The use of the phrase "We all have to work on Monday." is nearly as common in semi-pro ball as players wearing helmets. Unquestionably some players do go all out all the time but most know, much as they love the game, that they can’t always hit with reckless abandon or give 110%. If they do they risk putting themselves or someone else out of work, possibly for quite sometime. This is where the similarities between semi-pro ball and many other levels of football end. In high school ball, if injured, kids have parents and a home to go to. In college, unless the injury is career ending, they can heal and return to the game later. In the pros the paycheck keeps coming, at least for the rest of the year. In semi-pro, if the injury is severe enough, it can mean lost work for players whose families depend on their income from a regular job.

Sean Sulikowski, a hulking right tackle for the NEFL’s Vermont Ice Storm, was an All State lineman at Burlington High School in Vermont and also played for a semi-pro team in Plattsburgh, New York before playing for the Ice Storm. Sulikowski loves the game and says it’s an important part of his life, but draws the line when it comes to injuries. "When it comes to playing the sport or having a career ending injury or an injury where I cannot perform my work duties the next day, I don’t do it. So if I feel my knee getting bent, twisted or torn or if it’s going to get hurt I’ll fall down or just let go of something. If I was getting paid to do this like the pros or the arena guys do, if I was getting paid and that was my job I could go out there and make the extra effort. I could twist my knee up trying to make the tackle. I could make the extra effort and tear a bicep pulling somebody down. I just don’t have that luxury. I have to work for a living."

Roughness of play is an issue of love and hate with players in the semi-pro ranks. Most of them play in part because they like the violence of the game. Inflicting bone jarring hits, the sounds of plastic pads and helmets smashing against each other, pushing an adversary out of the way to open a hole for a running back to sprint through are all an attraction for the personality that wants to play at this level. It can also serve as release for players after hectic or frustrating week of work. Beachside’s Jean St. Amand, a 29 year-old construction worker who lives in nearby Westbrook, Maine says that, for him, this is a big part of the semi-pro allure. " I like going out and getting my aggressions out on Sunday, I just can’t wait. I get to go out there and hit people and not get arrested, I can’t wait for football season."