Pre-Game
It was a cold, gray morning when I stepped out of the church. Rain was falling softly as the rest of the congregation hurried, under the cover of hundreds of umbrellas, to their cars. I stopped to let the moment soak in (also so I could use this pun when I wrote this column). Today was the day I was going to win the Cincinnati regional of the EA Sports Madden Challenge and begin my quest to win the $100K and immediately donate it to charity.
A little background — back in August, I officially entered the tournament, determined to win the entire thing and donate the winnings to charity. I felt I had to win it to give hope to the common man. Too many sports stories have the same cliché moral — if you want something bad enough and work hard enough to get it, you can have it. Just once, I wanted to change this to "if you want something, you can have it" and skip the work part all together. I didn't have an Xbox or "Madden 2006," but that wasn't going to stop me.
I arrived in Cincinnati late the night before the tournament and went straight to my mentor's house. Nick Hughes, infamous Cincinnati area high school athlete and casual Madden player, was going to teach me the finer points of both the game and the system. I hadn't played a video game in six months and had no clue what I was doing, (which made it surprising that I wasn't immediately offered the head coaching job at the University of Pittsburgh), but I picked it up fairly quickly.
I had a simplistic game plan — control every last bit of the two-minute-quarters I could, keeping the other team's considerably more talented offense off of the field. We decided Baltimore was the best fit as they had a defense that could keep people from scoring and an overrated running back that could chew up the clock. As simple as it sounds, it worked — I won six straight games that night on the back of Jamal Lewis in pre-prison form (averaged around 23 carries for 126 and a TD). That night, I went to bed certain that the simplistic and brief training session would be more than enough to overcome the seven-to-eight hour days of practice that the majority of the challengers were used to.
Before I left for the challenge, I asked myself what Charlie Weis would do before a big game. I decided that he would have scripted his first series, so in an effort to become an even greater coach, I scripted my first 15 plays (I still didn't know much about Madden, so it looked something like this: run, run, run, run, run, run, run, pass, run, run, run, run, pass, run, run, fake field goal pass). That last action put an official end to my months of talking the talk, and it was now time to walk the walk.
Gametime
I arrived to the site of the tournament with Hughes, who was there for both moral support and on a quest of his own for Madden glory, and we were immediately given badges, a wristband, and a hand-stamp. I was waiting for the giant sign that said, "I, like the other 500 of you, am playing in the Madden Challenge," but I guess they forgot those for this trip. Nevertheless, these were all crucial elements to be able to decipher the talent from the spectators. Tournament officials wanted to be able to easily identify where in the building the three spectators were at all times.
After I registered, I immediately began sifting through my notebook and looking at my plays, hoping to intimidate everyone by passing myself off as someone who knew what he was doing. I was so focused on intimidation I didn't see who I was paired up with in the first round. As I glanced at the ridiculously-oversized bracket my heart sank. My first-round opponent was none other than Nick Hughes, the same Nick Hughes that taught me everything I knew about Madden.
I quickly came to terms with it, because I figured that if I wanted to be the man, I had to beat the man (if I was able to narrate my own life as it happened, a la Fred Savage, I would've followed this up with a big Ric Flair-esque "woo!"). I opened the game on offense and immediately began to impose my will on Nick's pitiful defense. I alternated between running Jamal Lewis to the right and then to the left as I marched down the field and then hit Nick with the Pontiac game-changing performance — a 28-yard play-action pass to Todd Heap. Two plays later, Jamal Lewis busted through the line and into the end zone to give me a 7-0 lead.
I then decided to shift all of my effort from the game to my new task — relentlessly taunting Nick. He went a quick three-and-out largely in part to his inability to handle my various jokes and witty comments. We attracted a few spectators as I began to count my chickens before they hatched as loudly and obnoxiously as possible.
I promptly followed that up by turning it over on the very next drive in humiliating fashion with a Jamal Lewis fumble (that I may or may not have caused attempting to turn a 6-yard gain into a TD by pitching the ball to a fullback). After another impressively awful offensive performance by Nick, (he had the Brett Favre "I'm Brett Favre, I Don't Throw Five Interceptions Against the Freakin' Bengals" look on his face, which I enjoyed thoroughly) I took control of my offense and slowly killed the clock.
Feeling an overwhelming sense of pity for my mentor as I was slowly ripping the win from him, I opened up my playbook and decided to end the game in a shoot-out. To the enjoyment of the fans, Nick and I put on an impressive show by immediately trading interceptions and giving the ball back and forth until the clock mercifully ran out. I was able to ride Jamal Lewis and his 17 carries for 86 yards and a touchdown to my first ever Madden Challenge victory.
That's where the story ends. After Madden officials refused to let me retire undefeated, I faced some kid who had traded in his life for his Madden prowess (he had logged over 200 online games in the short few months that the game had been out) in the next game. He soundly and mercifully beat me 21-0. I ended the first half with three yards of total offense and an injured quarterback. Jamal Lewis had magically shifted to post-prison Jamal and my defense was worse because of me (I confused the dive button for the accelerate button, so my defenders first instinct was to fall down when someone ran at them).
In the end, I just didn't have the magic, although I will continue to blame the weather (it was 76 and sunny) and the injuries (losing Kyle Boller, who was 1-for-2 for 28 yards in my victory and 0-for-4 with an INT before he got hurt, was a crushing blow) for my loss. There would be no victory parade, no glory without hard work, no championship trophy, and certainly no trip to Hawaii. But there's always next year.
The Sports Gospel According to Mark is sponsored by BetOnSports.com. BetOnSports.com gives you the greatest sports action to bet on. Wager on football, cricket, boxing, Rugby, horse racing, and more. Mark Chalifoux is also a weekly columnist for SportsFan Magazine. His columns appear every Tuesday on Sports Central. You can e-mail Mark at [email protected].
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