Rocky Mountain Football League

The problem the entire RMFL is facing right now, is that it has been tough to recruit new players, as well as attract new GM's, money backers, coaches, etc...A lot of the teams now have players, GM's, coaches that have been a part of the RMFL for a long time.  Nobody wants to admit it(we are all part of a RECREATIONAL league), but many of those guys are nearing their end of a Semi Pro Football career, playing or otherwise.  I personally blame this on Electronics, gaming systems, and society in general!  It is harder to find "weekend" warriors who still want to pad up!  Many of us are from a different generation, when competition and Football in general was much more heralded.  Now with concussions, soccer, everybody winning stuff (like AA player of the week domination!) haha, Football is a diminished, not dying, sport at the amatuer level.

Camulous wrote:

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Karney,

FYFI isn't hard to figure out. How about you research the term DBAG

Question:   Did you vote yes on the 4 division AAA on Saturday?

Answer:     No, you had buyers remorse just everyone else except the Generals. 

                Stealth weren't there and I know for a fact at least 2 AAA teams abstained. 24 teams voted no? C'mon man. 

 

BTW. Glad to see that you recovered from that first week. Musta been rough.

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FIFY=Fixed It For You.....as in...I fixed your post so that it rang true with actual events.....as in.... "you have no idea what you're talking about."

Is the 4 Division AAA the same one that left the AA in four corners of the league's geographic footprint making scheduling and travel a complete nightmare?  Yeah, if there was a vote I most definitely voted no to a proposal that would leave AA = 2MT+2ID+1NV+2UT.  Scheduling would be impossible and post season would be ridiculous if it made it that far (see PDFL) without any rhyme or reason of having uneven scheduling, 2 team conference affiliates, and quite literally destroy multiple teams financially.  I don't even think there was a vote on it.  It was a dumb idea, great for AAA, especially those who don't have to leave SLC, but overall a dumb idea.

So who controlled the vote on Friday Night?

 

BTW, I was the one who made a motion to eliminate AA/AAA.  It wasn't any AAA team, nor a AAA>>>AA Transition team.  I voted against a 7 team AA because it was the dumbest thing proposed since I've been in the league.

 

Ask any AAA GM what happened.  Not a single one will tell you the AA came back on Saturday and asked for a revote because they had buyer's remorse.  The AAA managers got together and decided that they would rather play in a 6 team AAA than a 26 team single division.  As per request of the AAA to do what they wished, the votes went in favor of the AAA's request.

 

As far as name calling, shouldn't you try to gather facts and stuff rather than try to make yourself look good by making a bunch of assumptions?  It's easy to tell when somebody has no grasp of an argument because they resort to 7th grade name calling tactics rather than focus on factual events and eye witness accounts.

 

EDIT: The way it was originally thought of to be drawn up, there would've been favorable scheduling to avoid such upsets, and the former AAA teams would've been granted an extra playoff seed.

-- Edited by Cpt Crunch on Thursday 2nd of May 2013 03:42:09 PM

Here is my 7 cents worth?: thatguy is right about this league being just former players stepping up and keeping teams around like Tom did with the Lancers. But I'm curious too know how many of the AA teams are just here to play and thats it? I believe it was Kit Carney or his brother that said last year or two years ago that the Diggers are a bunch of guys that just want to play and give Burhley Idaho something to go do on a Saturday night and if they happen to win a AA Championship then COOL. Take Rex and the Vipers? He is very happy that he is the longest running semi pro team in the State of Utah and will keep doing it for that reason? There record as of lately hasn't been good but they will always have a team because of Rex. My thought is AA has teams that could care less if they compete as long as they get too play and that's fine if that's what they're doing. But Nationally when they say RMFL only the Shock, Rebels, Stealth, and Rev get mentioned? I know everyone says demographics plays a huge role but, Montana has two high powered football teams in the Big Sky and Boise has well the Broncos. We as the Shock don't have an ex all American Collegiate stand out playing, were just a bunch of guys that have been playing along time and it works? Great Falls goes 2 years straight unblemshed in the AA and moves up then drops back down after 1 season? The Shock move up from AA and go 1-8 in it's first year in AAA and they didn't bail out and look at them now. Everyone is worried about getting beat by the AAA teams but look at last weeks scores in AA, lots of goose eggs for teams? If the RMFL just wants to be the league that lets you play and have fun then get rid of the trophies and the players of the week and just play and at the end of season "hey Congrats too the Boise Generals for going undefeated in the AA RMFL" is all that will be needed to say?

