Life after USAFE football

I played both before and after my USAFE playing days! Before joining the Rhein Main Rockets in 1983, I played a season and a half with the San Antonio Bulls at ILB. They were a semi-pro/amateur team playing in the South West division of some long forgotten football league! It was odd to be thrust into an ILB position at age 22 and weighing only 185 lbs, but I managed to hang onto a team spot which was all that mattered!

I got stationed to GE in 83 and played for the Rockets for 3 years! It was a dream come true despite the outcome on the field! As Tim Langley can attest too, we didn't win much of anything in the early 80's but the irony is the Rockets started to win everything after I left! LOL! Not that I was any good! Must have been Warren Stanley who saved their asses and got them on the right track! Kudos to you Warren! I played OL and special teams as a Rocket and I should have been there for that first championship in 88 but they wouldn't extend my tour despite my applying for the Graham Rudman Act! I must have pissed somebody off good!

After/during my playing days as a Rocket, I played in the German Football League AFVD Bundesliga for 3 seasons with the Russelsheim Crusaders which eventually became the Russelsheim Razorbacks! I played pretty much anywhere for them but mostly at MLB and DE! It was a fun time indeed and it was great teaching the Germans what it meant to have "chemistry" and "camaraderie" on the grid iron! Something the Rockets eventually developed that led them to all those Championships!

I never thought I'd get to play football again and certainly not while stationed up in Loring AFB, ME, but I lucked out as usual! I played one season for the Marlboro Bulldogs at LOG and if it wasn't for the weekly round trip of nearly 800 miles I would have played more, but it was not cost prohibitive for me to do so! Had I looked further I'm sure I could have found a team to play for in Maine that was a lot closer.

When I left ME for Korea in '90 I had a follow on assignment to Soesterberg Holland and got there in 91! I played the last 3 seasons in the USAFE/CSC Football league for the Wolfhounds as the starting center in 91 and 92 and played all over the place in my last year in 93! During all this I was playing American Football for a couple of Dutch teams, the Utrecht Vikings and then the Hilversum Hurricanes! While with the Canes, I played MLB, TE, DT, NT, C and again pretty much wherever they needed me to play! I loved every second of it and have kept in touch with a hand full of my Dutch team mates!

It was definitely strange to run into some old team mates and coaches during those final seasons of USAFE football! Tim Langley was still playing for the Rockets so that must have put him at Rhein Main for at least a decade or more! Tim will have to tell you that!

When I left Holland in 94 I was stationed to Wichita, KS and I played 3 seasons in the Oklahoma Football League with a team called the Wichita Aztecs! It was all amateur and I tell you it was scrapping the barrel just to get enough guys suited up to play an entire game! After many forfeits due to injury and getting nearer my 40th birthday than I wanted too, I decided to hang up my football playing cleats and turned them in for coaches cleats in 1998!

I've coached youth football now going on 12 years and each one seems just like the first one to me which is good!

It's great being here and am so glad to have found this place to share many similar memories with some great guys who I hope to run into some day at a reunion near you!

YO TIM! WHAT UP YOU OLD SALTY DOG! OR SHOULD I SAY "HOG"?!?