Tues.-Fri., January 25-28, 2022
Four days that were dominated by the gridiron, European style.
But first, a dose of the truth. . .
. . . the ABSOLUTE truth!
There was still a lot of controversy
over the NFL overtime rules and last
Sunday's end to the Chiefs-Bills game
Regardless, these are your Final Four
teams vying for the Super Bowl LVI's
Lombardi Trophy
I'm sticking with my Super Bowl prediction of a Chiefs-Rams game.
The Lions are the only non-expansion
team to never appear in a Super Bowl
Meanwhile, back on the EuroBall front . . .
The shipping of used American football
equipment to teams in need overseas
continued with this box to Romania
Since last September, Laurie and I have been busy shipping off used but still usable gear donated by local high schools to teams in need in both Europe and South America.
The box that you see above was the 28th that we have sent abroad in the last five months. This is considered to be a medium sized box, most of our shipments have been of the large and extra-large variety.
To date, here are the 18 teams in ten different countries that have received the gridiron "Care Packages."
COLOMBIA
Cali Dragones
FRANCE
Lannion Grizzlys
GUATEMALA
Xela Cabros
ISRAEL:
Ramat Hasharon Hammers
ITALY:
Cagliari Crusaders
Catania Elephants
POLAND:
Sieradz Warriors
Zabki Dukes
ROMANIA:
Bucharest Titans
Giurgiu Gladiators
SPAIN:
Ávila Grizzlies
Guadalajara Stings
Ibi Industriales
Mallorca Voltors
Tenerife Helldogs
SWEDEN:
Göteborg Marvels
UNITED KINGDOM:
Cambridge University Pythons
Cornwall One for All
As of Thursday, these teams have been the recipients of 23 helmets, 37 shoulder pads, 513 jerseys, 402 pants, 117 new NFL Los Angeles Chargers game socks, 3 face masks, 3 new mouth pieces and an agility ladder!
All of this donated equipment is passed on to these clubs for free, other than the request to reimburse us for our shipping costs. On average, this winds up costing the teams roughly $4.00 per jersey or pant and a little more for the heavier, bulkier helmets and shoulder pads. This is quite the bargain for these clubs.
A huge THANK YOU to Laurie who has given up a huge part of her garage space to house all of this gear and has steadfastly aided in the packing process by being, easily, the world's best shipping tape applier to bolster these box's rough journeys overseas.
Romania's Bucharest Titans
were shipped a box on Tuesday with
36 jerseys and 36 pants
Also located in Romania, the
Giurgiu Gladiators were shipped
32 jerseys and 32 pants on Thursday
On Friday morning, Spain's
Zaragoza Mercenarios inquired
about jerseys and pants
Despite having already shipped a total of 915 jerseys and pants already, we still have lots more in our garage to move along hopefully.
On to the EuroBall Clinic front . . .
On the left, Varese Skorpions Coach
Christian "Bumba" Bianco
with Martino Piazzi and Ema Della Bosca
Laurie and I have met a lot of wonderful people during all of our EuroBall adventures and Bumba is one of the best of the bests in my opinion.
As the Skorpions Running Backs Coach, he has done a fabulous job getting his players to constantly improve from week-to-week and season-to-season.
Always having the best interests of the Skorpions in mind, he did not hesitate for a moment back in 2018 when we had injury issues in our Offensive Line, to become our starting Right Tackle for a game in Sardinia against the Cagliari Crusaders. One must remember that Bumba was a Running Back all of his career before that night, a 28-0 Skorpions victory. His amazing work as our emergency Right Tackle was something that I'll never forget.
In 2019, the injury bug hit us again in Varese but this time at the Running Back spots. No problem as Coach Bumba morphed into Player/Coach Bumba and was a great blocking Fullback for us who seemed to always pick up some key yards in pressure situations when his number was called to tote the pigskin.
Now, you ask, why is Bumba being mentioned in this post?
