AAFL Team Florida Draft Day

Team Florida put together quite a showing at the inaugural AAFL Draft. All of its 39 Protected Players, who had spots on the team before today’s draft were present shaking hands, taking pictures, and signing autographs. Cute girls were passing out mini AAFL footballs and a few lucky people got snazzy New Balance AAFL t-shirts (I was not fortunate enough to snag one, although one of the girls said she would look out for me tonight to personally give me one). About tonight…I will be attending a formal dinner with Team Florida’s Protected Players to celebrate what should be a successful season with athletes like Chris Leak, Chris Doering, and Peter Warrick on the roster.

As I said earlier today, the AAFL has been quite nice to media entities. Upon entering the hotel, I easily obtained media credentials, which entitled me to a nice folder that included the Official AAFL 2008 Draft Chart (who the hell would sit and fill this out?), Team Florida’s schedule, and a bunch of press releases from the Director of Communications at the AAFL. One concern I have is that Texas is listed as not having a stadium to play at…may want to get on figuring out that problem! Plenty of people at Team Florida’s draft were congregating around the Tickets table, leading me to believe that at least in the state of Florida this league has a shot at survival.

Overall, it was a fun experience. I stuck to talking with the players that I actually had heard of before, dominated the buffet of sandwiches, and might have scored myself a press pass for the 2008 season. I decided to avoid the open bar…I’ll save indulging in the finer fruits of life for tonight.

See below for some pictures from the day event:

All the die hard Gainesville football fans waiting for the show to begin.

Had a nice conversation with Chris Leak. Gainesville is lucky to have him back in town.

That would be me looking like a munchkin next to 6’5 WR Chris Doering.

Strike up the band!

My favorite part of any event: the food.