Question of the Day: For the Fun of the Game?

[Reginald Rutledge]

We are going on our 14th season here in the DFW League and the principles of "Paying it Forward" still applies and has served us well. We've seen good guys (as well as bad guys) come and go. We've seen our league go from using strictly Tudor athletes to now, every manufacturers athlete. We have seen our weight standard go from 3.2 grams to 4.4 grams to settle out at 4.0 grams. We have seen death, divorce, and dissension. We've seen steroids (performance enhancing elements) and stacking. We've seen babies grow up into fine young men and women. We've seen tragedies ranging from suicide to cancer. You name it, we've seen it! But through all of the turbulent times as well as the many good times, we have seen the unadulterated element of FUN!

In my opinion, fun is a mindset that is first cultivated from planting the seeds of hope for the good of everyone to enjoy a game to its fullest. When the DFW was founded in 1995, my hope was for the guys to experience what I had experience since 1975 using the same ruleset. It did help that I ran into Roddy Garcia in 1994 and he showed me how to implement "The Box". For that, I would always be eternally grateful. And my fellow league mates, whether knowingly or not, would be grateful too.

I hear the grateful laughter of guys screaming with anticipation and excitement playing games on the weekend, whether its at a hotel or at each other homes or at a hobby store. We've pulled a many passer-bys into the league just by seeing the shear FUN we were having playing what many think is a child's game. It always helps to show the stadiums and other props. That lends so much credibility to what we do. But besides from all the "extras", there's a shear joy in knowing that every weekend, we will get together and see who star runner gets injured or what lineman was called for a holding infraction on a key 35 yard run. You can get the pulse of a league based on the chemistry between the coaches. Do you have 8-way conference calls at anytime during the day. Everything is spontaneous. The energy and yes, hype, is infectious!

If you've ever had the chance to come to the Texas Shootout, what you see is small scaled compared to what goes on during the season. Even when Road Warriors come here during our league season, they still do not experience the full effect of the league. I remember in the 2006 Shootout, one of our Road Warriors, asked me to put a cell phone in the stadium and let him hear the game as it happened. Because he lived in West Virginia, he could not be at the Shootout on that weekend.

There have been guys that you know were losing their "Mojo" and we would start calling people up to re-energized that individual. Sometimes, it takes that. We've always been a league willing to look beyond the bounds of strict rules and embrace changes for the good of the people in the league. Sometimes executive privileges must be used if it is of great benefit for the good of everyone. You live with the criticism knowing that all will benefit later.

You encourage having a league where guys from across the country are able to be a part of what you do. You want them to experience the sheer excitement of what you do! It pumps us up to know that guys are willing to invest their time and money in coming to the DFW. It becomes our priority to welcome them with open arms, show them what we know, and make sure they have FUN! If you learn a little X's and O's along the way, that's good but that's not the most important thing. You can play in a league or style of play that may not include FUN, it may be one of degrading your league mate personally or over lecturing to him on how to play or telling him he can't use these figures or those figures. To me, that takes the FUN out of the game!
I've got just a few years left on this earth and I know, besides from the normal stresses that life offers me, I want to know I had FUN doing my thang! And to me, the bottom line is when I invest my time in playing this game, do I really have fun? And more importantly, do you have FUN and how so?

Reg