Dan Williams/Collegian
Ben Rhode and Garrett Wood display
the gamut emotions that Tecmo players experience during playoffs.
Football season: for most, it is a chance to kick back, relax and watch your favorite team play on the weekend. Or maybe it's a chance to win some easy money betting on a game or two with friends. But for a group of 28 men in Galloway Dorm, it means something totally different--it means playing Tecmo Super Bowl.
"Tecmo is a religion," said sophomore Thomas Johnson, whose room plays host to the Nintendo system and the Tecmo game.
Tecmo Super Bowl is a game for the Nintendo Entertainment System that was released in 1991. The game uses statistics, rosters, and logos from the 1991 NFL season. The graphics are choppy, games are exceedingly high scoring and the music is cheesy--this is no Xbox game. Despite these flaws, the game is still played with much emotion and excitement.
"I am Barry Sanders incarnate!" joked Detroit Lions "coach" sophomore Ben Rhode as he scored another touchdown with Sanders against Will Smiley's Cincinnati Bengals. He said that people really get into their Tecmo games, sometimes with violent results.
"Tecmo gives young men without the chance for Olympic gold or wartime combat to show that, for a brief moment, any one may be hailed as the best," said 2004 graduate Derek Muller. "Graduation memorializes greatness, and legends pass on while still in their prime."
The Tecmo phenomenon is not new.
It started in the fall of 1998 when Matt O'Toole, who graduated in 2002, brought the game and his Nintendo system as a freshman in Niedfeldt Residence. He recruited his roommate Nick Ciofani to play through an entire season with him, each of them picking one team and playing all of their team's games. O'Toole moved it to Galloway the next year and more people started to play. By the fourth season, the league had the full 28 players. The league is currently on its seventh season.
The game itself is played with five-minute quarters, making the games 25 minutes or less. Games are played whenever possible or convenient, sometimes lasting into the wee hours of the morning.
It is fast paced and easy to learn, however, it is not easy to master. Only few have mastered every intricacy of the game.
"Matt O-freaking-Toole," Wood said about one of the best ever to play the game. "That man is a beast." There are legends of O'Toole, called "The Chosen One" by many of today's Tecmo players, playing entire winning seasons blindfolded and holding the controller backwards.
While there are not very many players with quite that skill level, there are a few who are amazingly good this season. Junior Wayne Pugh's Chicago Bears team is 12-1. He is the favorite to win this year's Super Bowl. Other leading teams are Joecks' Cleveland Browns, senior Nick Genova's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, sophomore Dan Schlegel's San Francisco 49ers, and fifth year senior Marty Muntz's Houston Oilers.
His roommate, sophomore Garrett Wood, is co-commissioner of the league, along with senior Victor Joecks. He said Tecmo is popular because "it's a good community builder. It's a great way to get to know people around the dorm, especially freshmen. They can get to know some of the upperclassmen and we can get to know them."
The playoff extravaganza, where the entire playoffs and Super Bowl is played, will be held this year on December 5th. O'Toole said that these sessions consist of ordering food, having some drinks, and playing some Tecmo.
"We'd do introductions with entrance music and the like. It was probably a bit overdone, but a lot of fun," he said.
But the real question is, why is this game so incredibly popular?
"There are lots of stats to keep track of. It's also easy to pick up and play," said freshman Jeff Brewer. His New York Jets are in the middle of the pack.
"It's a fun game," says Joecks. "It's a good way to take a twenty minute break during the semester. It is also very addicting. People play to win."
Play to win they do. The contests are always exciting and often become heated.
"Tecmo is a game that promotes the use of expletives as well as the creation of new ones," Rhode said.
"We haven't had any Tecmo related deaths in a while now," said Muntz. "Which is a good thing."
"It [Tecmo] solidifies the position of Galloway as the most community-friendly dormitory at Hillsdale," said Muller, going back to the importance of Tecmo as a community builder. "Until you've roasted hot dogs after midnight without a shirt on a Friday morning in February only to be yanked inside for you're game against the dreaded 49ers when you know you'll be up to translate in Latin in the morning, you haven't seen true community."
"While there have been many changes to Hillsdale since I've moved on, it's nice to know that some traditions have carried on and that our group of guys have left some kind of a mark, said O'Toole.