IFL is proud to be working in conjunction with the Colorado Ice and Linebacker Ryan Palmer (#51) for a weekly blog entitled "A Day In The Life...". Ryan will share with fans everything from what game days are like, to what him and his teammates do off the field of battle. So check in each week as the Indoor Football League presents:
A DAY IN THE LIFE...
with Ryan Palmer
6/17/2009-
Just had a tough loss, to a good team, and we played horribly. I hate to be the guy to blame the refs and I’m not going to. But the fact is that the refs were horrible and somehow we get hometowned at our own house. We had a defensive lineman that had cuts on his face and his helmet came off numerous times with hands to the facemask. I told the ref, the lineman told the ref, and our coach told the ref to watch it. This didn’t happen only twice or so, it occurred on every play! I got tackled by a linemen and there was no call. I don’t think they had one holding call the entire game. I’m not saying that it cost us the game or we could have even won but it was plain ridiculous!
This week we go to Billings where we will play an incredible team. Billings is a huge rival but I respect the hell out of their team and coach. The Outlaws are a hard-nose team that is incredibly talented and tough.
Now for a little something else; Sammy Sosa, if you are going to do steroids confess and man up for it. I know they did not get drug tested at that time but if you go to congress come clean because the government will take the time and money to find out. I respect Jose Canseco (not for writing the book) and Jason Giambi. These guys took responsibility for their actions and dealt with their consequences. Any parent will tell you if you do something wrong come clean and tell the truth. The penalties of your actions will be a lot less severe if you do.
For Jose Canseco and his book you hate to see a guy rat out all his buddies to make a buck, but he was right in all circumstances. You cannot call the guy a liar.
6/8/2009-
After a big win as a team against the Alaska Wild we were happy. It was interesting to find out that their head coach got fired the Thursday before the game. We played well as a team and as a defense we finally got some turnovers. The one thing that amazes me is the call a ref made. The wide receiver went offsides and as a backer I blitzed. He called illegal defense and offsides. I asked him how that worked. He said I left before the ball was snapped and I replied that’s because the wideout went past the line of scrimmage. AMAZING, pretty sure that’s not how that works. But this week we have our last home game and a good team coming in.
In the back of my mind a little fear has creeped into my head about injuries. I once had a friend who bounced around the NFL for a while who said “The guys who make it in this league are the ones who can stay healthy.” I remember him telling me how astonished he was with Kevin Carter who played like 18 years at D Line. He said the reason the guy was so good and played for so long is that he never had any injuries. I personally have only had one major injury, but I know of guys who were incredible but could not stay healthy. People do not understand the beating your body takes playing football. Not only the games and practice, but the training, the traveling, and the mental torment the game can put on you.
One last thing I was watching this show last night on TLC and was amazed and sad at the same time. It was the world’s heaviest man and how he was doing the zone diet. I will admit that I have gotten bigger, okay fatter, than normal. But as soon as you get so big that you can no longer see your feet, you know you should stop eating!
6/5/2009-
After a great week of practice we got a win against the Odessa Roughnecks. It was against a talented team that had some impressive athletes. The score does not show the game, we played one of our best games of the season but had some costly turnovers. But that is a part of football. I have finally given up on the 10 to 15 hour bus trips and decided to fly myself. Way too hard on my body to be cramped all day long on a bus then try to hydrate myself for the next day's game. I will pay the extra 100-150 bucks to not have to go through that anymore. I know it can be fun and team building but just cannot do it anymore. Leaving on a Friday morning and getting back Sunday afternoon is unbearable for me.
As a team we have picked up some new talent and it turns out that they are great guys. For me the biggest concern of getting a new guy on the team is if he thinks he is BIG TIME. Big Time is where he thinks he is above this league and should not have to do some of the things the team does. I do not care about your playing past or what you are considering for your playing future. If you want to go to the next level then you need to be on a winning team and the biggest proponent of being on a winning team is sacrifice. Sacrifice your body, your stats, for the good of the team. I know this is easy to say and hard to do, but I have only once finished my season on top with a win. I would love for the guys who have never done that to have that feeling and the coaches and organization as well.
One last thing which is not football-related... What is with these so-called “celebrities” now where if you are a spoiled little rich kid who drives drunk you are a celebrity. I just saw a TV show, My New BFF, with Paris Hilton. You have got to be kidding me! This stuff is unreal to me, I would get rid of cable if not for ESPN, because of all the junk on TV.
