The first day of the Helvetic Guards combine workout dawns … or emerges … with dark slate gray clouds.
As I look out the window from our really nice house in Konstanz (not sure if we are in Switzerland or Germany??) it’s raining. Just like it has been doing for the last few days. If we didn’t have an indoor area for the combine this could be a really shitty day.
We have a drive of two and a half hours to get to the workout. So, we get an early start.
The distance is a danger signal … we haven’t been able to secure workout or practice areas in the Zurich area where the team is supposed to be located. We have to travel a pretty significant distance to Emmen (outside of Luzern).
Mukka Erdonez (basically our franchise owner) says to us not to worry about the practice areas, office space, apartments and stadium in the Zurich area (Not to mention our visas). Claiming it will be easily handled and he was working on it. This two and a half hour inconvenience for today and tomorrow to run a combine is a one-time thing.
“Don’t worry about it … I have it under control.”
The other guys may not be worrying about it … but I am beginning think our ownership might not be telling the entire truth. (But, countering my fears – to a man on the business side of our team – they claim Mukka has more money than God.)
Whether or not he has that kind of money will be irrelevant when he screws us in another month or so.
Anyway, we all jam into several cars and begin the long and winding road (wow that might be a title for a song at some point??) that leads to Luzern. I think we all get to have a snooze time during the lengthy journey. Hopefully our driver Ferhat was awake all the way.
When we arrive at the workout site it starts to rain a little harder. It’s good we arranged to have the school’s gymnasium. It’s plenty big enough if we can get everything planned out. I know Mukka is anxious about putting on a good show.
It seems to me that we might be too worried about appearance and not enough about substance. We are here to find some ball players. But, management is concerned about selling merchandise and making some money. I can tell by comments made by some guys on the staff that this is concerning to them.
But, on we go!
Matt and JC do a good job of organizing the stations (actually a great job). We have plenty of help from local coaches. We have timers and recorders – clipboards, pens – everything we need to get it off the ground.
Now all we need to do is find some players.
As the day progresses and the drills executed as coaches we circulate and meet as many players as we can. I know several and introduce them to different guys on the staff. It’s a lot of fun visiting with some of the players I knew from the Swiss league ( Swiss American Football Verband or SAFV).
I made sure to get the important guys with Norm so he could see who we were dealing with. Unfortunately, we had several guys who could not work because they were injured. But, all would be ready when we started up in April.
You could literally feel the excitement and optimism surrounding the development of a new team to play at the highest level in Europe.
One drawback of the set-up is that we had to run the key test outside – the 40-yard dash. Running the “40” in the rain on a slippery surface was not really conducive to judging speed. But, that’s all we had.
For me, I got to spend time with John Falk who would be a key member of our defensive team. He was a very solid player – once played for the German League (GFL) champions. He had been retired for a few years and served as a defensive coordinator for the Bern Grizzlies in the Swiss league as well as the Thonon Black Panthers in France.
A very tough guy physically and also a player who really studied the game. You could see that his intensity would make him a bigtime leader on the team. He had a lot of ideas on what we should do as a team and the direction we should be going.
It’s pretty apparent that he’s going to have a lot of opinions about many things in regards to the team!
Also, had some time to sit down with Lukas Ruoss. Lukas was a very impressive outside linebacker who played for the Rhein Fire in the ELF last season. Although a Swiss player he played in junior college in there US and then he went on to play at Bemidji State in Minnesota.
A very impressive 6-3 and 230 pounds he was certainly confident in his abilities (he actually is now on the practice for Saskatchewan Rough Riders of the Canadian Football League [CFL]).
Now most of us have recruited Division 1 players … so you can get a feel for guys as you talk to them. It was pretty clear to me that we weren’t going to have a really good chance of getting Ruoss. We didn’t have the resources to make him happy and he was already playing for one of the best teams in the ELF.
He later signed again with the Fire before being brought to Canada for the Rough Riders.
I can’t blame anyone for making decisions that are good for them. We want to get the best Swiss players obviously… but as in Ruoss’ case – why would he leave one of the contending teams in the ELF?
Anyway, it was a really well-run day by Matt and JC and the coaches they enlisted for the combine. Well done Matt!