Look, no hands … too bad it’s no longer cool

  Adam Karon Karon is organizing a
petition and hopes to occupy the IM office in protest of the
no-contact rule. Those who wish to join the fight should

e-mail him at [email protected].

When was the last time you had a good laugh? If it’s been
a while, or if you are a fan of physical comedy, go down to the
Intramural field between 3 and 8 p.m. during the week and try to
watch the flag football games without laughing.

The games are something out of a Saturday Night Live skit, and I
mean the good ones before Adam Sandler and Chris Farley left.

The following activities are prohibited according to intramural
flag football blocking guidelines: any contact; three- or
four-point stances; spearing; arms leaving the sides of the
body.

Now with that in mind, put on your skirts, lace up your ice
skates, it’s time for flag football!

These contests are far from the blood and guts schoolyard games
of our youth.

Remember during elementary school when we all snuck to the back
of the playground during lunch to play tackle football? Sooner or
later a supervisor would come and change the game to two-hand
touch, completely reshaping the sport we loved. No more Bo Jackson,
Brian Bosworth or Joe Montana. Two-hand touch seemed like something
out of a Michael Jackson news flash rather than a form of
football.

That meant the only source of amusement left was to launch bombs
toward groups of girls and watch them scatter, only to be
thoroughly embarrassed when one of them caught the pass better than
you could.

She immediately became the major crush of every guy at
school.

But I digress. Walk to the intramural fields and you will see
one of the greatest travesties ever committed against the sports
world. Worse than the 1919 Black Sox scandal, worse than the
abolition of college boxing, even worse than the inclusion of
ballroom dancing in the Olympics.

I’m talking about the fact that contact blocking is
illegal in UCLA intramural football. In fact, it is called
“screen blocking” in the IM rulebook. At first glance
that doesn’t seem like a problem. But there are all sorts of
contradictions in this rule.

First, how can one block without contact? Very easily, according
to the IM department. Simply clasp one’s hands behind thy
back, assuming Mike Tyson’s favorite prison pose, and try to
move thy feet.

It’s all fun and games until someone trips and forgets to
unclasp their hands.

If the defender runs into the lineman, it is a
“contact” foul. That’s all good, but how many
people want to put their hands behind their back and take one for
the team every play?

So instead you have a bunch of fraternity guys, many of whom
were all-league football players in high school, running around the
field like chickens with their wings clipped. Talk about a humbling
experience for a group that is notoriously proud of athletic
accomplishments.

Second, the no-contact rule limits the size of quality players.
I have a friend who is about 6-foot-4, 225 pounds and played right
tackle for his high school team. He is ineffective on the IM field
because some 5-foot-7 sportswriter can run around him and his
armless body like a greyhound around a track. In fact, a team of
smaller, quicker players will almost always win an IM football
game.

Third, because lineman cannot really block, the quarterback has
no time to pass. Most offenses look like the Los Angeles Rams of
the early ’90s, and while I still believe Jim Everett is the
greatest quarterback of all time, even he couldn’t get a pass
off in an IM game. Countless times I have seen a defender pull a
flag just as a QB received the snap.

“The plays I draw up are limited because I must adjust for
the no-contact rule,” coach “Alice” Schwartz said
following his teams’ first game.

“That means no draws, no traps and definitely no halfback
passes.”

Fourth, the logic by which the rule was created may be flawed.
Contact was eliminated to prevent injury, but just how much injury
is prevented?

The argument is that players do not wear pads, and therefore
should not engage in contact. Rugby players don’t wear pads,
and the game sees far fewer serious injuries than its padded cousin
football. This is because without the protection of high-tech
equipment, players are less likely to throw their bodies around
like projectiles.

Very few participants support the no-contact rule.

“I’m here to play football,” lineman Steve
“Bullwinkle” Hausse said after a recent debacle of a
game. “This is a f—ing joke. I’d love to stand a few
IM officials up with their hands behind their back and see how they
like it when a bull charge hits them flush in the
stomach!”

There will always be contact in football, no matter what rules
are instituted. Perhaps that is what has me so peeved over the
whole issue. The contact has merely shifted to other facets of the
game.

The last time I played I went through two pairs of shorts. It
seems the other team forgot that flags were not attached to my
brand new UCLA mesh athletic shorts. The elastic waistbands were
completely severed, and no penalty was called.

I guess it was penalty enough that everyone on the field had to
look at my scrawny white legs while I changed on the sideline.

I don’t think the no-contact rule eliminates injury. I
don’t think it eliminates conflict. But I do think it
eliminates the quality of the game.

Autumn plus pigskin plus testosterone equals competition. It
also equals fun, camaraderie and stories that we can tell for years
to come.

I can just imagine telling my kids about winning the big IM game
under the current rules.

“…and then I breezed past two guys who weren’t
allowed to move their arms to block me, so unhindered I sacked the
quarterback for the 14th time.”

Not something most of us would be proud to say. The rules must
change, and they must change soon, for I am a junior and will have
only one year left to enjoy the battlefields of IM football.