thecapitol | (no subject)

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Who| Chris and ~~all tributes mentors, stylists...~~ everyone
What| FOOTBALL!! Guys doing guy things...
Where| Parade grounds
When| noonish thursdayish
Warnings/Notes| It's football, no padding, and really tough rules? BAH! we don't need no stinkin' touch rules full on tackle damn it!

Chris had managed to have a ball made, it wasn't really pig skin, but standing in the currently empty training center's parade grounds he took a few steps back, throwing it to test it. The ball would work. Going to get it again he just had to wait to see who showed up. Then he'd figure out how to team them up. Even if it was just a few of them, should be fun right?

He tossed the ball up again, pretty sure the area he chose would be good enough for what he wanted. It was bigger than the stadium at Raccoon City Community College, but they just needed the length, and with the training center full of kids who needed the down time for training he felt the empty yard was better than biting into everyone's space.

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Alex heard the word 'football' and showed up expecting to see a round white and black ball. So when he spotted the squat rugbyish shaped ball as he exited the lift, he considered going back upstairs. But he was in a sporting mood, and he at least knew how to play rugby. American football wasn't that different, right?

"Never could understand why you call a game 'football' when you barely touch the ball with your feet at all."

Chris heard him before he saw the blond. "Because it sounds cool and there's a lot of running?" He never got it either, but hey he wasn't going to question it.

"Sorry if you were expecting soccer."

"I was," Alex admitted with a slight shrug, "but I'm game for your style football. Though, I don't really know how to play it. It's a bit like rugby, isn't it? But with a whole bunch of pads?"

"More like rugby, Since there probably won't be many of us I figured friendly game without the pads. Not like we can do much more damage to ourselves than they want us to do in the arena here."

Besides, some of the kids might get to score some sympathy points from the girls with bruises. Not that he's counting on that at all.

"I'm fine with no pads. We beat up on each other enough in the Arenas; there's no need for that here. As long as everyone else has 'friendly' intentions, I think we'll be fine."

Granted, Alex could tell some Tributes were taking to the whole premise of the Games a bit more enthusiastically than others.

"The basics are the same, American football and rugby, I mean. You move the ball from Point A to Point B and the other team tries to tackle whoever is in possession of the ball?"

"I'm cool with the what happens in there stays there, just like Vegas."

Chris held the ball out to him. "You know how to throw it?" Hey if the kid wanted to try he wasn't going to stop him. More people meant more fun really.

After talking about this with Chris at the party? Peeta had to show up. He didn't know who else would, but he was ready for it. So when he headed out onto the parade grounds, he had the biggest non-fake smile on his face.

"Hey! I'm here and ready to throw the pig around!"

"It's pigskin. Not pig." Chris did smile at Peeta though. After all the kid was part of the reason why he had scrambled to get things together.

"We're waiting to see who else arrives, but here, I'll show you some basics." He tossed the ball towards Peeta to see how he'd catch. Would make teaching him basics a little easier.

Alex flipped the ball over in his hands. It was smaller than a rugby ball and more pointed at the ends. That made for easier one-handed and overhead passing.

"You mean the way they like to lob it way down the field?" he asked, giving the ball a quick twist to pop it into the air. "Nah, rugby you only pass behind you or to the side."

He'd only seen a game of American football once, played on a television in a restaurant, while he was on vacation with Ian in Florida. Alex had questioned his uncle about the differences then, but Ian had only provided a few cursory details before their food arrived.

Alex caught the ball and tossed it back to Chris.

"Why don't you show me?"

"Right," Peeta laughed. "I'm going to just go with ball, though it doesn't really look like what I expected to!" He caught the ball easily with his right hand, taking a moment to turn it over an look at it. What a weird shape. He wasn't sure how it would fly if he threw it back, but it couldn't act like a regular, normal ball.

"Basics would be helpful. I don't want to go and make a fool of myself because I have no idea what I'm doing."

"Yeah. See I've never seen a rugby match." He chuckled a little but nodded moving closer so he could show Alex how to hold the ball. "See the notches here, put your fingers between them before throwing gives you more grip, and a spin on the ball, it's easier for your teammate to catch it."

((ooc: And man I'm going to fail at this... I suck at all sports.))

"Oh? What'd you think it was gonna look like?" He chuckled a little. "And relax, this is just something for tributes and the mentors. No way I'm going to play show pony with something I like."

He held his hand out for the ball to show Peeta how to hold it. "Basics would be good though."

"...You know, I don't know. But not like this," Peeta laughed, handing over the ball. Chris was right; no one was watching this. Well, that wasn't quite right. Plenty of people were watching, but no one was actually caring about it, either. They could make fools of themselves if they wanted to.

"Okay then. Let's do basics."

"And improves the accuracy of the throw," Alex commented, noting the similar physics to passing in rugby, even if the grips were different. "That's why the surface is textured like that, too? All bumpy-like?"

((ooc: lmao me too. thank goodness for wiki.))

Eliot grinned as he walked onto the parade grounds, a real grin this time. He hadn't played football since the last time he'd had military leave. If Linds didn't get his ass down here, Eliot was never going to let up about it.

"Toss it over here, Chris!"

Chris grinned hearing Eliot and turned lobbing the ball a good thirty yards towards him.

"Took ya for a sports man."

The ball was a little off, but hey he had given the basics and not like they had any real ones lying around. At least it was leather, that's a start at least.

