4 overall picks in the NFL Draft, since the Bucs and Browns will coin flip for the pick.

We're sorry, luck doesn't exist here: Up $250 from Mandalay Bay, and $1150 at the Bellagio, I'll get my chance to take on the craps tables at Mohegan Sun on Tuesday. I'm either due to bank $4000 bucks (the linear progression of my rise) or lose about $4000 (my overconfidence biting me in the ass, and my luck coming crashing down to Earth). As a precaution, I plan on drinking around $4000 in free liquor.

Weekend excursion to Nash-vegas: Prepare for Impact!, The Return of Go Dores, and snow for everyone

2007-02-17T17:30:00.000-05:00

Seeing as I haven't posted in a while--more on that in a bit--it's only appropriate that I pick back up once I get back to Vanderbilt.

Of course, it's 20 degrees here. Actually, right now, it's snowing. I can't seem to escape that all of a sudden. I'm in New York just long enough to shovel snow, so I go south, and what happens? Snow. I suppose since I kept telling people how much I missed the cold weater, I'm getting my payback now.

Coming back this time, as opposed to Homecoming last semester, I feel old. Really old. When I was here in October, I felt like I still could have been a student. This time, I don't feel like a student; they just feel like "people" to me. Spending the whole season among older, working people, I guess has really changed my outlook. The people that are juniors and seniors just look like college students. The freshman and sophomores look like little kids.

Not to mention I am a lightweight these days. (sigh)

Anyhoo, the whole reason I came down was to teach Impact 1 to all the froshies and sophomores in the house. It went really well! To be honest, I didn't put as much time into studying it as I should have--but they were all smarties and they carried a lot of the discussion. What good little frat boys! Remember...your intent should equal your impact.

We've got a frat party tonight (Saturday), "Preps vs. Punks." Yay college!

Vanderbilt beat #1 Florida today, for all of you college basketball fans. Acutally, more like, Vanderbilt beat the SHIT out of #1 Florida, here at Memorial Gym. (Memorial Magic baby!) What's funny is, we hosted Florida when Ray taught Impact 1 my sophomore year. (Ray's first college basketball game) (even though he ATTENDED Syracuse the year they won the championship). That was the game that Daron told Matt Walsh to "die in a fire." Classic.

It's great to be back here. I really love this city. Something about this place comforts me very much. The people here that I know probably have a lot to do with it, but Nashville is just a great place, too. I feel like this is a place I could settle down and live very easily. Not that San Francisco isn't that way--I just don't feel like I got to know the city or the area enough to make that decision.

It was nice to see the guys at the Titans and at Vanderbilt media relations. They're all doing really well.

Why the hell haven't I been updating??? Well, during Super Bowl week, the grind of writing two blogs, while surviving on 5 AM to 1 AM working hours, just didn't hold up. I did blog for 49ers.com throughout the week, and they put up some GREAT pictures. I'll post the links later. (for some reason, when I blog from a Mac, I can't make hyperlinks....)

Then, I flew back to San Jose from Miami, and pretty much moved out. I gave myself four days between getting back to the West coast and flying back to New York. In that time, I had to ship boxes home, sell all the things I couldn't take with me (bed, TV, dresser, etc.), and totally move out.

My computer desk, which I bought used, was starting to fall apart. So, I broke that into a million pieces. That was AWESOME.

As hectic as the moveout was, I made it back to NY with all of my belongings out of the apartment and the 49ers facility. It was tough to leave, yes, but it isn't like I was moving out with nothing to look forward to. I mean, I AM about to spend 4 months working in Germany. I really can't complain.

Back in NY, I have been chillin', hard core. To kill time, I've been playing Super Mario 64. It was on my list of games that I hadn't ever beaten that I really wanted to. (Yup, that's actually a list I keep.) I'm on 90-something stars...but I HAD to take a break. I had stopped going outside...I stopped shaving...typical Andy Vacation Syndrome.

My time in NY will be nuts. I leave Nashville on Sunday. On Tuesday, I'm going to Mohegian Sun with Chris and Virginia and a friend of hers. (So far, I'm 2 for 2 making money gambling. Now, the pressure is on.) On Friday, the NFL Europa Allocation Draft happens...and I find out who I have on my roster! Then, I pretty much start working on making each player's biographies. And I've got to get down to DC at some point....

S'pose that's all I've got for now. Expect more consistent updates from here on out. Oh, and uhh, Go Dores.

Super Sunday...not quite yet

2007-01-28T23:57:00.000-05:00

I could bore you with how tired I am, but I owe the faithful an update since I've started working in Miami (which isn't really Miami, as I'll explain below).

The "who's who" of the people down here is really incredible. Most of it means nothing to anyone but me, but the PR staff is made up of mostly public relations directors of the NFL teams. While I'm obviously not on the same plane as them, it's amazing to be volunteering and doing the same tasks as a guy who's the head honcho with his main team.

Not to mention, most of these guys, when I hear about them, come with phrases like, "He's been doing a great job for a really long time." And they're all in the same room. Unbelievable.

Two of my fellow NFL Europe volunteers are here as well! That makes half of the League here in attendance. Clearly, the League picked its future interns well. It's nice to put some names to the faces too, and to actually know people before I dive into it.

On Saturday, we all got a tour of Dolphin Stadium. Schematically, from the outside, it looks very much like Giants Stadium in East Rutherford. The interior of the building is very interesting, since it's one of the few combined football/baseball stadiums still in existence. Everything looks very nice and new, considering it's been in use for quite a while.

