Football

Football
My weekly routine now often includes Saturday afternoon football.
A few months ago as I was leaving the house one day, my landlord’s son Boya was outside throwing a football with a cousin. I stopped and tossed a few with them. As we played, a few more cousins came over from their houses and joined us. I didn’t see the football after that afternoon and when I inquired, I learned they had lost the ball.

When I went to Guam I picked up a football at the Kmart there so that we could play again. Now, if I’m around on Saturday afternoon and I see Boya hanging around, I ask if he’d like to play. He yells out something in Pohnpein and within 5 minutes a half dozen kids will appear out of nowhere and we’ll play.

Their knowledge of football is, of course, limited. Amusingly, the one thing they all know to do is to cross into the endzone, spike the ball, and yell touchdown. The game we play is a wonderful mix of football, rugby, and just plain running around but they seem to love it.

I don’t want to take the fun out of playing but part of me can’t help but try and teach them some basics. After running around for a while, I then organize them and have them run passing drills with me as the quarterback. The first week I just had them run a simple pattern. The next week I introduced the idea of a defender and the third week I had them line up with two receivers and two defenders. I’m working on the concept of incomplete passes and a set of downs but we aren’t quite there yet.