SAN MARCOS, Texas — I'm not sure if you've heard, but Texas takes football seriously. Very seriously. I'm also not sure if you've heard, but Austin and its surrounding area is weird. Very weird. Put those two great things together and you get unicycle football.
Unicycle football is a truly weird sport created in 2007 by the genius Marcus Garland. It looks similar to flag football (yawn), but, as the name suggests, it is played on unicycles. In an asphalt parking lot. With a reggae singer as head ref.
The rules are fairly straightforward. Some are straight from conventional football: four quarters to a game, six points for a touchdown, that sort of thing. Some are specific to the game: There are five players per team. Plays can only be made while you're on your unicycle. Dismount for any reason while you've got the ball and you're down. And one rule is just plain weird: The traditional coin toss is replaced by a joust on unicycles.
Yep, you read that right. Unicycle jousting. That would be an awesome weird sport, but that's another post.
There's always the risk of getting hurt when playing football. It's even riskier when you're balancing on one wheel while punting. So there are some safety requirements. First and foremost, bike helmets are mandatory. No helmet, no play. I can't imagine anyone showing up with one, but the rules expressly prohibit Kevlar helmets because "they will hurt people who are struck by them." OK. Fair enough.
There also is no spearing allowed, which means you can't take the decidedly unsportsmanlike action of plowing into someone with your head. The rules are clear about this: "This will break your damn neck, and tack on a 15 yard penalty plus loss of down!" OK. Fair enough.
Unicycle football is an odd mix of flag and tackle called, appropriately, "flackle." According to the rules, a person with the ball may be tackled by removing his or her flags during play. A player may also be tackled by a technique referred to as “the least amount of force required to cause the ball handler to dismount their unicycle.”
Yep, flag tackle unicycle football, people.
The head referee is, naturally, a playah himself. Reggae singer Carlton Pride, who played college and pro ball in the NFL and CFL, helped write the rules. If that isn't enough to make him royalty here in San Marcos, his dad is none other than legendary country musician Charley Pride. He occasionally made calls while holding a bottle of Grolsch.
What surprised me most about unicycle football is how athletic and coordinated the players are. When I arrived on Easter Sunday with my Austin foto friend, Julia for a playoff double-header, two players identified by their jerseys as "Crazy Horse" and "Toilet Face" were casually tossing — and catching — long passes from atop their unis. I knew the game action would be great.
The sport is fast-paced, even if the official timekeeper was publicly ribbed for paying more attention to the ladies than the clock. Crazy Horse, who played rugby in college, twice dove from his unicycle to the asphalt to score touchdowns. After the second TD, it occurred to me that Crazy Horse might be, well, crazy. I told him so.
"I guess so," he said. "I really want to win."
As with any weird sport, there's always a little randomness tossed in for fun. Halftime entertainment was provided by the Austin band Interstellar Transmissions. The band rolled up in royal fashion, appearing on a stage built atop a renovated school bus. It's no surprise that they're regulars at Burning Man. I struggled to describe their music, but thankfully the band's website does so for me: "Blending exotic sacred healing scales and frequencies with dynamic fast changing, primal rhythms Interstellar Transmissions takes you on an epic journey of the soul that encompasses a vast spectrum of emotional depth, magic, excitement and color."
I caught both semi-finals of unicycle football. The Hot Dogs, winners of Stupor Bowls I, V, and VI, will face Ill Eagles in in Sunday's championship game. Everyone expects more than 300 people to show up for the game, along with plenty of music, beer and good times.
"This is going to take off," said Toilet Face. "It's way too fun."
