Sunday, June 28, 2009

American Football in Poland

It has been awhile since my last post. For those that don't know, I have been in Poland for about a month now serving as an intern. I've been getting my sports fix from keeping up online with scores and video highlights (cause of the 7 hour time difference).

Today, however, was a cool experience. I went to an American Football game here in Krakow. One of the people that I'm working with is helping coach a team here and helped to get the program going. The team is called the Krakow Tigers and they play in a league against other teams in Poland. Today they played against their crosstown rivals, the Krakow Knights. On top of that, I was put in charge of helping to film for the game cause the one who normally does it is out of the country on vacation.

It was really interesting watching a game that I love being played here in Poland. The fans that were there were into the game. There was a public address announcer that would describe the action (he was rooting for the Tigers, it was a home game for them) in Polish and then get people to chant "Let's go offense" or "Let's go defense" in English. The wave was done several times and at halftime, there was a throwing competition and a kicking competition with some fans from the stands.

The game itself was pretty good. There was some sloppy plays on both sides with multiple false starts and offsides along with several personal fouls called. There were also some cool plays such as an onside kick recovered by the Tigers. They also took the opening kickoff of the second half all the way back for the touchdown. In the end, the Tigers were too much for the Knights as they ended up winning 44-8.

It was a cool experience and it has me excited for when I get back to the States and for football season to get started.