Karney,

FYFI isn't hard to figure out. How about you research the term DBAG

Question:   Did you vote yes on the 4 division AAA on Saturday?

Answer:     No, you had buyers remorse just everyone else except the Generals. 

                Stealth weren't there and I know for a fact at least 2 AAA teams abstained. 24 teams voted no? C'mon man. 

 

BTW. Glad to see that you recovered from that first week. Musta been rough.

Ya'll are killing me. This happened months ago. We are in the middle of the season. Get over it and move on. 

I was there. While I've tried to block most of it out of my mind (not one of my favorite nights), I'm happy to share my version of how it went...

We had 2 meetings with all of the AAA GMs before the league meeting giving them a number of options (5 or 6 team AAA, bringing in the DC Reign & Las Vegas Trojans for an 8 team AAA, one league, etc.). The consensus was to insure quality play and minimize travel and expense the existing 6 teams would prefer to keep an all Utah AAA Division--playing each other twice. Charlie was the most outspoken against it for very good reasons (lack of stability, the grind of an 8 or 10 game schedule against very physical teams, etc.).

Then, about a week before the league meeting Logan decided it was in their best interest to move down to AA. Their reasoning (which I think is sound) was their lack of roster size, change in ownership (from Dave to Bracken) and Bracken's new work schedule was going to make it hard for him to travel with the team on Saturdays--they didn't feel they would be able to field a AAA calibur team; but if they were allowed to play AA, could compete.

Jess and Doug and I designed a 5 division league with the AAA being one of those divisions. Every team would play each team in their division once (4 games) as well as play a AAA team once. At the league meeting Friday night we discussed having separate playoffs for the AAA division and the other AA divisions. With this structure in tact, a vote for one league passed.

After we adjourned Friday night, I spent about two hours with the AAA GMs present (the Stealth didn't have a representative at the meeting) talking about the league structure. For all of the reasons that have been mentioned (blow outs, additional travel, additional expense, etc.) all of the AAA GMs except Charlie expressed preference to keep the AA/AAA split. Then I went and spoke with most of the AA GMs and found that a lot of them were also second-guessing thier vote for one league. So, after talking with almost every GM Friday night, we decided to call for a re-vote Saturday morning where the decision for one league was reversed. The majority of the GMs were happy with the split (which is why it was re-voted and passed by a large margin), but not all. Some AA GMs (Jerry being one of them) really wanted one league, but most did not.

The thing I feel the absolutely worst about (and I still do) is that Bracken left Friday night (he had to work on Saturday) seeing the RMFL as one league and assuming the Logan Stampede were good to go. Because of the re-vote, it was left to Jamie Buttars (not a rookie--he's played in the league for years, but never had anything to do with management before that day) to try and petition the Managing Board to allow Logan to move down to AA. He couldn't do it and the Stampede chose to fold. Of everything that went on that weekend, that is what left me the most sick to my stomach.

That is the way I remember the league meeting unfold, and given I didn't consume any alcohol (although I seriously considered it after the Friday night meeting--ok, maybe not that seriously), I think it's fairly accurate. One of the hardest parts of managing this league is that every GM has their own agenda and wants to do what's best for their team, and sometimes individual teams don't get what they want to keep the integrity of the league as a whole in tact--we can't please everyone all the time. I've tried very hard to lead and manage the league within the structure and bylaws given me by the Managing Board. It's been more time consuming and difficult than I ever imagined, we've made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot along the way, but we continue to try to do our best for the league.

As always, if anyone has questions or concerns, feel free to give me a call (406) 750-3015.