Monthly Archive for December, 2008

SPRINGFIELD, Missouri (AP) – Ian McGibboney wanted one shot at redemption for dropping a touchdown pass early in the first half.

He got that, and one better.

McGibboney hauled in two touchdown catches and added five more receptions, and Ryan Cook scored two touchdowns as well to pace Yellow to a 52-40 win over Red in the first-ever Santa Bowl at Kickapoo High School’s practice field.

“I-Mac,” as he is known to his teammates, came on very strong after spraining a finger on an errant throw by Pete Hendricks on a conversion pass early in the second half. After Chris Brewer batted down McGibboney’s pass intended for Cook, he switched out from quarterback to receiver and caught a 35-yard touchdown on a post pattern for a 26-12 lead with 18:12 to play.

The turning point of the game occurred when Red stopped Yellow five yards from the endzone on fourth down with 15:23 to go in the game. Facing a mere 26-18 deficit, Red’s quarterback was sacked in the endzone by Hendricks and on the ensuing Yellow possession, McGibboney caught his second touchdown to put the game nearly out of reach, 34-18.

Red fought back as Chris Brewer caught a 70-yard touchdown on a busted option play that resulted in a long pass down the right sideline, but the Red defense was nowhere to be seen until the two-minute warning.

Facing a 46-28 deficit with three minutes left, the Red defense held serve while their offense found its groove, scoring two touchdowns off a hurry-up offense using a formation in which three wide receivers lined up to the right. Matt Baker and Brewer both scored, and Kurk Brown — who scored the team’s two touchdowns in the first half — caught the conversion to trim the lead to 46-40 with one minute to go.

The game came down to one play, and Yellow was able to successfully convert on a touchdown pass from Hendricks to Cook on fourth down with 44 seconds left to ice the game.

The win wasn’t entirely easy for Yellow as they faced many challenges from Red, but key stops on defense and timely first downs on offense kept Red on their heels.

“Our guys did an excellent job of adapting to the pressure Red gave us today,” Hendricks said from the podium post-game. “Every time Red made a run, we made one of our own. Ian and Ryan had some stellar catches today.”

The crimson crew was gracious in defeat, having had the tone set early by Yellow’s punishing defense and dropped passes. Overall, Red had 13 drops in the game.

“Our guys fought hard, we all came together at the end, but give Yellow credit…they carved up our defense,” Brewer said in the post-game press conference. “Anytime you give up 52 points, you’re going to lose the game unless your offense can keep gunning with them, and we got it going a bit too late.”

SOFA meets again for its regular football gathering at 2 p.m. next Sunday at the Kickapoo High School practice field in Springfield.

GAME NOTES: Both teams had a combined 21 dropped passes on the afternoon … Interesting and controversial play in the second half as Yellow’s Micah intercepted Austin’s pass at the one but subsequently fumbled as Kurk was pulling his flag. Is there a need for a referee in future competitions? … Matt appeared to be hobbling after the game due to possible overuse of his surgically reconstructed knee, but he told us he was okay and simply needed to ice it up … McGibboney should appear on the injury report this week but should be good to go for Week 13.

The Hawaiian island of Oahu is without electricity tonight.

President-elect Obama is visiting there currently.

Is this a sign of dark times upon our nation? Time shall tell.

Muhahaha.

December 25, 2005. Dateline: Baghdad, Iraq.

I had been deployed for nearly two months to the International Zone — namely, the Baghdad Convention Center — as a member of a joint-service broadcast team for the American Forces Network. Normally it was my duty to create video projects for the top-level general officers in the IZ showcasing military photos and video of significant events.

We tried to decorate our “office” — more like a group of ghetto dodgy modular trailers in a parking garage — with makeshift decorations to reflect the season. It worked as well as we could make it, using spent M16 and M9 casings as ornaments and such.

My supervisors gave me the day off…pretty much everyone except equipment maintainers were given the holiday to unwind, if that was even possible. Especially with the sound of tracer fire and mortars exploding in the early morning, you couldn’t blame yourself if you just wanted to stay in your trailer all day.

It was Christmas though, and we had to celebrate it somehow.

After the rounds subsided, a bunch of us donned our PT gear and body armor to walk down to the grass helipad by the Believer’s Palace. There was a neat little bazaar area down there, but we wouldn’t be heading down there today.

Believer’s Palace was so named because it was a building set up to look like a palace so if anyone attacked, they’d believe Saddam Hussein was in there and bomb it instead of the Republican Palace. The U.S. did just that, and the entire building was littered with rubble from rocket and cruise missile fire.

Just outside Believer’s Palace was this grassy area with a matted down, dirty area in the middle that served as a helipad. It was unused, so people routinely used it as a softball field for the troops to play during the summer.

We arrived to the helipad, and the Navy Senior Chief that was with us opened his backpack and produced a football. Genuine Wilson 1001 college-style ball, I might add. There were eight of us, so we’d mark up four on four.

The result of the game wasn’t important, but I can remember it being sixty-ish degrees outside, hearing helicopters and faint anti-aircraft fire in the distance, and us playing football on a helipad.

Our game was curtailed when we heard the unmistakable noise of a mortar landing a little too close for comfort. Suffice to say that it just felt a little odd being right in the middle of a war-stricken area on a day that is meant to be the most joyous of the year.

That was Christmas. We did what we could to feel normal in a place where it was otherwise impossible to feel that way.