City of Charlotte, NC CLT, 8 Sep 2015

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From YouTube: City of Charlotte (NC) Public Safety Football - The Charlotte Cobras 2015 National Championship

Description

The Charlotte Cobras are a non-profit organization and compete in the National Public Safety Football League. The NPSFL is a union of public safety agency football teams throughout the United States, united to promote a positive self-image to the public by raising funds for charity through spirited competition. NPSFL teams play full-contact football and follow NCAA rules. Each team plays a four game league schedule every spring season. Cobras Football is comprised of members of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, Charlotte Fire Department, Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office, Concord Police Department, Monroe Fire Department, Matthews Police Department, Kannapolis Fire Department, York County SC Sheriff's Office, Greenville SC Fire Department, MEDIC, and the Wilkes County Sheriff's Office

A

The Cobra started about ten years ago with a conversation, I was having with a couple of police officers, and you know what we won't have a charity football game very.

B

Humble beginnings in 2006, but what.

A

We had was a Sandlot football team had a couple.

B

Of opponents lined up for that first season were completely bulldoze on the football field. I mean it was men against boys. If you will and.

A

What we learned was that to really be good at football. You must practice, you must put the time and effort in, and you just can't come off the bench and play a 60 minutes of football and expect not to hurt a little bit, but we learned a lot. It.

B

Obviously starts with the love for the game of football.

A

You've got a lot of men who come out of here and go. You know what I love this game, I love it so much I'm willing to give up my time and my you know my weekends off and my family time just to come out here and play one more minute of football. Just one more down one more opportunity to be out here. There's nothing like it! It's a greatest sporting, loyal.

B

We had a former professional in camp Rasmussen, who was a Charlotte firefighter for.

C

Some reason football when I put on football pads for the first time there was something about the physical contact in football that you don't get in any.

A

Other sport, as we got more competitive as the team grew as the popularity grew. What we found was that the better players came out of the woodwork you.

B

Know obviously, they're volunteering a lot of their time, but they're coming out of pocket just a couple hundred dollars for expenses, you know and then the rest of its taken care of our community partners makes it very easy for these players to say: hey I can do this. If somebody.

A

Would have asked me or told me that we'd still be in existence. You know ten years later from where we started out, I would have wouldn't believe it or whatever, but what I saw grow over the years was you know a real organization that can live beyond the individuals, so in.

B

2013 we went undefeated against probably the toughest schedule to ever have been played in the MPS FL and ended up going to New York to play in the league championship game again came up short I lost the game by a field goal. It's.

A

Demoralizing, you know, and then, but you got guys, you have the heart to go. I'm not gonna. Take that again, I'm, not gonna, not gonna. Take it laying down I'm gonna come out here. I'm gonna put the work in I'm gonna, do more work and I'm gonna be better I'm gonna make my team better and that's what they did. I'm so proud of them.

C

We we practiced once a week, so we don't have a whole lot of time to come up with complicated schemes. It's not like it was you know, playing in college or in the NFL, where we practice every day. It's a job, but.

B

In 2015 came back really strong had a defense that was completely dominant on the field did not allow a point to be scored against us until the championship game against San Diego. The.

C

I mean defense: I've always played defense, always growing up I, always like, like we were saying earlier, I I like to be the one doing the hitting, rather than the one getting hit.

A

Is it that the other level of competition went down? No, we just got better our.

C

Defense was top-notch this year, not and I knew it going into the season, just the talent that we have accumulated recruited onto this team. You know other professional players, we knew we had a lot of talent, we could see it and- and it's showed up on the field this year, both.

B

San Diego and our team, the Charlotte Cobras, went into the championship game undefeated before the game.

A

Were brothers at the end of the game were brothers between the downs? It's not it's not like that. This is real football. This team brought to Charlotte a national championship. That's a big deal.