Rangers Visit Salzburg; No Bull!

Sideline

L to R: Coach Hepner, Felix Gassebener, Coach Hepner, Maximillian Boder

Got it?

Defensive meeting.

Beautiful setting.

The Rangers took an Altus-like (in length) journey today. The 3 1/2 hour trip westward to the beautiful city of Salzburg was long, but very scenic. Scenes that can only be rivaled by the Rockies arose to meet us as we wound our way through snow-capped peaks and past mountain lakes, convents, and mountain hamlets.

In Austria's fourth largest (and possibly most beautiful) city, the Rangers unloaded the bus

with a very small contingent of players to take on the Salzburg Bulls of the AFL. Mountains stood watch over the reasonably warm day that was made a little uncomfortable by the wind. One would think that getting halfway around the world, one could escape Oklahoma-like wind. Not really.

We arrived a little late and the Bulls were in full warm up mode as our players hurried to take the field.

Soon we were playing defense (missing both starting DEs and two LBs) that resulted in ZERO TOUCHDOWNS for the AFL team. They were missing their starting QB (an import that played at Tulsa and various JCs around the midwest) but our guys flew around and played pretty good technique. We got 6 turnovers, scored 2 times on Defense and tackled well. Could have tackled better. Could have gotten more people to the ball. But we have shown improvement.

On an interesting note (to me), Luki, our center, hurt his shin. He came out of the game and later, when I looked over to see how he was, he had an "pack" made of snow gathered from the sideline on his injury. Haven't seen that lately.

This coming Saturday, we play the Carinthia Red Lions here in Vienna. If you are worried that the NFL may not play this fall, this could be your football fix. Kickoff is at 2:00 pm Central European Time (9 am Central Standard Time). I'm sure it will be one of the ESPN channels!

I uploaded some pics that Susan took.

I was really glad that Susan accompanied us. For the first time in 32 years, she rode the bus with that football team I coached. She stood on the sideline and didn't have to hear one idiot yell about how bad the coaching was. Afterwards; McDonalds!!! Then a long bus ride home through the same beautiful countryside.

I have to say, it was a pretty good day.