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September 7th, 2008
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A lion on paper

Time for the armchair quarterback to return to his recliner

By Dave Faries
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
April 2nd, 2008 issue

VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST
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Reaching for the score at Lions practice.
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In 1963, sportswriter George Plimpton spent a month with the Detroit Lions and chronicled his efforts to play
quarterback in the best seller Paper Lion. Following his example, Dave Faries worked out with the Prague Lions. This is the last in a series.

Last year I asked a British acquaintance with an appetite for American football if he ever watched Czech league games. After a string of invectives that only fans from that part of the world can inject, he dismissed it as something unworthy of comparison with the NFL.
One thing’s for certain: With gridirons 80 yards long and practices held on soccer fields … it’s not the NFL.
I started working out with the Prague Lions in January. Part of my motivation, of course, was George Plimpton’s classic of participatory journalism, Paper Lion. Published in 1966, the book detailed a writer’s futile effort to play quarterback for Detroit.
Plimpton embarked on the project to show the armchair athlete just how difficult it would be to compete with the nation’s best. That was my purpose, as well.
On a bright Saturday afternoon, we gathered around the field hockey turf behind Slavia for a full-contact scrimmage against the Steel Sharks. Watching them arrive — it devolved into a staring match as they passed — Jan Šimánek shook his head.
“I hate Germans,” he said.
OK, well — I think they’re from Austria, but no matter. The Steel Shark players wore personalized practice jerseys, one bearing a large X, another announcing its owner as “Hog” and, everybody’s favorite, “D-Bitch.” We were perched on seats or portions of turf, tugging on football pants or strapping on pads. Ladislav Jenšík took a moment to explain things.
“Teams from every country,” he began, “reflect their national identity.”
Jenšík is working on an advanced degree and ponders such things. Germans, apparently, talk a good game but can be pushed around. In Russia, big guys in the trenches pound each other all day without complaint. Players in more glamorous positions strut around like superstars, he said.
And Austrians?
“They’re a cross between Germans and Czechs.”
Sounds about right: After 40 plays of a planned 50-play session, their defense decided to call it a day, canceling any third-string snaps.
So I spent my last day in uniform charting plays and watching, at close quarters (just behind the quarterback), the full fury of this thing that is not the NFL. Through the first two series, our offensive line had trouble deciphering the visitor’s stunts and pressure packages, leading to a string of hurried throws.
During huddles, players produced bits of information and minds began to work on adjustments. “I have inside leverage every time,” tight end Martin Hamza pointed out. “The free safety can hit, but he can’t cover,” assistant coach Tim Weldon noticed, and so on.
The next series, Libor Navrátil led the offense to three touchdowns in 10 plays. And backup quarterback Petr Boháček moved the ball steadily, once calmly eluding a blitz, stepping briskly into a narrow open space as large bodies crashed around him and firing a perfect strike to Jakub Mahler.
As we trotted off the field, Boháček studied my notes on the play chart. “What’s this?” he asked after scrolling down the list. “An incompletion?”
“He dropped the pass,” I explained.
“Write it,” Boháček said, half in jest but knowing the coaches would pore over the details of each play. “Write the throw was perfect.”
Earlier in the day, the coaches had criticized his mechanics. Throwing a football, after all, is a combination of proper footwork, weight transfer and release point, not just a simple act of flinging your arm forward.
Lukáš Pelikán, the young free safety, sat alone in the bleachers after the scrimmage’s abrupt end. He’s learning the position after playing cornerback most of his brief career.
“I’m having a hard time making decisions,” he told me, shaking his head.
But Pelikán is never down long. After practice one evening earlier in the week, as we waited at the tram stop with loads of equipment and sweat-matted hair, Weldon approached him and said, “I hear good things.”
Pelikán responded with a broad smile and an embarrassed laugh. Earlier that evening, troubled by his performance, he sat amid a clutter of pads and helmets and said, “I need to find some strength.”
Forty-some years ago, Plimpton found it difficult to say goodbye to the game and his temporary teammates. I suffered the same regrets, shaking hands, stowing the gear no longer mine and explaining that I must return to the press box, “so I can write ‘no gain for Formánek.’ ”
“You write about me,” said running back Michal Formánek, looking up from his perch, grinning, “you write ‘Mister Formánek.’”
Mostly I miss the players arriving for practice in ones and twos and small groups, hefting massive duffels or toting their pads. They dress and greet each other, allowing the energy confined in anticipation to spill out — you start pacing, bouncing and tossing a ball around.
Slowly helmets start going on. So you grab yours. Finally, a shout in Czech and everyone dips in the same direction and begins to jog.

Dave Faries can be reached at dfaries@praguepost.com


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