E-mails Sent to the
University of Alabama
English Department
Flag-Football Team.
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The University of Alabama English Department Football League (UAEDFL) was founded in 2007 and has since established a weekly event involving cleats, tear-away flags, and a highly elaborate rule book. Before each contest, Brian Oliu, the league's commissioner, sends an e-mail to the English Department Listserv to rally these poet-athletes. From time to time, we'll be sharing these missives with you.
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E - M A I L 8
UA English Flag Football Cares.
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To: Alabama English Department Listserv
From: Commissioner Oliu
Subject: UA English Flag Football Cares
When one hears about the members of The University of Alabama English Department Football League (UAEDFL), one automatically thinks of superlatives such as:
• "Hard-hitting and by hard-hitting we mean swift flag-grabbing!"
• "More action-packed than a package packed full of action!"
• "Spicy and sexy!"
• "Veronica Lake is on the take!"
• "Huggable!"
• "T-shirts with more holes in them than octopus outer-wear"
• "As heart stopping as seventeen undergraduates printing out Powerpoint presentations on MOLECULES and perhaps the KREB'S CYCLE in the Morgan Hall computer lab!"
• "The David Hyde Pierce/Amiri Baraka of UA English extra-curriculars!"
While I cannot disagree with these claims, I am here today to let you know that the UAEDFL is more ... so much more than that.
The University of Alabama English Department Football League (UAEDFL) has partnered with The University of Alabama English Department Football League Players Association (UAEDFLPA) and the United Way to help give back to the children in our greater Western Alabama community. Some of our great current (and former!) players are doing great things in this great community of greater Western great Alabama. These include:
• WR Cathy Blose, who has started to offer football camps and clinics to troubled youth in Tuscaloosa County. This program exemplifies how UAEDFL players set examples for the future of our great country by emphasizing sportsmanship on the field and in the world around them. Cathy, with the help of UAEFL sponsor Greenetrack Greyhound Racing, then places bets on these matches in order to teach children the power of mathematics and the Russian mafia. (Jimmy's team is +4 over Tommy's team; if you're asking me, I'd lay the points.)
• WR Tim Croft, who has personally delivered over six-thousand Snappy Tomato Beast™ pizzas to countless school cafeterias, encouraging the children to gorge themselves on delicious pizza before Tim picks the children up and spins them over his head like a Crimsonette in order to teach them both the importance of centrifugal force and the human digestive system.
• WR Nick Pincumbe, who has been traveling to Tuscaloosa area middle schools bringing pipe cleaners and not ONE but TWO different types of tomato seeds, one of which has been plucked from healthy tomatoes grown here in the deep Alabama soil; the other has been sent up into SPACE and is helping the young botanists realize the differences and similarities between the two tomato plants. He is then showing them how to do the same thing with various other plants that need not be named in such an e-mail.
• TE Brian Oliu, who has been volunteering with Big Brothers/Big Sisters of West Alabama where him and his little Brother Alex listen to crass rap music in his Ford Explorer on their way to go see various R-rated movies, where they have made a habit of sneaking from one theatre to another before said movie (last time it was Hostel II) has begun, thus exposing his younger brother to all sorts of cinematic feats (e.g. Disturbia with Shia LaBeouf and We Are Marshall).
Some naysayers (Fred Whiting), might say that this is all for naught; that these children do not need such amazing and incredible role models as ourselves, as we tend to set the bar too high, what with our wonderful table manners, exquisite use of higher end vocabulary, not to mention our Titan-esque athletic skills. Some may say that there is no way we can aid all of these children, and that there are billions of other children without us to help them that will eventually fall through the cracks of our nation's education system and plummet and slip horribly into a life of crime/business school.
To those naysayers, I say "Nay!", and leave you with this story:
There once was a small child, who while very bright and quite excellent at Pogs™ and yo-yoing, didn't exactly fit into his elementary school. When other kids had Pumps, he had L.A. Lights. When he was rocking Wilson Phillips's "Hold On", they were rocking Wilson Phillips's "Release Me". Then, through the grace of God/football, he met a young flagfootballer who served as mentor. They were inseparable; the flagfootballer was there through everything: the little boy's high school graduation; the death of countless household pets; [insert example of dichotomy of good times and bad times here]... and do you know who that child grew up to be?
Savion Glover.
And whatever happened to that kind soul, that wonderful flag-football-playing English major?
Why, I hear you can find that wonderful shining person still playing flag football at the park on 15th Street/Queen City Avenue.
In fact, there are rumors that they might be there this SUNDAY AT 10:30AM.
That person ... is YOU.
—The Commish
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