The most storied program in Oratory sports history has to have been flag football. Ever since I was a wee lad, I had never wanted anything more than to play flag football for the fine institution that is Oratory Preparatory School. I would hear about the legends that passed through those ancient rusting steel doors leading from the locker room to the turf battleground. Legend has it that on that very field on a frosty December day, Mr. Noonan witnessed a few Oratory students tossing around a battered pigskin on a blustery Monday afternoon with the unmistakable shadow of gloom on their faces.

“If only we could get some other friends to play with,” said one of the unnamed boys.

“Yeah, that would be totally rad!” said the other; “I bet if I could play against these other fools, I would look like Joe Namath out there!”

And in that very moment, Mr. Noonan knew what his sole purpose in life was – to start the Oratory Flag Football franchise. That next day in gym class, Mr. Noonan asked the other students about their approval with his idea.

“Gentleman!” He yelled, “Stop your bear crawls for a second. If I were to create a Flag Football league here at Oratory, who would be interested in joining?” At first, there was a moment of silence and awkward looks around the class. “Well fine then,” he said, “If we don’t want to create a flag football league, perhaps we could originate an Oratory Bear Crawl team instead? Now which of these sounds better?” In that moment, a spark was started and the fire only continued to spread. By the end of the week, the school almost seemed to be destroyed. Classes were torn apart. Friendships were severed. Brothers pitted against brother. However, that didn’t stop the tradition.

See, the beautiful thing about flag football is that once the season was over, everyone became friends again. No matter how terrible the game or trash talk said, once it’s over, it’s over. So it was no wonder that I, alongside what I thought were many other OP students, were deeply saddened to find of the termination of the Flag Football League. But not all is lost. The legends will live on. Tales will still be told, and records will still stand. Who knows, maybe next year the league will start up again.