Chris Cooley And Lorenzo Alexander Play Capture The Flag
Posted by Matt Terl on February 14, 2011 – 3:30 pm
Lorenzo Alexander and Chris Cooley weren’t actually supposed to be playing anything at the Georgetown University Law Sports & Fitness Center today. The event was a Capture The Flag tournament to raise awareness and money for heart health (sponsored by Diet Coke and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute), and the players were supposed to be Capitol Hill media and staffers from the House and Senate. Alexander and Cooley were supposed to be purely ceremonial presences — as “coaches” or something like that. And it wasn’t just them: Alana Beard was there representing the Mystics, and she managed to stick to announcing; the Racing Presidents did their goofy race thing; Wizards mascot G-Wiz made a halfcourt shot; and the Redskins Cheerleaders stayed on the sidelines doing cheerleader-ish stuff.
But Cooley and Alexander had other ideas for the day: they elected to play.
Cooley joined the National Journal team, Alexander joined the Congressional Quarterly team, and then (in Cooley’s words), “Capture The Flag got insane.”
“I didn’t expect to be pouring sweat and exhausted by the end of this day,” Cooley added, “but … I dunno, I’m competitive, the whole thing got exciting and we were trying to win.”
Every time I’ve seen a professional athlete play some sport (or even game) besides his own, this happens: these are intensely competitive people, and they can turn a charity game of indoor Capture The Flag into a stampeding NFL Films production.
It’s not just the on-the-court expenditure of energy, although that was substantial. They also put serious time into planning and gameplanning and THINKING about games like this. Which, in the end, was a big part of how Alexander’s CQ team managed to upend Cooley’s Nat Journal folks.
“I think we just had better strategy than them,” Alexander said. “I think that was the difference.”
Cooley didn’t disagree. “We were trying different strategies; we clearly didn’t come up with one that worked because we didn’t capture the flag once.” They came close at the very end of the game, a manic rush by Cooley himself, but, Cooley explained, “Lorenzo caught my flag at the last freakin’ second. I shoulda went with, like, a sliding technique underneath him and really surprised him but going to the ground didn’t seem super-logical. No strategies really turned out in our favor, but we tried lots of stuff.”
The indoor version of the game seemed particularly daunting to Cooley. “It’s really hard to get the flag,” he said. “There’s, like, thirty people. There’s nowhere to hide. If you move one way, the next person pulls your flag. So it was pretty tough.”
It is beyond obvious to say that professional athletes can perform tasks like this at a completely different level than your average Capitol Hill media member, but watching them on the same court prompted me to ask Alexander if it was like playing Scrabble with a toddler.
“Not exactly,” he said, laughing. “There were some good guys out there that were athletic; some of the women stepped up and impressed me. You see what Chris was doing out there, spinning, knocking folks down. If me and him weren’t on opposing teams, it would be domination, because you are a little bit quicker and it can get things done.”
Despite that, the NFLers didn’t rein in their desire to win. “They’re out here competing,” Alexander said, “and it’s hard to dial back, because then you feel like you’re not giving them enough credit, and that’s when you lose. You’re having fun, you wanna compete. It’s hard.”
Tags: capture the flag, Chris Cooley, Lorenzo Alexander
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