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November 20th, 2008
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Running with the Lions

Following a legendary example, Dave Faries tries out for quarterback

By Dave Faries
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
February 20th, 2008 issue

American sportswriter George Plimpton wrote Paper Lion to chronicle his tryout for the Detroit Lions football team in 1963.
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VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST
Playing American football in Prague is a lonely and grueling pursuit, with practices held in the evenings on a muddy, dimly lit field frequented by defecating dogs during the day.
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VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST
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VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST
VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST
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Body count

Pain Location
Mild Right ankle: tendons
Mild Left foot: can't tell
Searing Left knee: ligaments

32 Ibuprofen count (Feb. 1–20)

In 1963, at the age of 36, American sportswriter George Plimpton joined the Detroit Lions football team in training camp, ostensibly to try out for a position as third-string quarterback. The resulting bestseller, Paper Lion, chronicled the misadventures of an average man competing against some of the finest, most fearsome athletes of the day — guys like Alex Karras and Dick “Night Train” Lane — through the punishing National Football League pre-season.

Plimpton’s book has become a classic of participatory journalism. It was turned into a film that was recently released on DVD.

Inspired by Plimpton’s example and the upcoming CLAF (Czech League of American Football) season, Prague Post writer Dave Faries is working out with the Prague Lions in pre-season training with the same goal in mind — winning a spot on the team as third-string quarterback.

Petr Boháček wipes muddied hands across his sweatshirt.

He’s standing in near-darkness at the edge of a dimly lit practice field near Strahov, fretting the metro ride home. Both knees bear dark, damp splotches. One sleeve is soaked at the elbow. His hair, matted by sweat under a stocking cap, juts indiscriminately.
“I look like I’m homeless,” he says.
We’re talking around 8 p.m. on a Monday, as the evening’s session of agility drills winds down. The Prague Lions, three-time champions of the Czech League of American Football (2004–06) and runners-up last season, work out in a grassy public park, illuminated only by a row of street lamps and chewed to pieces by pounding cleats.
We’ve been hurtling ourselves through the cold night air since mid-January. Two days a week are spent in weight rooms and two outside battering cartilage and pulling tendons to the breaking point — all in preparation for the season opener against the Brno Alligators April 19. There will be another two weeks of this, followed by a month of drills in full gear (pads and helmets), plus exhibition games in Germany.
Injuries are common in cold weather, but if you pull a muscle, you limp off to the side and massage it yourself. Wake up with a swollen kneecap and previously unknown strands of muscle fiber quivering involuntarily, and it’s up to you to find some ibuprofen.
Welcome to the ČLAF — about as far removed from America’s National Football League as one can imagine. There’s no glamour, no six-figure (or even two-figure) contracts, no cushy facilities. The athletes who jaunt directly from work to the practice area must change from street clothes in or behind a car. It’s so casual that 6 foot 5 inch, 251-pound defensive end Pavel Poříz brings his small, puffy white dog to every workout.
A teammate laughs — a big, tough guy like you and this is your dog? The pet trots along through warm-ups and speed drills, close underfoot, sniffing at random noses as guys double over during stretching exercises.
Poříz, at 33, ranks as one of the old men of Czech football. Boháček is a 17-year-old reserve quarterback, just called up from the junior team to support 15-year veteran Libor Navrátil.
And me — well, I’m 46 and spend my time writing about food and sports. My experience in football was mostly with my high-school team, which notched an undefeated season my freshman year (I was shelved with a broken arm). We took home conference honors three years later, although I happened to be in London at the time.
I’m too old for this. Moreover, I’ve never played quarterback, aside from a brief stint leading an intramural flag-football squad during graduate school.
And dignity? I’m reminded there is none when young Martin Mostecký calls out to me before practice one evening.
“Sir, sir — look out,” he says, pointing at a sizeable lump of dog manure near my right foot.
A few minutes later, I stop worrying about it. I’ve just high-stepped, slid chest first, and smacked my palm flat on the grass pivoting around a cone. I’m probably covered in it.
Old and slow
Aside from the crude practice facilities, portable equipment and the language barrier, agility drills are much the same here as you encounter anywhere in the United States: A long trot to loosen up, during which I’m thankful for heavy, lead-footed offensive linemen, so I don’t stumble across the line last; stutter steps through the ropes; quick zig-zags over a series of low bars; and shuttle races back and forth around strategically placed cones.
Over and over and over again.
Zach Harrod, an American with Athletes in Action, runs exercises in a mix of Czech and English. There’s a steady drone of encouragement — “Zadek dolů, zadek dolů,” (which, loosely translated, means “sink your hips”), or “I don’t want to see your arms out like a ballerina, tuck them in” — as a stream of guys weave and sprint and backpedal through a drill called “gasp for breath, you out-of-shape slobs” or something, churning dog dirt and regular earth into slippery glop.
This doesn’t seem to bother the locals. Ladislav Jenšík sprints by, pointing out as he does that a player should have blood on his face and grass in his helmet. A moment later he cruises past again, adding something pertinent to the story.
“Tell people the Lions are the younger and better-looking team.”
They know my purpose. Forty-plus years ago, George Plimpton tried, for a brief period, to keep his identity secret from other Detroit players. They quickly figured out, however, that the ungainly 36-year-old “rookie” was, at best, completely inexperienced.
So why hide it? I’m old, pathetically slow and writing with my left knee elevated and packed in ice. No way to pick up some desperately needed youth or find long-lost athletic skills.
My ideas are a little foreign, too.
One evening before practice, Coach Martin Kocian glances at Harrod’s beard and asks if he’s ever going to use a razor. “You could make a rule against facial hair,” I interject — drawing quick protests from Zach.
“I could,” Kocian says.
“You’d lose your strength and conditioning coach,” Harrod responds.
“But I’d gain discipline.”
“Discipline,” Harrod concludes, “is the least of this team’s problems.”
Team spirit
Players in the ČLAF endure low-rent facilities, sloppy conditions and all the pain of agility drills, weight training and games on a voluntary basis. They hold down day jobs or take classes, then hustle up to the top of a cold, wet and very dark hill to cut left and right at full-tilt.
No one pays them to take the physical abuse of a season. And only 600, maybe 800 fans tops will turn out to see them in action against the various ČLAF rivals. But they show up and take orders and ride, muddied and sweaty, on trams back home.
There’s a rhythm to all of it — the workouts, weight-lifting and the pain in between, when (at least for us old guys) it hurts just to shuffle around the office.
Still, you notice a long-slumbering ethos reawakening. Doubled over and panting, you don’t want to continue a drill. Maybe others feel the same way, but no one says a word. They step up to the line and run through the same steps, again and again — so you follow.
It’s the foundation of a team. There’s no logic or reason to it, just the feeling that you don’t want to be shown up by your teammates. You’re really smarter than all this — you know when one more sprint will wipe you out, or how much ibuprofen you’ll need to kill the swelling in that knee. But then there are the other guys.
So you huddle up, shout “Lions” in unison with the rest, wipe mud on your shirt, forget the screaming cartilage in your knee and gather with the team to admire Alex Sotola’s new pair of Under Amour cleats.
The shoes — yeah, definitely cool. The spirit of camaraderie, you start to need. And the pain — well, maybe I can numb it long enough to last until we play Kirchdorf.
In two weeks, we don pads and start in earnest.
Updates of Dave Faries’ tryout with the Prague Lions will appear in coming weeks in the Sports section. He can be reached at dfaries@praguepost.com

Dave Faries can be reached at dfaries@praguepost.com


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