I had the very fortunate opportunity to participate in a flag football tournament this past weekend. It wasn't just any flag football tournament, but rather one that is an annual charity event hosted by a member of the Indianapolis Colts. Gary Brackett's Impact foundation, has put on this event for the past three years and I happen to luck into a roster spot in this year's event.
The circumstances that led to this roster spot are a bit involved, but my connection to the Code Blue Fanbulance was the key. Kroger is the title sponsor of this event and they had three teams that were participating in the event. The third team, called the Kroger Customer Team, was where I landed. The regional marketing director, Karol, had some roster spots to fill and felt it appropriate to allow some Colts fans to step in and fill those spots. Chad, my brother-in-law, and I were happy and excited to participate. Each team consists of 8-10 players, which would include a "celebrity" quarterback.
We were invited to not only participate in the tournament, but also attend the reception dinner the night before, where a NFL like draft was held to select your "celebrity" quarterback. Upon arrival to the reception, Chad and I, (accompanied by his wife and my mother-in-law), noticed that the Kroger Customer Team was clearly not as respected as the other Kroger sponsored teams. They had full tables with chairs to sit at, as we only had a small pub style table and were required to stand. No matter, as the old saying goes, "we were just happy to be here". I should point out that we weren't the only team with this treatment, the majority of the other teams had the same setup.
Sitting on the table upon arrival was a folder that contained the agenda for the evening, rules for the tournament, and the draft order of the 24 teams that were participating. Sitting at positions 1 and 2 were, you guessed it, Kroger teams 1 and 2. Where was the old Kroger Customer Team, yep, draft position 24... No problem, we'll still get to play with a "celebrity" right? Also included in the folder was the list of "celebrities" that were available for the draft, many of them were actual Indianapolis Colts players, with a few local television and radio personalities mixed in. We quickly noticed that there were only 26 "celebrities" to choose from in this list, which meant when it was our turn to choose, we would be left with only 2 to choose from.
Just before the draft selection process was set to begin, one of the members from Kroger team 1 stood up and announced that they would be giving up their 1st pick in the draft and awarding it to the Kroger Customer Team. Whaaaaaaaa? We moved quickly and picked up Gary Brackett with our first pick. Though, I don't think that we really had a choice in the matter, it was his event anyway, and I am pretty sure it would have been in bad taste to draft anyone other than him 1st.
The tournament itself was a blast, every team was guaranteed to play at least 2 games. Participating members were given VIP treatment; jersey, duffel bag, nice team photo frame and pretty much all of the food and drink you could imagine. All of the Colts players that were present were very approachable and didn't turn the other way when someone asked for an autograph or photo op.
We ended up winning our first 3 games and made it into the semi-finals, but ran into a really good team and lost. I was really glad that we were invited to the event and was happy to come out injury free. My legs were pretty sore, despite my p90x regimen. I think that I tweaked both of my hamstring during he 2nd and 3rd games...
