Alumni Football Blog

Recently watching a little Letterman and decided to do a little top 10 list of my own.

So, here are the Top 10 reasons to play Alumni Football:

Wearing helmets can be a great way to hide your bald spot.
You’re still alive, so act like it for Pete’s sake.
Finally an actual reason to go to the gym.
See old friends.
Play football with a brother, father, or an old coach.
Show your wife you still got it.
Show your kids you still got it.
How else can you burn 2000 calories in 3 hours?
The Anger Management Seminar was $100.

….and the #1 Reason to participate in Alumni Football…..

Hello? It’s Football!!!

It’s starting to get hot in the South, so we’re moving up North before we melt. We’ve got big plans in the Midwest! We’re trying to line up games in South Dakota, Nebraska, and Colorado. Teams are already forming in Sioux Falls, SD.

We have a first during the summer. We’re going to try and put on the first ever (for us, anyway) alumni college game. In Sioux Falls, SD, the boys at Augustana “Augie” College have always had a strong dislike for the boys down the road at the University of Sioux Falls. Neither team has played against each other, but they have always wanted to. We heard that they have even at times gotten into off-campus fist fights. That’s a pretty big rivalry for teams that don’t play each other.

Enter Gridiron Alumni.  We are taking players sign ups for both schools, but University of Sioux Falls is out to an astounding lead with 20 players already signed up.  Come on Augie!  Let’s get on the stick!  And no fighting!  Just suit up and let the pads do the talking!

As we loaded up the truck this morning, we want to say THANK YOU to all the wonderful people of Louisiana who helped make our event their one of the best every. The truck rolled out this morning and we headed over to start developing the area of Georgia. After talking to a few of the locals, everyone told us that we have to do an event in Titletown: Valdosta, GA.

We are planning on an alumni game between Valdosta High and Lowndes High in Valdosta, GA for early June. If you or someone you know would want to play, make sure they go to our “Find a Game” page and sign up. June will be here before you know it and we want both sides to get plenty of practice! See you soon Valdosta, GA. We’re on our way!

We want your alumni football experience to be all that it can be from beginning to end. That is why, after 4 months of using EventBrite, we’ve moved to our own registration system. This system is so much simpler than the EventBrite system. Not that EventBrite is a bad system, but we felt it’s important in this day and age that one less person have access to your contact information (See SPAM).

Our system is easier to navigate. When you click on Find A Game, there is a simple layout of all 50 states. Click your state, find your city, and you are presented with a list of schools in the city. Click on your school and you’re there! Considering there are over 14,000 schools in America that play football, 3 clicks is pretty good, don’t you think? When you get to your school, you will see a very simple form. We’re not the DMV. We just need your name, email, and your cell phone. Click on the two disclaimers and you’re finished with registration. Did I mention that we are now the only ones who have your phone number and email?

We have been grinding away on this for weeks, building up the infrastructure and putting in all of the schools. We rolled the system out last week and it’s working great. Just one more reason to choose Gridiron Alumni for your alumni football games. We care about your personal information as if it was ours.

We love putting these games on. We love how it rekindles old friendships, let’s dads and sons play together for the first time. Brothers, cousins, and best friends get to take the field together and make it happen. The electricity of a Friday or Saturday night under the lights with screaming fans is too much to explain. You have to see it. I woke up this morning and was looking at our Facebook event page for the games this weekend in Louisiana. Look at these posts.

These are just two posts out of hundreds. Every day, there are 3 or 4 more just like this on this one event page. People are so excited to see their friends and family play football one more time. It’s posts like this that let me know that we are doing is God’s work. Can football make that big of a difference? It can! It changes lives. It’s changed mine. I am so thankful for the game and the people who surround it. Take a look at some more posts:

One post is a support post from a soldier. We wish he could be there too! Below that, you can see that one of the teams was so excited to play again that they actually paid to get their own jerseys. We provide jerseys and everything else you need to play the game, but some teams do elect to get their own personalized jerseys, and that’s GREAT! Make sure to save those jerseys because we’ll be back next year!

We love putting on alumni football games. Not only is it a great job, but it’s very fulfilling. I can’t tell you how many emails I get every week from people thanking us for doing this. We want to move all over the United States to put these games on. If you’ve stumbled upon our site, then find your school and sign up. We’ll help you spread the word.

If you are or know a sports writer for the local paper, they are a key ingredient to a successful event. We work hand in hand with many sports writers to announce the event and then give it the coverage that it deserves. If you want Gridiron Alumni to come to your town, then make sure to contact us. We can’t be everywhere, but we’ll sure try. This spring and early summer, we are planning on staying here in the beautiful south. We have games lining up all over Georgia and we’ve started making contacts in Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

If you don’t see your state on our list, it doesn’t mean we’re not coming to your area. If you get your alumni team and the rival going with 40+ players, we’ll find a date to put you on the schedule. Of course, we’re probably not going to Alaska any time soon, but we could be enticed to go to Hawaii.

Make sure to follow our blog as we always announce where we’re planning on going next. It’s really easy. Just click on the RSS button at the top of this article. Thanks for all of your support. It means a lot to us.

For those of you who don’t know already, one of the great things about Gridiron Alumni, Inc. is that we record the games. We will soon have our first video on the board. We learned a lot from the first game. We have a lot of footage of the game, but we wish we could have gotten some footage of the players on the sidelines. It is so electric on the sidelines. Before the game, during the game, and after the game; there is so much to see.

It’s not like a normal game. This one means more. It means more to dads, brothers, mothers, sisters, and especially children. Because of that, we have committed to taking a lot more sideline action during the games in Louisiana. Not only will we get the normal video footage, but we have 2 FLIP cameras that will take great action before the game, after the game, and on the sidelines during the game. We think that this will really add to the whole experience, which is what we are all about!

Georgia! Oh, Georgia!

We have a lot of great games lined up for Louisiana. We’ve got a few players in Arkansas and enough for one game in Mississippi. However, as we move towards the summer, I can’t help but think of spring in Georgia. Gridiron Alumni is able to see where our website traffic is coming from. Since our inception, Georgia has been our 3rd highest contributor of new visitors (#1 is Louisiana and #2 is California). When we sat down and did our planning, we didn’t even consider Georgia. Nothing personal to the “Peach State,” but we just figured we would spend too much time in Arkansas and Mississippi before heading back through the Midwest.

But after 2 months of Georgia at #3 in visits, we just had to open our minds to one fact: Georgia wants Gridiron Alumni. If you know someone who loves football and lives in Georgia, let them know that their wait is over. Send them to http://gridironalumni.com/find-a-game/8-georgia and have them sign up.

Please remember that time is limited, so we are only able to accommodate the first few teams that sign up 50 guys first. So spread the word and soon you’ll be back under the lights in full gear again.

We need your help. There is a lot of things happening behind the scenes in a Gridiron Alumni event. We are looking for talented people who want to give their best “For the Love of the Game!” If you are 18 and over and have a servant’s heart, we would love to have you help. Some positions are paid positions and some are volunteers. Of course, volunteers always are preferred.

We are looking for people to help check out the gear before the game and check it in after the game. We need officials to manage the game. We need an EMT or doctor to be there at the game. We need talented people in the announcer’s booth who will help the crowd go wild. We need clock operators, music operators, and sideline personnel to help put air in helmets during the game and fix clips when they break. You know what they say, “There is no job too small, only small people!”

If you or someone you know are interested in helping us at our next event, please CONTACT US!