Tarpon titans

Ali and I continued our new found, post separation interest in Tarpons arena football.  After work I changed and picked up Ali to head to the Southern Conference Championship game.  Yes it was odd that they had the game on a Monday night but I suppose that was when the arena was available.  It was obvious as soon as I entered the parking area that the Monday night timing of the event was going to hurt attendance, there were not a lot of vehicles there at all.

There was no one handing out free tickets this time.  I opted to buy tickets in one of the end zones this time around, thinking it might be fun to catch one of the many footballs that get booted into the stands.

Before we found our seats we once again stopped to grab our food.  We once again were handed less than stellar slices of pizza but I managed to keep my slice off the arena floor this time thankfully.  Our seats were top row, almost directly between the uprights, a good spot to catch balls from. I did become annoyed though that the area around us filled up pretty thoroughly.  It seemed ridiculous considering the rest of the arena was almost empty.

Pre-game during the national anthem Ali was annoyed.  There were several young boys in front of us, if I had to guess, somewhere around the 13-15 range.  Almost all of them were wearing hats.  Once the anthem started all of them knew enough to take their hats off except one hispanic kid, wearing a backwards “Obey Propoganda” baseball hat.  I was thinking about telling him to take off his fckin hat but didn’t, a mistake in retrospect.  I couldn’t help but wonder if his parents were in the country he was disrespecting legally or not.  Well Ali was thinking the same thoughts I was but she bit her tongue as well.

The Tarpons are the clear class of the league, mowing through their schedule to a perfect 11-0 regular season record.  The two games we went to previously were both huge blow outs.  We wondered if since this was a playoff game that we might see a more competitive game.

Well for the first quarter we actually did.  The quarter was uncharacteristically low scoring for arena football with it ending with the Tarpon actually BEHIND, 9-7.  I didn’t have any balls come close to me during kicking attempts.  It’s too bad.  I told the guy that was next to me with his family, which included a little boy, that we needed to work together, if I caught the ball I was going to give it to his son.

In the second quarter the Tarpons mashed the gas pedal to the floor and quickly jumped out to a big lead that they never gave up.

There is some interesting people watching to be done at Tarpon games.  There was this one huge person that Ali and first both thought was a man whom later turned out to be a woman.  She seemed very interested in buying her way into being the number one Tarpon fan.  She was wearing an XXL Tarpons championship game t-shirt, had bought a UIFL arena football and won a raffle for a Tarpons helmet signed by the entire team.  It almost seemed to me like she had never been to a Tarpons game in her life but she wanted to look the part.

Then there was this older couple in the row in front of us and to the right.  The man was wearing a sweater and a brand new Tarpons baseball cap.  The guy although he looked quite old, appeared to be a spring chicken compared to his wife.  She just sat there and stared at the field through her bifocals.

The old guy had also invested in one of those power bands that they were selling in the concourse, you know those things that you put around your wrist that are supposed to fix any ailment under the sun ranging from sore knees to erectile dysfunction.  He was very interested in his band, I saw him touching it repeatedly on his wrist, maybe hoping to accelerate it’s therapeutic effects.

The old guy had a VERY disturbing way of drinking water. He would begin each sip on his bottle by extending his tongue first out of his mouth far further than is necessary.  It was like he was making love to his bottle of Dasani.

I did not see the couple speak once or even acknowledge the other.  Ali thought it was cute that at least they were there together.  That wasn’t the adjective I would have used.

So anyway the Tarpons completed their steamroll of the Lakeland Raiders, winning 60-29.  Ali and I decided to stick around to the very end.  The said that the fans could come on the field after the game which sounded cool.

I was interested how hard the playing surface was, it felt like it had some decent give to it, far softer than the granite like surface of the Vet I walked on (and played flag football on) years and years ago.

The players were interacting with the fans and were extremely friendly doing so.  They seem genuinely appreciative of the few fans that came out to support them, a distinct 180 from the image most athletes portray nowadays. In general, the Tarpons do a real good job of making the fans feel appreciated.  Ali and I both find we seem to enjoy going to Tarpons games more than the Firecat arena football games we went to in the early/mid 2000’s.

Ali and I congratulated a few players but we had wanted to get a picture of Ali with Timmy the Tarpon, the team mascot.  It took awhile till we got the chance to snap the pic but Ali was happy when we got it done.

It was a fun night.  Next week is the UIFL Ultimate Bowl, again unfortunately on a Monday night.  I feel like I HAVE to be there at this point.