This is a classic underdog story.
A scrappy football team. No talent, all heart. Fighting for a chance at the playoffs.
The competition? Only the most skillful team in the league. A squad so overconfident, its captain says things like this:
“We never really practice. We just have game adaptability.”
The underdogs, well, they do practice. They showed up an hour before anyone else to run drills and draw up a few plays. Here’s one of them:
The quarterback lines up in the shotgun position. He’s riding a unicycle, because this is the Unicycle Football League in San Marcos. In this league, every player rides a unicycle — passes on a unicycle, catches on a unicycle, plays defense on a unicycle.
The quarterback flaps his arms like a bird. He squawks like a bird, too.“Ka-caw! Ka-CAW!”
On cue, the wide receiver goes in motion, pedaling down the line of scrimmage. The ball is snapped. The receiver, Jeff “Big Bird” Hogan, darts toward the end zone.
Quarterback Daniel “Air Dan” McCarthy lofts a spiral into the receiver’s waiting arms. Big Bird rolls in — literally, he rolls in — for the touchdown.
With plays like these, who knows?
“It’s going to be a hard fight,” Air Dan admits. “Our chances for beating them are slim.”
“Our chances are high,” argues his teammate, Dane “Toilet Face” Walter, “because we’re so awesome. We do drink more than the other team, so that gives us an advantage.”
Another advantage? The teammates, who call themselves the Illeagles, are wearing face paint.
Their opponents, the heavily favored Unicychos, stroll in just before kickoff. The Unicychos’ captain hears about the Illeagles’ new plays. He’s not impressed.
“Trick plays might work once or twice,” he says, “but we’re quick on our feet, so we know how to adapt to it.”
The game begins not with a coin flip but with a joust to determine which team will take first possession. It’s Sunday afternoon in the parking lot of a farmer’s market in San Marcos. Some 150 spectators have come out to watch the game.
And what a game it is. With only a minute and 21 seconds left to play, the Illeagles are losing by a touchdown. The score is 41-34, and this is the final drive. Can Air Dan march his team to a comeback victory?
Air Dan throws a pass to Toilet Face. The ball falls in and out of Toilet Face’s hands.
“Tensions are running high in this very close game,” says the announcer.
Next play: a quarterback keeper. Air Dan sprints around the corner, eluding a Unicycho defender and escaping out of bounds. The clock stops with 37 seconds to go.
He tries another sweep but can’t make it to the sideline in time. The clock is ticking.
Air Dan drops back to pass. Quarterback sack.
Seven seconds left. There’s only time for one more play.
Air Dan flaps his arms furiously. Big Bird sprints toward the end zone. Air Dan lofts a pass high in the air.
This is exactly how they practiced it, before the game. Big Bird stretches for the ball. He brings it in. Touchdown.
Time expires with a score of 41-40, Unicychos’ favor. The only hope now for the Illeagles is the point-after attempt. They may run in the ball for one point, or they may kick it through the uprights for two.
(Three women sprint into the end zone and link their arms to form the goal posts.)
Air Dan fields the snap. He races toward the extra point to tie the score, but a Unicycho stops him before he can cross the goal line.
The game is over, it seems. But wait! The referee is blowing his whistle. He’s calling a penalty against the Unicychos, claiming the defense jumped offside.
The Illeagles have one more chance.
“The torture is almost unbearable,” the announcer says. “The line between pleasure and pain has been breached.”
All eyes are upon Air Dan as he takes the snap. The Unicychos blitz from either corner. The quarterback has no choice but to attempt the kick. Balancing on his unicycle, he boots the football.
It sails toward the uprights.
It sails wide right.
Instead of an upset victory, the Illeagles lose by a single point, 41-40.
Afterward, the captain of the winning team — Alan “Corporal Punishment” Barnes — is magnanimous.
“That was our hardest game all year. Harder, even, than the games we lost,” he says. “They definitely had some surprises for us. We had to make a lot of changes. It was the most we’ve had to adapt yet.”
The Illeagles have one more chance to sneak into the playoffs, if only they can defeat the mighty Hot Dogs this Sunday.
The Hot Dogs have already clenched first place — whether or not they win the final game of the regular season — so maybe their players won’t be so motivated when they face the Illeagles.
That’s what the Illeagles are hoping.
“If we fight half as hard as we did this week,” Air Dan says, “we’ll win.”
First published in the Hays Free Press.
5,110 responses to “Unicycle football is hell on wheel”
Nice i really enjoyed reading your blogs. Keep on posting. Thanks
Bowker additionally testified that he had seen quite a few people run beneath the gates at the Jefferson Road crossing to catch their trains.
A great post without any doubt.
The information shared is of top quality which has to get appreciated at all levels. Well done…
As a substitute of asking questions, writing them by hand, typing them, and printing them, only to then make the survey obtainable to participants at the tip of the event, you’ll be able to full the method utterly online.