He ran to catch the ball and then threw it back.

"And ya'd be right. Haven't played gridiron in years, though. Got plans for teams or ya just gonna number everyone off?"

Chris nodded. "So they put a spin on it when they throw it for rugby? Seriously I've seen like three minutes of one game before and that was at a bar. I was more focused on trying to focus on what Jill was sayin'."

Chris laughed a little. "Okay to throw the ball, you'll need to get the feel for it, but hold it at one end. When you let it go it'll spin." He went on to explain how it should feel right before Peeta let it go and set the other man's hands right so he could throw it.

"Here, throw it to me we'll see how well you got that before I explain the tackling and points... Which we'll probably forgo since not many of us."

((Feel free to drop down to Eliot's thread if you want.))

Edited 2013-06-08 03:33 (UTC)

Chris caught it easily. "Haven't played since boot camp really." Hey he'd be honest. "I think there's only about four of us so we'll just take one of the kids for now. Don't see much of a point to set up a real game." He lobbed the ball back at Eliot. "What position were ya?"

Eliot caught the ball and through it to one of the two boys. "Quarterback." He ran toward the other Tribute. "So what are we using as goals?"

Alex chuckled. "Girls are like that. They think you're paying more attention to the telly than to them and the next thing you know, you're getting the silent treatment the rest of the night."

"Try rest of the month. She was my partner... is. And kept the rest of the team in line, because you didn't want to be her, or our medic's bad side. You'd get pranked in the office and rough treatment in the field if you got hurt."

He backed up. "Here throw me the ball, we'll just try passes for now."

((ooc: feel free to drop down with Eliot if you want, two on two mini game XD))

Alex rolled the football between his hands a couple times, getting a feel for the textured leather. Then, lining up his fingers with the stitching, he cocks his arm behind his head and throws, letting his fingers brushing against the ball as it leaves his hand put on the spin. It flies relatively straight but wobbles when it reaches Chris.

"So, you're military?" he asked, a little curious. He'd almost always worked alone. The few times he hadn't had not ended well.

"Not bad, little more practice you should have it." He threw the ball back to Alex.

"Ex Air Force, after that STARS, kind of... the guys SWAT call in if it's too big for them to handle, but they want it still on the local level and not military."

Chris nodded to light stands on both ends of the field. "It's actually a little shorter than the hundred yards, but it'll do for practice and letting the kids get the feel of the game."

He had walked it, by his estimate it was ten yards short.

Seemed pretty basic. Tackling and points might be a little too far for him right now, but Chris was right; there weren't too many of them around to do much of anything big. This was fine for now, though, and Peeta held the ball like he was told, waiting a moment before throwing it.

It wasn't a perfect throw, but it wasn't bad, either. He could put the power behind it, it was just the aim that was a little off. So long as no one minded running a little more to the right or the left, he should be fine.

[ooc: Now going to Eliot's thread!]

Peeta caught the ball thrown by the other tribute. Someone he didn't know, but under the circumstances, he couldn't really know everyone. He stayed quiet for right now, since he most of the stuff they were talking about didn't mean much to him. He knew how to throw the ball, and catch it, so that was good.

But he was listening intently, so he could learn more about this game and what to do in it.

"Not bad," Chris had no problem running to catch it. "Takes a bit of practice, but you'll get the hang of it." He threw the ball back towards Peeta, making sure it was off just a few feet to let him move to catch it.

((Gotcha))

Alex took a step back as he caught the ball.

"Neat. My dad was army, in the Paras." At least, originally he had been. But apparently that hadn't been exciting enough. "So... this STARS, that's who they call before they bring in the army?"

He flipped the ball, caught it, and lobbed it back to Chris. This time it didn't wobble.

"Yeah, we're a special ops group just under the military just above SWAT. Still Civilian though Barry and I were Military, Jill's an ex-thief turning her life around." He didn't mind telling Alex that much, wasn't like any of it was classified.

"Here, try catching it further back." Chris backed up more launching the ball his direction, purposely going a little further that the blond.

"Huh, I don't know if we have anything like that in England." He considered making a comparison to MI5, but they was always doing all sorts of things the military necessarily couldn't. And there was that tie with the SAS.

As Chris launched the ball, Alex took a few quick steps back, then a few more as he eyed its trajectory. Between his skill at physics and his hand-eye coordination, he managed to catch it again.

"I still don't understand how this managed to become more popular than f--soccer," he said as he lined his fingers up along the laces and threw it back to Chris, "but I can see why this would be fun to play with your mates."

"Really always thought that the guys in charge of it got the idea from James Bond books. We just lack the cool gadgetry." Chris may be joking about that.

"Blame it on the fact most countries love to watch Americans make asses out of themselves. This is one sure way to do it. Especially playing in the mud." Hey he knew that if the game was really going it could get comical watching the players fall around the field. "Though I haven't shown you tackles yet."

Alex laughs at the gadget comment. The gadgets had been one of the few nice things about MI6. Smithers could always be counted on to make something interesting. They were just never the sort you saw in spy movies.

"I've been to a rugby match or two," Alex quipped. "I've seen tackles."

Of course, the rules for tackling were probably different between the two games.

"What? Come on the toys and cars were great!" He grinned, what else could he say about it.

"It's a little different, though same goal, keep the ball out of the opponent's goal."

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