They're still making additions to the stadium as well, for the Super Bowl. They're building--literally, from scratch--media areas on the top of the stadium, for the international broadcast booth for example (where I will be on Sunday).

It was very sunny that day, and I have a great necktan to show it.

The main person I'm working with is David Tossell, head of NFL International. One of the big things he does, for instance, is campaign to get an NFL regular season game in London--which is happening next year. Which two teams will it be? Find out Friday at Commissioner Goodell's press conference. But I know already. (Sorry, I hate to rub it in.) (Not that it matters, you'll find out in a few days, too.)

Ready for something cool? The webmaster of the 49ers website, the wonderful Chrissy Mauck, has asked me to blog about my experience at the Super Bowl this week! My blog for her, which will appear on 49ers.com, will talk about what it's like to see the Super Bowl from behind the scenes, after being a fan all of my life.

I just sent that one over a few minutes ago, so when it's posted on the website, I'll put the hard link here.

But in the meantime, you check out the videos on the website, masterfully done by the 49ers website/video intern and my roommate back in California, Scott Kegley.

As I alluded to before, the Super Bowl is NOT being held in Miami. Seriously. Since all of the week's events are being held up by the three surrounding counties (could some of the locals help me on the names?), this has been touted as the South Florida Super Bowl. It makes sense, yes, but will the people really call it that? I doubt it.

So, it's a small world after all. As all the Super Bowl volunteers went around the room introducing themselves, a very familiar face popped up. She works at the League office on Park Ave, back in New York. I went to camp with her after 8th and 9th grade! And I dated one of her friends! Her name is Joanna Hunter, and we went to Explo together for two years. So now, not only are two of my Explo friends in the Bay Area with me, but one of them works in the NFL, and she's here, in Mia...South Florida. Amazing! That camp has been wonderful to me. I still regret not working there one summer (despite what Jane says).

I saw John Clayton and Marshall Faulk (at different times) today. John Clayton is a really, really nice guy. I didn't hear or see Marshall say anything, but come on, he's one of the greatest running backs of all time. He HAS to be a good guy, right?

Bears arrived today, Colts tomorrow, Media Day Tuesday. That will be a circus. I can't wait. Until then....I need to wake up for work in less than 5 hours. Hasta luego.

Bienvenidos a Miami

2007-01-26T23:09:00.000-05:00

I've got some catching up to do as far as getting the masses up to speed, but it's about to be a crazy time over here, so here's what's going on.

Flew into Miami today. I think this is the longest trip I've ever packed for in my life (besides Vandy and SF, where I was going to live). It isn't even like I can pack and look like I just rolled out of bed, either. I packed two bags (two!) and I probably could have packed more, but it was just getting excessive.

My flight wasn't direct from SF, but I connected in Los Angeles, so it might as well have been. I hadn't been to LAX in a few years, and I forgot how massive that place is. I always get a kick out of taking a shuttle within the airport; it's really that big of a place that you can't simply walk? LAX is for sure too big to walk around (Denver, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Atlanta are equally bad offenders.)

The plane I took from LAX to Miami might have been the biggest plane I've been on in my life. My seat was "33J." 33J? Are you kidding me? I was right in the middle of the plane, too, so there might have even been another 30 rows behind me. When I got on the plane, the stewardess said, "Your seat is in the other aisle." I felt like I was in a grocery store.

Regardless, I eventually made it to the Biscayne Bay Marriott in Miami. I forgot how good humidity felt. It even smelled like the East coast. Both of those will be cool for about a day. Everything here is in Spanish, too. When they announced things over the airport PA only in Spanish, it reminded me of Cancun. Only this time, I'm in America. Trippy.

As you might expect, you couldn't walk three feet in Miami without some kind of reminder that the Super Bowl is coming. There are banners and posters and signs everywhere.

For the last week, I haven't been able to get Miami by Will Smith out of my head.

I'm on the 26th floor of the hotel here. It's the second straight trip that I've been on some incredibly high level of a nice hotel. (Vegas feels like it was months ago.)

Seeing that I have a meeting in 8 and a half hours, I'm done for the night. I'm supposed to be meeting everyone (whoever everyone is) and learning what I'm doing for the week. Should be interesting.

welcome to bloggingandy.

2007-01-26T13:04:00.000-05:00

Ok, I had mentioned to a few people that I would do this. So, for all you guys, hey--I'm no liar. For everyone else, I guess you deserve an explanation.

Over the next few months, I'm going to be in a lot of different places. In lots of those places, I simply won't get to talk to everyone very often, and while I might not call you or e-mail you ever, I promise, I do care about (most of) you very, very much.

So here's my cheapo way of keeping in touch with everyone: I can blog. This way, I can tell all my fans and followers what exactly it is that I'm up to while I'm in (Las Vegas/Miami/New York/Tampa/all over Germany) (and beyond?).

Even cooler, I can put up all my sweet, sweet pictures too, just in case some of you are still skeptical that I actually am doing all of this stuff. (if you don't trust me, why are you even here?)

So there you have it. It's a little personal version of "Where's Waldo," but with no book, or striped sweater, or ski hats. But I will be in Germany, and I know Waldo was there. I found him myself.

Once I figure out how to use this little blog stuff, I'll try and keep the schedule of what's going on someplace obvious on the page.

Oh, and tell your friends!