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Part-Time Gladiators - Page 4
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 Despite the changes the NEFL has made, some teams still have a hard time. Beachside got off to a poor start by losing their first game to the York County Warchiefs in Kittery, Maine. This loss and the losses that followed were largely due to starting the season without a coach. Beachside tailback and defensive end Jean St. Amand thinks that the Tomcats have enough talent to be competitive, they just need to be better organized and more disciplined. "You know what makes me mad is when another team scores on us first for a stupid reason. We have a lot of talent on our team, a lot of it. It’s just that it’s not put in the right place at the right time. We also don’t have enough practice. If we’d all practice together we could do a lot better. If nobody shows up for practice it doesn’t matter how many coaches you have."
Beachside’s search for a coach ended when David Cutler, after hearing about the opening from a Tomcats player he worked with, decided to take the job. Cutler, who played high school football at nearby Thornton Academy and had high school coaching experience, was in for a mild shock. "The very first practice I held six guys showed up, it was a slap in the face! Six Guys!" After playing their first game against the Vermont Ice Storm, the team started to buy into Cutler’s ideas. " When I held practice the following week, instead of six guys I had ten. After about the third game that I coached we started having an average of 15 to 20 players showing up at practices. At that point in time our team was definitely getting better, but now we’re talking about midseason." Cutler feels that the players from the 2001 season were talented, the problem was he just didn’t have enough of them.
In spite of the 500 teams located around North America, this level of football remains relatively unknown. Many of it’s players say they found out about semi-pro ball well after they were out of high school or college. Most of those players found out about the sport from friends, a few even found out about it through newspaper ads seeking recruits for new teams. Some of it’s players and coaches have been in the NFL while on the other end of the spectrum there are players that never even played football in high school. The players ranks are filled with men, and in some leagues women, from all walks of life. There are janitors teaming up with lawyers, pipe fitters trying to tackle corporate executives, cops trying to bring down, well you know. Age ranges are just as diverse. Players just out of high school might find themselves chasing down a ball carrier in his forties.
 Brian Snow is a tall, solidly built player in his late 40s whose football practice….and law practice are in the Nashua, New Hampshire area. At an age when most players haven’t held a ball in ten or twenty years, Snow, who played football at the University of New Hampshire in his college years, is still going strong. He now plays tight end for the Nashua Predators, a North Atlantic Conference team in the NEFL. Football is no small part of his life; he practices twice a week and plays once a week for the Predators, while also coaching at an area high school. Snow runs and lifts weights on a regular basis to stay in good enough shape to keep a step ahead of defenders half his age while running the ball toward the endzone. A few of Snow’s teammates are also in their 40s, including the team’s player/owner Mike Pare.
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