Fl-ackle

yes, that's about right... it's kind of a combination of flag and tackle football. Ryan is in heaven, it's the perfect way to spend a Friday night as far as he's concerned. I had no idea what to expect when we signed up for this. Every other sport we've enrolled him in involved one of the kids' dad volunteering to coach. The main focus and interest was on the snack afterwards.

This time, we have a former NFL player coaching, so I knew there was somewhat of a step up from what we'd been used to. So they had a couple of practices during the week, learned some plays, we have all these sheets of paper with little X and O figures with arrows pointing everywhere... I won't pretend to know what any of that means. So we show up at the field for the game and were blown away.

This was a real football field, with goal posts, yard lines, booming speakers, a flashing scoreboard, and concession stand brimming with tons of spectator foods. There we were, lined up at the gate, $2 in hand for admission, this was the real deal. I've never been this excited at football game in high school or college! The boys were lined up outside the field and as the announcer called each name, they came running out through the goal posts to the sounds of their adoring fans.

The boys will rotate through playing all the positions, and I won't pretend to know what they all are, but Ryan did get to be the quarterback a couple times- his favorite position so far because, as he pointed out, he will definitely get to at least touch the football if he is quarterback. And touching the football is very important.

I wasn't expecting much. I kinda thought that each of the teams would score a touchdown every time they got the ball. But there was a surprising amount of blocking and tackling involved (for a sport that wasn't supposed to have tackling). I also figured most of the action would be running with the ball, I didn't think they would be coordinated enough to throw to each other (or able to catch). I was wrong. One of Ryan's 2 touchdown passes was captured on the video below. Yes, I am the proud screaming momma in the background! He was so calm and cool, looking around for his receiver and lining up his throw just before the guys grabbed his flags. And the kid that caught it slipped right into the end zone. It was such a thrill to see Ryan's face light up. He was beaming. And he hasn't thought of anything else since. He's up hours past bedtime reliving the moment.