NORTHCOM takes down civil engineers in intramural football opener

Published Sept. 16, 2008
By Walt Johnson
Colorado Springs Military Newspaper Group sports reporter

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- Northcom began the 2008 intramural flag football season with a convincing 32-6 victory over the 21st Civil Engineers. But that wasn't even the story that makes this year's edition of Northcom football notable.

The victory gave Northcom as many victories now as it had all last year when the team won one game in intramural play. In fact Northcom was so inept last year that one intramural observer said he is not sure that Northcom scored 32 points all of last season. But that was then and this is now.

Northcom used an explosive offense and the talents of two quarterbacks, Larry Roberts and Archie Ramos to beat the Engineer's team that is normally very competitive in intramural play. No matter what defense the Engineers threw at Northcom, Roberts or Ramos had an answer and the Northcom offense moved up and down the field generating first downs and scoring touchdowns.

There has been a lot of talk by the Northcom players that the team did not want a repeat of last year's season so there has been some dedication to preparing better and being more competitive this year. The scary thing for the intramural league is the Northcom team has an element to it that it may not have had last year and that is leadership. The team is just beginning to get in some practice time and knowing each other which should make life extremely uneasy for the intramural league.

"One of the things that surprises me a bit about this game is we really didn't have a lot of time to practice before we played tonight. In fact you really could say we haven't practiced together at all outside of the pre-game stuff. What this shows me is that we have good leadership both on and off the field that is allowing us to come together as a team," Hyrom Buchannan, team spokesman said.

Buchannan said the leadership provided by Ramos, Roberts and others cannot be taken lightly because not only is the team battling back from the disappointing season it had last year, it also has the most complex group of people on its team.

"We have people from many different services out here. We have Army, Marines, Navy, and Canadian forces players on our team. What we liked most about tonight's game is the execution was much better than it was for the team that only won one game last year. I wasn't here last year but the team was pretty bad last year. One difference between this year and last year may be the fact that everyone on this year's team is very competitive. The way we feel this year is if we get beat by a better team we can live with that but if a team outworks us we cannot live with that. We are not going to let anyone out work Northcom this year; no one is going to outhustle us this year, Buchannan said.

Roberts may have turned in the play of the game as took off on a quarterback scramble and raced 50 yards up the field, the last 20 with both legs cramping up on him. Roberts said he first didn't know if he would make it to the end zone with the cramps in his legs but he was happy with the end result of the play and the game.

"I started cramping up about halfway down the field in both my legs because I didn't get a chance to stretch before the game. I was just happy to finish off the play. After the game I thought to myself I think this team has the potential to do a lot better offensively than we showed tonight. This is the first time that we have played together and I was impressed with the way we played as a team tonight, but I think we could do a lot better. I wasn't here last year so I really can't say much about what happened last year. This year my teammates and I just want to show up, play competitively and do the best we can," Roberts said.

Intramural football action takes off