[Hook'em Horns]

a great job! I've worked on panels and have attended many board meetings with my company over the years and the one constant is that everyone in the room does not agree. However, everyone does not have to agree.

I'm in full support of a National set of rules and a national tournament with a national champion. This will not eliminate or take away from the local leagues and tournaments that will continue to go on. However, as wolf stated it will tremendously help with sponsorship and bringing more recognition to the hobby as a whole. Don't you know that there is a national set of rules that have been established for the video game "Madden" that is played unlike how you play it at home? This does not mean that you cant continue to play at home the way that you have always loved and enjoyed. However, it does state that if you want to play on a national level then there are a specific set of rules that you would have to play by. Since these rules have been established Madden has been able to create "Madden Nation" and have increased the enrollement of people playing the game by more than 8x's. This has increased the sales of game consoles and madden video games tremendously. So many sponsors have jumped on board with "Madden Nation". If you take a look at the "Madden Nation" bus you can see all of the sponsors tagged all over it...NFL, EA Sports, ESPN, Sony, etc. Imagine if this were possible for our hobby. All of the vendors including ff.com, george diamond, miggle, bruce watts, roller taco and the rest of you who are custom painters, decal, board and figures makers will reap the benefits of hundreds and maybe thousands of new members who will be looking to purhase items to get going. The more rewarding experience would be that leagues would spring up all over the place.

I don't have any interest in playing at this point in time that's why many of you have not seen me on the board lately, besides the fact that I have not renewed my membership. However, I have received several calls regarding this and I wanted to respond.

I would say to continue your efforts in moving this great hobby forward. The truth of the matter is that it will die off if we don't. We don't have as many kids involved as we use to. The next generation is into high tech gadgets. Heck they have laptops the size of cell phones that allow you to do everything. We are in the age of twitter, facebook, myspace and ipad's. It is very difficult to compete especially if you're not popular. We must do everything possible to make our brand popular. We are the skinny kid in elementary school with braces and glasses on that no girl wants to date at first. However, once in highschool after hitting the weights for three summers and going to football camp we return to school looking good, with braces off and new eye contacts and they all are looking at us differently. We must do something to change our image. No sponser wants to date us right now.

God bless you all...I pray that we can learn to come together!