Friday Light Nate 2008 / 2009 Recap

“What’s your finishing move?”
- An unknowing chump

“Oh, oh, oh…..cocksucker!”
- One of my favorite Friday team-mates, with my handling idol sprawled across his lap.

Although Finishing Move might not have been the top team in league, I’d be willing to bet we had the most fun. Below are a few things I’ll remember about the season.

To captain or not to captain?

Captaining was a totally new experience to me, and I had no idea what to expect. Luckily, I had the league’s best co-captain to do all the work for me. I’m forever thankful to G for giving me the opportunity to captain, and then guiding me through the season. Since G could write a book on captaining, all I had to do was show-up and pretend to know what was going on. One of her best pieces of advice to me was that once you’re a captain, you have to take your game for granted, since your role is to make sure everyone else is playing well, getting lots of touches, and enjoying themselves. G’s consistent, awesome game always was a given. On the other hand, when I was having an off night, I had to do my best to hide it in order to continue to portray a confident image for the team.

The hardest thing about captaining for me was picking handlers on the line. Being an over-analyzer, I’d worry about offending people who I knew wanted to handle, but had to balance it with having a couple solid handlers back. I found a little trick early on, that by calling horizontal, I could give one more person an opportunity to handle.

Will I captain a team again? Probably not anytime soon. Not to say it wasn’t a positive experience, it’s just not where I’m at as a player at this point in time.

Late Night vs Open?

Since I had a very positive experience playing Friday late night the year prior, I signed up again back in September. This was long before rumblings of the open program practice / scrimmages came to my attention. As soon as I found out a couple of Fishes and friends were playing open on Fridays, I kind of regretted committing to late night instead.

Looking back, I’m glad I stuck with the late night. Not only was the captaining a great experience, but there was at least 1 match-up on every team that really challenged me. As much as I don’t like to name drop in here anymore, some of the toughest matches were Lucky, AlCo, Edwin, Reade, Devin (veteran lefty), BJ, Pete, and of course the king of all obvious mismatchfor me – Mike “3” Davidson. Holy shit did he make me run the two times I played him.

Assuming the $40 increase to late night is approved, and the open program continues with their BFP sessions, I have little to know idea what I’ll do next winter.

The Caliber

On some nights, I thought the caliber of play was equal to that of Wednesdays. Every team supposedly had 1 or 2 weaker players, but a lot of these individuals were athletic 3s and 4s who genuinely wanted to improve. To offset the weaker players, each squad also had a couple of comp or masters players to guide the team. It’s worth nothing that beside the list of ‘match-ups’ above, the caliber of women players was outstanding. There was a great mix of BFC, BF, Stella, and Scarlett ladies, along with some very strong league players.

The A&L

A big part of Friday late nights was the post-game socializing at the A&L. Having only went out a handful of times last winter, as a captain this year, I sucked it up the great majority weeks and went out for a post-game bevie. Although I probably wasn’t as ‘mingly’ as I should have been with other teams, for a quiet guy, I think I did alright. Met some new people, got to know some acquaintances better…good stuff.

The Team

Since I gave a brief overview of my IID team, pre-shuffle, might as well say a few things about the Finishing Movers…

G – Best co-captain ever. A star on and off the field.
Super-sub Pete – Best super-sub (with BBQ sauce)
McKegger – Amazing handler, fucking intense D, and cool guy to boot.
Dmo – Holy under-rated batman. Got as many run-through D’s as any guy in the league.
Derek the Gator – If I had his hands when it comes to catching high swill, I wouldn’t keep on getting cut from…everything! :P
Andrew ‘Midnight Runner’ – One of the few people who I’d gladly trade legs with.
Big John – If Arrested Development knows what’s good for them, they’ll put him on the A team this summer. Loads of potential.
Axel – Quietly is one of the most consistent players I’ve ever met. I can see how he shares a field with GLUM Ford on Mondays and lives to tell about it.
Don Kung Fu Fighter – The solid handler / on field captain that I needed to help me. So much respect for him.
Hello Jessie – Improved the most, since she wanted it the most. Can’t wait to call her a team-mate this summer.
Casey (not Jackie) – One of the ladies who could play comp in a second if she wanted to commit to it.
HaasofD – A defensive goddess?!
Lily-hammers – I love her energy. Too bad about her injury.


All in all, I had a great time, with a fantastic group of people. As for next year, I’ll worry about that when the time comes. In the meantime, feel free to ask me about my Finishing Move ;-)