Tuesday, April 11, 2023
Before we get into the story of our long expedition into deepest, darkest Orange County today, we must update you on the latest shenanigans on the world stage of American football.
"Estäo Prontos?" is Portuguese for
"Are You Ready?"
To review, in March of 2022, I was honored to be asked to fly down to São Paulo, Brazil for a week to work as the Linebackers Coach during the Brasil Onças National Team Camp. It was the first gathering of candidates for a National Team since before the pandemic years of 2020-21 and it turned out to be a fantastic football, cultural, learning and bonding experience for me.
The camp's main goal was to evaluate the athletes in attendance with an eye towards the formulation of a team to compete in the International Federation of American Football's (IFAF) Americas qualifying tournament in January of 2023 in Mexico City against National Teams representing Chile, Mexico and Panama. The winner of this tournament would receive an automatic bid to IFAF's World Championship Tournament in Germany this coming Summer.
Towards the end of our week in Brazil, four of our coaches were asked to each speak for an hour to a small group of local coaches in attendance and a huge group of coaches listening in on-line all over the vast Brazilian landscape. I was chosen to be one of the four speakers and was asked to talk about my favorite subject, "The Kicking Game."
Apparently, what I had to say was well received as I was again honored to be contacted by Brasil Onças Head Coach Brian Guzman about a month after the camp with the offer to be the Brazilian National Team's Special Teams Coordinator for the coming tournament.
Brian Guzman addressing the team
in São Paulo last year
Then, in the Fall of 2022, IFAF did what IFAF usually does, they made a weird decision.
They decided to postpone the World Games from the Summer of 2023 to the Summer of 2024.
In response, our Americas Qualifying Tournament was moved January to June of 2023, still in Mexico City with National Teams from Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Panama.
The Onças were primed to play
in our awesome uniforms
Brasil Onças team warm-up in 2022
Monday evening I got a call from Coach Guzman updating me on the latest squabble between IFAF and the Western Hemisphere.
In a nutshell, everyone in charge was fed up with IFAF's postponement decisions that seemed to lack any logical merit.
Mexico, Central and South America's traditional American football powerhouse, said enough is enough. Mexico decided not to host any qualifying tournament given the uncertainty of IFAF's desire to hold the World Games.
To pacify Mexico, IFAF said that the Mexican National Team now had an automatic bid into the 2024 World Games.
The rest of the countries located south of Mexico in the New World would now be free to compete for a Wild Card spot in the World Games which actually was good news with Mexico out of the qualifying picture.
But what of our Brasil Onças squad that had not been together in over a year now?
Cris and the CBFA to the rescue
Cristiane Kajiwara is the President of the Confederação Brasileria de Futebol Americano (CBFA), the governing body for American football in Brasil.
Through her tireless efforts and dedication, CBFA is now in the early organizational stages of hosting an Americas Tournament in either Brasília, the nation's capital, or in São Paulo in late November-early December of 2023.
Besides the Brasil Onças, CBFA has invited the National Teams from Chile, Colombia and Panama to compete.
The biggest thing that all of us agreed upon was the need to have the Onças finally play a game or two after what would be nearly 20 months since the Onças Camp in 2022.
With that in mind, even if one or two countries can not attend, the Onças would be happy to still play at least one game in 2023.
Stay tuned . . .
Now as for Tuesday's trek, son Michael is on his Spring Break so we agreed to drive the two hours south to Irvine to watch a high school varsity baseball game between the Woodbridge Warriors (15-5) and the host Portola Bulldogs (8-11).
It was a beautiful day for a
ball game at Portola H.S.
We had several reasons for this trip. First, the Woodbridge H.S. Head Baseball Coach was our long time family friend Ryan Brucker.
Ryan is the son of my college roommate Loren and Laurie's University of Washington roommate Sandy.
We arrived early enough to have a good chat with Ryan before the first pitch. When the game started I sat with Loren and Sandy and caught up again.
Good Times!
We had one other important reason for the journey.
Michael's cousin Lindsey Hicks
is an English teacher at Portola H.S.
They sat together and talked constantly during the game.
Woodbridge pitcher taking
care of business
The eight school Pacific Coast League leading Warriors (16-5, 12-2 PCL) asserted their presence with authority in dispatching the PCL's fifth place Bulldogs (8-12, 6-7 PCL) by a final score of 15-2.
These two clubs will play again on Wednesday at Woodbridge and Thursday at Portola in an effort to get in games that were rained out during the recent storms. Each PCL team will play an astounding total for high school baseball in Southern California of 21 league games.
Meanwhile, in Italy . . .
The Skorpions return to DI IFL
action on Sunday
The 1-2 Varese squad will be at home on Sunday against the 0-3 Emilia Stainless Steel Warriors.
I spent much of the morning doing more video breakdown and analytics work in preparation for both this game and the following game against the Lazio Ducks.
And the beat goes on . . .
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