A Skorpion Saturday

Saturday, 8 February, 2020

It was another bright but chilly day in Varese, perfect for a long day trying to improve the Skorpion playing experience.

Icy conditions at Skorpion Field
when we arrived at 8:30 a.m.

The initial idea was for a group of seven of us to spend about four hours lining the field.

Oh, how teams playing on synthetic American football fields are spoiled!

We would be required to be not just painters but also surveyors this morning and we were up to the task!

Of course, not everything would go according to plan.

Earlier in the week we had experienced one day of strong but not gale force winds. While it was a bit uncomfortable to walk around Varese that day, I had no idea about what the winds could do to Skorpion Field.

Giorgio Nardi during a possible
OSHA violation

The wind had blown the aluminum roof off of one our sideline bench areas. It took about an hour but the damage was repaired.

The wind also wreaked havoc with some of our sponsorship signs around the perimeter of our stadium. Fixing this issue would prove much easier than reattaching that roof.

We were done at about 12:30 p.m. and celebrated with a bit of Prosecco.

We were at Skorpion Field after all.

We decided to drive back to the Villa Skorpion II for a solid pasta lunch at the Nardi's home before returning to Skorpion Field for a Prima Squadra 7-on-7 practice at 3:00 p.m.

We got a lot of good work in during our hour and 45 minute workout. The main focus for our Offensive group of QBs and Receivers was to fine tune the timing on just three of our basic but most important pass routes.

We got better today which was great to see as we have our annual scrimmage against the Rebels next Sunday, the 17th of February, in Lugano, Switzerland.

Our first Italian DII game is now only three weeks away on the 29th of February, at home vs. the Modena Vipers.

Our three youth flag teams shared
the field with us today

Here our U13 and U15 squads were scrimmaging each other.

Our U17 team was it it as well

Many of our flag team coaches were in Bologna today for a National Federation meeting that would address several issues for the fast approaching 2020 Flag football season.

One of those issues would be the makeup of this season's girones or leagues.

Nationally, the U13 and U17 levels will each field 15 teams this year while the U15s will have 20 teams vying for the Italian crown. 

Here is where our teams were placed for the upcoming campaign:

U13 Girone

Bergamo Lions

Cernusco Daemons

Monza Brianza Hammers

Varese Skorpions

U15 Girone

Cernusco Daemons
Monza Brianza Hammers
Milano Rhinos
Milano Seamen
Varese Skorpions

U17 Girone
Bergamo Lions
Cernusco Daemons  

 Varese Skorpions

No word was relayed back to us from the meeting about our Women's team Girone for 2020.

Meanwhile, back in Las Vegas . . .

Young Kevin Contreras playing Center
just like his Grandfather

SO COOL!

I too wore Adidas shoes back in the day, but not blue ones.

Keep your eyes up, Kevin.

Good friend, Europe Warriors General Manager and Head Coach and also Head Coach of Barcelona's DI Pioners L'Hospitalet, Bart Iaccarino was speaking at the big American Football Coaches Clinic in Munich, Germany this weekend.

He had two speaking assignments and opted to talk about RPOs (Run Pass Options) in his first one. He had asked me if it was OK to talk about our concepts out of Punt formation in his second speech.

We have used these somewhat different Punt concepts in all five of our Europe Warriors games and Bart likes them. Of course I told him to go for it!

I was a bit taken aback when Bart sent me this photo of his clinic's agenda.

George Contreras Punt?

Hilarious!

Our Punt schemes date back 25 years ago now and really grew from the ideas of my Kicking Game guru Bill Corliss from Visalia, California and my Rio Mesa H.S. assistant at the time, Jaime Lopez.

This fake oriented scheme has been invaluable part of our team's successes for a quarter of a century now on two continents.

Thanks Bart!