Besides band, Nu is in love with sports. Within the past 2-3 years, a flag football tournament has been started, and it is continually growing more popular by the second. The following is an article about its beginning and where it is now by one of its founders, David Hines Jr.
MMB Flag Football started out of much trash talk and section rivalry in the Fall of 2007. A lot of band members were getting tired of the intramural flag football rules (no contact on the line…for real?!!). Spearheaded by our Rec Sec at the time Mike Millhaem, the first week’s matchups were held at a nearby field off campus, because we had not reserved any of the space that was owned by the University. The clarinets (aka the Sticks), trumpets, tubas, trombones (aka the Bones), horns, and euphoniums (aka the Euphs) all had teams that first year. Before, sections would play pickup football against each other throughout the year just on a whim, but for the first time in recent memory, the teams had reason to care. That season didn’t fully develop as team commitment went up and down throughout the year and most teams only ended up playing 3 or 4 games.
The next summer, Mike and I were chosen as the Brotherhood chairs for the 2008-2009 school year. During rank leader retreat, we decided legitimatizing the football league would be an excellent vehicle for cultivating brotherhood within our chapter and the whole MMB. What we didn’t expect was for it to have such a strong impact on Nu recruiting for the year. The Mec’s saw that we enjoyed playing/practicing together during and outside of band which made them curious about what we did as an organization. So to prepare for the season, we purchased more expensive flags that we felt would last for a good few years at least using a little Nu budget money and section contributions of around $5-$10 each. We also set up a whole system for refereeing (each section would provide at least 2 for a game that was not theirs that week), a schedule (4 1-hour games on every Sunday starting at 12pm and ending at 4pm), and decided on rules. When band week started back up, we proceeded to talk up the league to both everyone in Nu and our own sections. By the time we put up sign ups, people were ready to play the first game. That season had 4 or 5 regular season games and then a single elimination playoff bracket with seeding based off of the each team’s individual records. Towards the end of the year, we used survey monkey to let teams vote for 1st/2nd All Band Teams and a Heisman Trophy winner for the league.
This past season was very much like the previous in that the features that we implemented the previous year stuck. Not much changed except for the increased interest in the league from none non-KKPsi members. More people came to watch the games and the general size of the teams grew for the most part as section unity/peer pressure took place. We even got Professor Pasquale to do the coin flip at the MMB Flag Football Bowl Championship Game.
In the Winter semester of 2009, Millhaem had an idea to try and have a pickup league in the Oosterbaan indoor field house that the Michigan Football team uses to practice. He asked the MMB’s ridiculously awesome administrative assistant, Maggie St. Clair if it would be possible. She did some talking and got us a slot on Friday mornings from 2-5…AM!! We were reluctant at first, but decided to throw the idea out there to the band…and they bit hard. So for that semester and every Winter semester from here on out hopefully, the MMB (and a few friends) has pickup football from 2-5ish AM in Oosterbaan. It has been a great way for friends to stay in touch and meet people from other sections during the off season.
I am proud of what Mike and I started with the league, because of what it has done for both our Chapter and the entire band. We just took a simple idea that involved activities we knew other enjoyed and set up plans to make it our own. We had our blunders, but we learned from our mistakes and built something that brings a lot of people joy. If that’s not brotherhood, then I don’t know what is :-)
--David Hines Jr.
And of course I had to steal some pictures off of Facebook ;-)
AEA,
Nu
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