Go Scorpions!

"Today
Party 4PM
Kickoff 6PM"

Three and half months of Stuttgart and 111 days since the Pats took down the Chickens in the Super Bowl (don't think I forgot about that yet Seachicken fans).  Football is in full swing, the spring weather has arrived, the city pools are opening their gates, and the beer is still flowing.  So far travelling around Europe has taken a backseat to other priorities such as coaching, learning German, working, and exploring my own city that I live in.  There are quite a few bye weeks in the summer months so I plan on taking full advantage by seeing some sights and hopefully learning some history.  But in the meantime the Scorpions have six straight weeks of GFL football.  Bring it on!

A few weeks back the Scorpions hosted their rival Unicorns at the Gazi Stadion.  The result wasn't anywhere close to what we had hoped for as we took a defeat by the count of 28-9.  Tip your hat to the Unis as they got us on our home turf.  There were certainly signs of good things to come for the Scorps as we held the reigning division champs to a mere 22 yards rushing, 10-23 passing, and had the ball over twice as long as they did.  But to beat the best you have to be on your A game, and we now have three months to take care of business in the South and get better as a team until the much anticipated rematch.

After some rest and a bye week the Scorpions traveled up to Rothenburg, Germany to face the Franken Knights.  The Knights have a few issues as a program currently, but that is nothing to take away from a smothering performance both offensively and defensively for us resulting in a 53-0 victory.  Holding a team to 156 total yards, -15 rushing, and blanketing them on the scoreboard is nothing to take for granted.  Currently sitting on a 3-2 record (2-1 in conference), the Scorpions are aiming in the right direction, but our goals are still set very high and now is the time to hit our stride.  Next up is a back to back match up versus the Rhein-Necker Bandits of Manheim.  

As mentioned, there has been much more effort devoted to improving my German tongue than the last go around over here.  In all reality the first time you leave home for a foreign country your first thoughts are "how in the world do I survive".  You know, the bare necessities like where do I get food and how do I get from point A to point B.  Two of my American teammates on the Scorpions have been here 3+ years and are fluent in German.  Its darn impressive and provides hope for the rest of us imports in learning a new language.  After passing the beginner level German class with flying colors I am going to continue my studies on my own time and dime with books and Rosetta Stone.






In addition to playing for the Scorpions and studying Deutsch, part of my time here has been spent working for my coach and his brother at their sporting goods store.  The store has walk in business, but the majority of the business is centered around distribution of football equipment all over Europe.  What a match made in heaven, right?  These guys own and operate a small sporting good store for a living.  With all of the online shopping and huge businesses back in the States it makes it near impossible to ever do something like this anymore.  Furthermore, every European player is responsible for their own equipment.  It certainly puts things into perspective when you see people (my teammates) forking over their hard earned money in order to supply themselves with the best equipment to stay healthy and play at a high level.  Football equipment is not cheap.  Coming from a Division III college in America where no athletic scholarships are allowed it felt like a "pay to play" system.  There is undoubtedly an extra appreciation for the game when you witness your teammates work full time jobs and proceed to make a team commitment too.  Whether it be coaching the youth practices, lining the field the day before games, or going the extra kilometer to visit with fans after games, it is cool to be apart of all of it.  

Post game cake courtesy of Sergey the baker

One of the neat deals of being apart of a new team is becoming friends with new guys.  Even more intriguing is learning about where everyone is from and what their story is.  We've got guys from Germany, America, France, Croatia, Czech Republic, Mexico and more.  One of the new guys to the Scorpions this year is arguably our most complete defensive tackle.  He is a bad ass French Russian with a barcode tatooted on the back of his neck.  Now where I come from that means you've done some dirt.  Come to find out, this savage on the field is actually a baker off the field!!  Being a son of a baker I've got the utmost respect for him.  Not to mention he's a good dude outside of football just like the rest of us who appear like we have a vendetta against the world on the field.


Go Scorpions,
Drew