Sale of a restaurant building where a restaurant is no longer being operated reflects the true value of the real estate provided adequate time to market the property is available.
I really feel like there’s some tension between simplicity and open platforms; to take Sign, in a means it’s easy exactly as a result of it’s a de-facto-closed platform, or at least so Moxie has argued.
Good post. I am facing a few of these issues as well..
By early 2022, rising inflation forced Powell, and latterly other central banks, to significantly tighten financial conditions including raising interest rates and quantitative tightening (the opposite of quantitative easing), which led to a synchronized fall across most asset prices (i.e.
Additionally, DRR strategies needs to be mindful of gender points.
In exchange for commercial bank loans, the countries issued new bonds for the principal sum and, in some cases, unpaid interest.
Thank you for sharing indeed great looking !
Thank you for sharing indeed great looking !
Before becoming an exchange, IEX operated a dark pool which did not adhere entirely to priority by price then time, unlike other U.S.
A great post without any doubt.
Nevertheless, a disadvantage associated with private equity fund services you’ll have to lose either partial or full managerial control of making decisions.
5 in some unspecified time in the future to completely liquidate the centre, although the ensuing positions are rather drawish.
Lagos, its largest city, is a major financial center on the continent.
Nonexempt items include cash, bank accounts, stocks, bonds or investments, as well as valuable collections, family heirlooms and pricey musical instruments (unless you make a living as a musician).
In a report, revealed in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, it was estimated that the rate of psychological morbidity in the southern region of Bethlehem in the West Financial institution, to be 42.3 amongst Palestinian youngsters.
Hastily, you understand you are out of time.
CST; about fifteen minutes later, storm spotters reported a big tornado close to Greenfield, prompting a PDS tornado warning for portions of Poinsett, Craighead and Mississippi counties (including areas to the south of Jonesboro).
Often refuse was positioned in unusable areas just exterior town, comparable to wetlands and tidal zones.
Field Service Administration Software program is a revolutionary application that’s helps to speak with the sector force in real time.
Retrieved November 8, 2015; “Fifteen Killed in Rear End Collision; Trains Crash in Darkness of Park Avenue Tunnel”.
Nonetheless, the pole is probably not included, whereas the most effective drywall sanders usually embrace a telescopic pole.
Grandma’s home is a cherished memory for many, a romantic ultimate for a lot of extra.
Hi, Neat post. There is a problem together with your web site in web explorer, could test this? IE nonetheless is the market leader and a large section of folks will miss your great writing due to this problem.
Traditionally, public relations professionals have labored in workplaces, but an increasing quantity of people that work in the sector have launched their own residence-based mostly companies or organized telecommuting options with their employers.
It helps to pre plan the market moves as they open next day or the week; in a method Stock Quotes inform extra by way of their technical developments available in the market than via their monetary seen in their stability sheets.
Please let me know if you’re looking for a article author for your site. You have some really great articles and I believe I would be a good asset. If you ever want to take some of the load off, I’d really like to write some articles for your blog in exchange for a link back to mine. Please blast me an e-mail if interested. Cheers!
Kudos to you if you got this one right, since the photograph reveals a wildy overstyled custom model of the Italian mid-engine sports car that was made from 1971-1991.
The policies of authorities aims to reduce greenhouse fuel emissions by 20 p.c by 2010 as compared to 1990 ranges, and the aim is to scale back greenhouse fuel emissions by greater than 60 by 2050, from 1990 ranges.
The information shared is of top quality which has to get appreciated at all levels. Well done…
Thank you for sharing indeed great looking !
The funds are additionally highly liquid: Promoting shares is as simple as calling your broker.
But there fellow traders are not always true and they have to undergo losses on wrong tips.
Instantly earlier than the November 2020 U.S.
Additionally, pirates were executed in Charleston.
Harm from the fire totalled from $60,000-$90,000.
The information shared is of top quality which has to get appreciated at all levels. Well done…
Therefore, the distribution of the species in the country is set in numerous habitat patches, from which many are small.
All fireflies glow as larvae, where bioluminescence is an trustworthy aposematic warning sign to predators.
Static steadiness is mostly concerned with a game’s guidelines and parts, every part, that is about before a game or match begins.
As well as posing a risk to your health, potential causes of fires and accidents can also cost you a great deal of money – especially if your insurance policy stipulates that your place needs to be up to code.
Thank you for sharing indeed great looking !
The information shared is of top quality which has to get appreciated at all levels. Well done…
Nice i really enjoyed reading your blogs. Keep on posting. Thanks
One of many earliest documented uses of Yeoman, it refers to a servant or attendant in a late Medieval English royal or noble family.
Among the fast altering tendencies within the funding markets, one in every of the latest automobiles to affix the model wagon of energy ETFs is the low-value grasp limited partnership fund.