The battlefield is set. It has been lined with white paint, marked by orange cones and readied by officials with white and black stripes.
Temperatures are down and the lights of the Student Recreation Complex are back on. Fall is in the air.
It's intramural flag football season.
My team is primed for a championship run.
It'll be a tough route to the championship this year, but everyone believes this is our year. This year everyone makes the playoffs, so it's all about rankings, and we want victories at any cost, even death.
A record 196 teams are playing in the league this year, and we will squash every one of them.
There are four fields of play and about 30 campus recreation employees and officials heading the league tournament.
To better our chances, we tried to pay the officials off, but they said a dollar wasn't enough.
Tara Fisher, intramural coordinator for the SRC, said that wouldn't be fair.
She said this year's field of teams has teams from both the West and Polytechnic campuses, as well as many fraternity and sorority teams.
"For us, this is it," Fisher said. "It's all about flag football."
Fisher said the sport builds community, and research shows it can help with the retention of college students.
"I met my girlfriend here," said Mike Beadle, supervisor of officials. "It's a great way to get involved in the school, and this year it's so popular that we don't even have enough officials to fill the games."
That's cool. Our team can referee our own game. I promise we won't cheat.
Unlike pro and college sports, players pick their own team names in this league, so it makes for a crude and ridiculous schedule. One look at our schedule, and we know we face some tough teams.
Our first opponent has aptly named themselves Date My Dad. So obviously, we're a little intimidated. Plain scared, really.
What if Dad shows up and we can't help ourselves? What if he's cute or something? What can we do to stop him from ruining our lives?
We'll just have to survive - and remember that it's all for the love of the game.
Because after a night with Dad, I'm sure all of us will be spent. But we'll have to play again the next week, as we square off against the Mighty Drunks.
You can't take any game lightly, but if the Mighty Drunks are true to their name, we could win this one. Poor sportsmanship results in forfeit.
Suckers.
I hope they fall over themselves and start puking on the field. It'd be like playing in the mud, sliding through the sludge.
Now that's real football.
In our last regular season game, we strap it up against Balls. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that. Yet, it's all about the game, so if I have to pull off a flag from a Balls team member, I have to do it.
I'm a flag football player.
Then if we make the playoffs, I think we can really do some damage.
Maybe we'd play a team like Off-Constantly in the first round. It'd be nice just to say we beat them.
Inevitably, we'd play a fraternity team. Maybe something like Tappa Kegga, or I Ata Pi.
No matter, every team has a weakness, and we plan to expose it.
We are, after all, the Channel 4 News Team Investigators, and we're No. 1.
Stay classy, ASU.
Ty Thompson is a journalism senior. Reach him at: tyler.w.thompson@asu.edu. Become a flag football official by contacting michael.siebrecht@asu.edu.
