Passion for the game

They come slowly, piece by piece, trickling off the gravel drive and onto the grass parking lot around 6:30, just as the sun touches the southern Indiana leaves, colored by fall.

Easing out of their cars, they laugh, enjoy a beer, catch up on the week that was. This is a release point, when they can slow life down and let the game take over.

They come from all manner of careers – accountants mix with blue-collar workers mix with IU students. Some have no jobs at all.

“That’s the unusual thing about semi-pro football,” head coach Brent Slinkard says. “You’re getting a host of age groups and a host of different backgrounds and educations all coming together for one thing that we all have in common – it’s just passion for the game.”

They come every Tuesday and Thursday night to the green and brown field behind Brown Elementary School, white helmets and mish-mash practice gear in tow. They come to play football.

They are the Indiana Cutters, a semi-professional football team based out of Bloomington that competes across the state and sometimes into Ohio.

Their cobblestone roster boasts the likes of former IU wideout Jahkeen Gilmore and Lee Becton, the only Notre Dame running back ever to tally seven straight 100-yard games and the Irish’s 12th all-time leading rusher. Anywhere between 60 and 65 men from college age on up call themselves Cutters, as they have since conditioning began in January and practices started in March.

The Dallas Cowboys they are not. Semi-pro football is no cake walk.

“You have to be committed here for the right reasons,” offensive lineman and player-coach Jason Mack says, “or you’ll never survive. If you’re not committed for all the right reasons and get yourself ready to play, you’ll never survive and never be part of the team.”

There are no practice jerseys, no training staff except at games. Hell, I found out the hard way that there aren’t even bathrooms at the practice field.

“There they are,” defensive coordinator John Shean laughs, pointing to the woods surrounding the lighted field.

But it’s passion, Gilmore says, that brings these men of all ages to the line, waiting for the ball to snap one more time. Passion for a game they aren’t ready to quit on just yet.

“The level is different,” says Gilmore, who had a cup of tea with the Carolina Panthers out of college. “It’s not as fast as the NFL or anything like that, but we all bring the same thing to the table.”

Facilities (ahem) aside, there is plenty about this operation that smacks of pigskin.

Aside from what amounts to a rather full roster with a diverse enough talent pool to fill out two sides of the ball, there are matching game day uniforms, offensive and defensive coordinators and two simplified, but nonetheless respectable, playbooks. Mack said the Cutters have representatives with equipment companies like Schutt and Riddell.

There’s even a kicker who by my estimation could hold his own 45 yards and in, and I’m told he only kicked one year in high school.

On Saturday night, they’ll travel to Triton High School in Bourbon, Ind. – most games, home and away, are played at local high schools – to compete for the Interstate Football League title against the Kosciusko County Mustangs, the only team that’s beaten them this year. It’s a game they will win, giving them the IFC title.

But it’s Thursday now, the last day for preparation, and things are sloppy. Perhaps it’s a lack of focus after a long day of work, or simply the fact that it’s been a long season and the end is in sight. But Slinkard is a hard man to please, and he thinks it’s something else.

Barking with every whistle, Slinkard tells his players they’re walking through the motions, acting like they’ve already won their trophy. They haven’t.

The scout-team offense does a number carving apart the first defense as the air gets colder.

Led by former Hoosier Andre Key, a running back in college but a linebacker as a Cutter, the defense slowly picks it up. Underneath routes and short outs killed Indiana against the Mustangs last time, Slinkard shouts, and they will again if the defense doesn’t focus.

“It’s all about if you want to be flexible,” says Mack, who himself served as Trent Green’s center at IU and had short stints with the Seahawks and Bears, and now coaches Bloomington North’s offensive line as well. “That’s a huge word in this league – or especially on this team – be flexible, be patient. Nobody likes a person who gripes if they don’t play.”

Just like any other football practice, this one is built around repetition, and the tried tactic slowly takes hold. Finally pleased, Slinkard blows his whistle one last time, and the offense takes the field.

This is life in semi-pro ball. There are no position drills, little actual fundamental work. Three hours twice a week is hardly enough time to implement schemes or talk tendencies.

There is, however, a looseness about practice, as though everyone is a little more relaxed. That’s something Slinkard says comes with experience.

“Most of these guys have played at a high level already, and frankly, they know when to turn it on,” Slinkard says.

It’s dark now, breaths cut wide fog into the crisp October air.  

Practice is almost over. The team gathers together at the parking end of the field, talking each other up for a championship they will eventually win.  

There are few eloquent speeches, just words of guidance and motivation from the veterans – of which there are so many in a place like this. Becton talks about how he’s never won a championship at any level, despite his wealth of experience. That will change.

One more huddle, and then they’re gone, back to families, jobs, backyards in need of cutting. Real life. The season will be over soon, and the Cutters will go their separate ways until they choose to fall into conditioning again next year.

But for those three hours, two times a week, everything that matters can stay between the sidelines.

“The guys that are out here are playing football for the love of the game, for the sense of accomplishment,” Shean says, looking on during offensive practice time. “I’m 52 years old, still don’t have it out of my system. But neither does Joe Paterno. I mean, I’m not Joe Paterno, but what drives me to do it is the same kind of thing that drives legendary coaches that have been at it all their lives.”