5/19/2009-
After a loss to a Sioux City and now the incredible record of 3-5, we now have a test of character ahead of us. With a couple of changes in our coaching staff and a couple new players brought in, this is our chance to make a late season turn and test the character of our players. We played not awful but not good, just enough to make yourself angrier than anything. You can watch the film; see two plays going differently, and the possibility of a whole different outcome. That is one of the hardest things; I have played on teams that just were not good enough to beat the other team. But that’s not the case with this team. We have the talent and know how to be a winning team. We just have to believe and put it all together.
But I lost track of my thoughts and want to get back to one of my original thought on the test of character. We are at a point where we could just fold up as a team and play for yourself, just try to pad our stats for the opportunity for the All-Star team or playing next year. Right now at this point I think we have some guys who, in my opinion have called it in for the year. Going through the motions and really nursing injuries. Football is a game of attrition, you are going to get hurt, you are going to be in pain, and you have to learn to play with pain, even learn to love it. The only thing difference is if you get injured. It’s like James Caan in the movie The Program where he asks Darnell Jefferson, “Are you hurt or injured? If you’re hurt you can still play, if you’re injured you can’t.” The Program is one of the all time greatest football movies ever, along with The Longest Yard, Any Given Sunday, and Unnecessary Roughness.
The hardest thing after the Sioux City game was being so down and angry, but not knowing what to do to fix the problem. Athletes as a whole are fixers, if something is wrong we can fix it. Not always the case in life or athletics. The one thing that brought me back was a conversation with our quarterback, Justin Holland, who said to me, “I have never quit anything, and we are going to fix this S___ right now.” That inspired me and got me ready for another week of work.
I have to do the one thing I hate to do- miss practice this week. I hate missing practice. I consider myself a leader, but I am not a rah-rah guy or a yeller. I like to lead by example of hard work and relentlessness. I will have to miss practice as I have to make a loop of the western part of Colorado from Denver to Durango to Grand Junction and back. This is part of my job working for a traffic engineering firm. But I will make the 746 mile trip on Wednesday just to get back on the field and test our character.
5/12/2009-
What a disgusting loss against the Fairbanks Grizzlies this past Saturday! We as a team played awful and uninspired. Not to discredit anything Fairbanks did, they had an excellent game plan and executed it. I think the hardest thing for me is the constant thought of “What the heck happened??” Two weeks ago we were on a three game win streak and life could not have been better, now we are on a two-game losing streak. For me all the pain and soreness in the world is worth it with a victory, but when you lose it feels ten times worse for the body and mind.
Things are still great in my personal life; I have the greatest girlfriend in the world, a great family, incredible friends, and no complaints about work. But I still find myself in the middle of the day, probably with a dumb expression thinking, “What happened??” This happens to me all day, everyday until I feel we as a team have figured out what to change and what to do next time.
Oh well after working until the wee hours of the morning last night and not enough sleep it is time to suck it up and get back to what the Colorado ICE does best – relentless, hard-nosed football.
5/4/2009-
I am still dumbfounded, yes dumbfounded about our game this weekend. It was the true definition of the greatness and heartache of indoor football. With .04 seconds left in the game, Omaha’s James Mcnear (who is a great player and great guy) threw a touchdown from midfield right to the center of the end zone. The greatest thing about the indoor game is the short field on offense and the worst thing about the indoor game is the short field for defense. As they say, last team with the ball can win if it is close. After the game I did not know what to say or what to do. I showered, got in the car with my girlfriend and brother, and for the hour drive home tried to figure out what had happened. As I said earlier I was dumbfounded.
The next morning after the game I was still upset and went to train my girlfriend for her show in 7 weeks. After a few beers the night before I had the great notion that I need to work harder, so then I decided that I was going to train, and train my legs. That was not the best idea when I started, but I felt good when I was done. People ask me how does your body feel after a game and I tell them go play a game on concrete with giant O-lineman and fast and agile receivers. Then you will know how it feels.
After the week of traveling to Anchorage and this game, it’s been rough. I am not a rocket scientist but I am sure flying from Colorado to Minnesota then to Anchorage is probably not the best route. I understand the flying hub scenario but you have got to be kidding me. After the whole weekend of traveling it equaled 30 hours in the airport or on the plane. And the travel agent never bothered to tell us that Northwest had changed their Saturday morning flight due to the economy from 6:30am to 11:30am. Good times, but hey, no use in crying.
It’s time to get back to work and focus on this week With Fairbanks.