Simply because he asked me for a favor this week and how could I possibly even think of not repaying his dedication to our Skorpions.
During the Spring and early Summer of that disastrous Covid-19 year of 2020, Bumba had organized a series of Zoom meetings with the Skorpions coaching staff to answer a myriad of questions that they had about all thing related to American football. I thought that these meeting were a great success and I really enjoyed the back-and-forth nature of these talks.
At about the same time, I had done a similar set of Zoom clinics with the coaching staff of Romania's Cluj Crusaders and again had a ball working with them.
Thus when Bumba informed me that:
A. He was dating a woman from Serbia;
B. That she had ties to the Board of Directors of the Serbian Association of American Football (SAAF); and that
C. The SAAF Board of Directors wanted to know if I would also be willing do a series of Zoom clinics open to all of the coaches in Serbia that were interested in learning more about the game.
As I said before, how could I refuse Bumba anything?
So on Friday, I had a ZOOM
meeting with Bumba and with . . .
SAAF Board Member
Bosiljka Jovanovic
Bosa, as her friends call her, was also a highly regarded referee in Italy when I was with the Skorpions. I never realized at the time that she was a Serbian and not an Italian.
Her day job had brought her to Milan for a few years but her passion remained with American football, thus she donned the black and white stripes.
Now back in her home country, Bosa was still keeping extremely active with American football.
Our Zoom meeting also included
SAAF's President Nikola Davidovic
We Zoomed it for about 30 minutes
and instantly recognized that this
was going to work
In life there is the the "FIVE SECOND RULE" stating the amount of time that dropped food can lay on the ground before being safely picked up and still be consumed.
Life also has, I have found, a "FIVE MINUTE RULE." This rule dictates that to a careful observer, the first five minutes in a new environment or upon first meeting someone will tell all you need to know about the culture of your surroundings or character of your new acquaintance.
Bosa and Nikola both passed this valid test with flying colors!
We will have our first SAAF
Zoom Coaching Clinic at
11:00 a.m on Wednesday, February 10th
The Cambridge University Pythons
play the University of Kent Falcons
on Sunday in the United Kingdom
Cambridge was the recipient of 42 jerseys in one of our "Care Packages" back in December.
Sad but not totally unexpected
news on the Europe Warriors front
The Warriors have been trying to put together two more games in the Western Hemisphere in 2022. Previous Warriors efforts have seen Senior Men's games played in Mexico City (2017) and in Chihuahua, Mexico (2018). The Women's team had also played a game in Mexico City (2019) while the Men's U-18 teams had battled in Texcoco, Mexico (2017) and in Vienna (2019).
All five of these games took place in either August or November, a time when the vast majority of EuroBall teams are not playing and athletes are free to travel without missing home team practices. Of course, these games were played in the carefree, pre-Covid-19 years.
The Warriors have been attempting to play two games in March of 2022. The first was scheduled to be played at the beginning of the month, a Women's Senior game in the city of Mérida located on the Yucatán peninsula against Mexico's National team. The second game, a Men's Senior team affair, was to be held at the end of the month in São Paulo against the Brazilian National team.
Unfortunately this week, it was announced that the Women's game has ben cancelled. Financial issues, Covid-19 worries and time spent away from player's regular season team's practices and games all played a part in this decision.
As of the moment, our Men's game in Brazil is still a go but is on shaky ground for the same reasons.
NUTS!
On Friday, we picked up Jacob after school for our weekly trip to our local Pokemon card store.
He was more than happy
to be spoiled by his Poppo
Friday night we celebrated
Vanessa's 25th birthday
I think that's correct.
Mary, grimacing, and Jacob joined us at the "Big People's Table" for dinner.
Of course, we all sang to Vanessa
on her special day
Laurie baked a delicious red velvet bundt cake for the occasion.
Happy Birthday Vanessa!
Reading Is FUNdamental!
This book was fun as it rekindled many
fond memories from my 2010 Camino
Keep on trucking!
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