nn Jacobson was booming touchdowns left and right, practically kicking her way through her opponents, including good friend Greg Zuercher.
“He’s a loser,” cracked a smiling Jacobson, 25, a student at Loyola University. “I’m determined to win. I want to beat out these guys.”
It took Zuercher’s roommate, Rob Seay, to finally tackle the nearly unstoppable Jacobson.
Oh, wait. You do know we’re talking about finger football, don’t you?
You remember that game: You folded a piece of paper into a triangle, used your middle finger and thumb to pop it through your friend’s “goal posts”–thumbs joined and index fingers extending up–while he dodged the projectile as it flew toward his face. You probably played instead of boning up on algebra problems in study hall.
But this was no study hall. Jacobson and a few dozen others took the recent Finger Football Challenge at the Burger King at 145 W. North Ave. The promotion was sponsored by the fast-food restaurant and the NFL.
At several tables, men and a few women were seated across from each other, a paper “football field” set between them, flipping small, pigskin-patterned triangles into the air and across the field, hopefully into the end zone for 6 points.
At stake were two tickets to the finals in New York on Oct. 18, where winners from eight cities would vie for a trip to Super Bowl XL in Detroit next year.
“It’s all in the flick,” Jacobson said, enjoying herself. “You’ve got to know how to control your ball.”
As it turned out, Seay, a 28-year-old Internet entrepreneur, had just a little more control than Jacobson. He beat her on his way to becoming champion and representing Chicago in the finals (where he lost to the Miami representative).
A cameraman from Comcast Sports Net taped the excitement at the Burger King as Seay held up his cell phone so a crowd of roughly 25 people could cheer into it for his grandmother at the other end.
Players skidded and flicked their footballs around for about two hours, many swearing under their breath when powering their paper triangles off the table, or sailing their balls just left or right of the cardboard goalposts that took the place of finger uprights.
Classroom contests of yore
It was a little more structured than in the old days. “We’d make our own little paper footballs and turn our desks around and play,” remembered Andy Yule, 22, of Berwyn.
Mike Dominik, a 31-year-old from Chicago, used to play the game at Southern Illinois University “for beers. We’d sit there and flick the finger, and flick the football through [goalpost digits] and try to hit people in the face with it.”
Die-hard Bears fan Bernie Nachbin, 66, of Morton Grove came out to see Bears wide receiver Muhsin Muhammad, who lent his presence to the competition to support his charity, the M2 Foundation for Kids. Nachbin just got caught up in the fun.
“I won one game against [WMVP-AM 1000 radio personality] Marc Silverman, which was kind of neat and funny at the same time, and then the real player won the next game,” Nachbin said. He had never played before but said he may now take the game up with his 7-year-old nephew.
Even though 41-year-old Roger Specht considered himself a dominant player in high school (“I never lost, as far as I remember,” he said, barely hiding a smirk), it was his girlfriend Linda Purcell-Taylor who made it to a second round. But that was because her first opponent forfeited when he disappeared.
“Cannot do the flicks,” Purcell-Taylor said while playing. “I got smoked all day long.”
Purcell-Taylor, a 36-year-old technician from Warrenville, had another reason for playing finger football: getting her 11-year-old son a football signed by Muhammad.
“I’m an all-star,” Muhammad joked about his finger football prowess. “I’ve been to the Pro Bowl three times.”
Time to grow up? Nah
You might be hard-pressed to find anyone playing this game in the office break room today. That’s what happens when you become a grown-up.
“But,” reminded the 32-year-old Muhammad, “a little bit of kid lives in everybody. . . .
“What this does is, it brings you back to that little child within yourself . . . and have a chance to go back and play a child’s game that we loved to play and win tickets to go see me play a child’s game, which is football.”
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Even the pinkie is part of the team
It’s all in the digits if you want to make it to the Finger Bowl. According to the Finger Football Challenge, these four fingers have key roles in the quest for supremacy:
The index finger: “This is the iron finger of finger football. Built for both accuracy and distance. For most, this is their go-to finger.”
The middle finger: “Using this finger can be tricky. Try not to extend it far enough to offend your opponent or any spectators. That aside, this brute is an excellent choice for that long-distance flick.”
The ring finger: “Master using this oft-overlooked finger and you can pick up some major style points. The points don’t count toward your score, but they may help you reach the Finger Football Hall of Fame.”
The pinkie: “Don’t let the size fool you. This finger can come in handy for those short flicks. Plus, being scored on by a pinkie can devastate your opponent for plays to come.”
But what about the thumb? It’s versatile enough to be a stabilizer for the ring finger for pushes down the field, and help the index finger with flick-offs. Think of the thumb as the William “The Refrigerator” Perry of the team.
— A.J.
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axjohnson@tribune.com
