For the Love of the Game
We woke up to a beautiful fall day in Philadelphia this past Saturday. In addition to preparing for a rock show, Brendan, Ryan and I were preparing for our 1st ever football game against our good friends, The Disco Biscuits. Aron Magner, the Disco Biscuits keyboardist, dropped by and scooped us up, and we headed to South Philly to a park across the street from his house. When we arrived, we found that the Biscuits would be represented by Aron, guitarist Jon Gutwillig, bassist Mark Brownstein, tour manager Mike Polans, lighting designer Johnny Goode III and audio engineer Brian Hollroyd, a rag tag yet formidable crew. After some requisite stretching and route running, the teams were decided. Because we only had three of us there, we drafted promoter Jim Sutcliffe and a friend of theirs, Morgan, to join us. Our confidence was brimming, and as there were 11 players ready to go, we allowed the Biscuits to have a 6 on 5 advantage. Despite our disadvantage, Umphrey’s got on the board first, on a nice touchdown reception deep in the endzone by Brendan Bayliss. The score remained as such for awhile as both defenses tightened up. Just as it seemed the Biscuits would drive for a score, I found myself in the right place at the right time and picked off one of Brian’s passes. I think one of our best game plans was to rotate quarterbacks and keep our receivers fresh. Brendan, Jim, and I all have strong arms and were able to throw deep into their secondary, finding more open receivers as the game went on. Brendan made a great catch in the corner of the endzone on a “meet me at home plate” play as we drove down the side of the field that had a baseball diamond in play. The Biscuits did have some resilience, however, and by halftime, the score was a close 3 touchdowns to 2. Magner suffered what would have been a game ending ankle injury for most, but he showed some serious resolve and came back in to score a touchdown late. While we were all certainly winded, the Biscuits appeared to be more winded than us, and we intended to take advantage of that. During the 2nd half, when I wasn’t QB, I ran deep on every play, attempting to tire out Gutwillig. This set up a nice screen pass to Bayliss, who scampered into the endzone for our 4th score. Magner then scored his touchdown to keep it close at 4 to 3. We got the ball back and I stepped back into the QB role. Going deep right off the bat, I connected with Jim for the final game ending score and it was over. Umphrey’s McGee had been undermanned, on the road and at the end of tour, yet overcame all of this adversity to defeat the Disco Biscuits 5 touchdowns to 3. We all had a blast and this will certainly be something that will happen again, hopefully this time, on our home turf in Chicago!
Final UM stats:
Ryan Stasik, 1 lay out of Mike Polans, 1 INT, 6 receptions for 59 yards
Brendan Bayliss, 3 TD receptions, 1 INT, 4-7 passing for 42 yards
Joel Cummins, 1 passing TD, 2 INTs, 3-6 passing for 66 yards
All players: 3 days of unwalkable quad/hamstring pain!