Well this was officially my last week here. It is starting to get pretty cold here too. I could no longer sleep with my window open. I was in long pants and hooded sweat shirts every day here. Everyday I was telling Marlon..." this is your last tuesday, wednesday...etc " because it seems like its been a while. I also took an hour and a half tour of the castle that I earlier visited. You could really get lost in there.

So if you are reading this then you probably want to know about the game. Well this week we played the Finnish National Championship game in Helsinki vs the Helsinki Roosters. Our guys had lost to the Roosters 7 years straight and were kind of psyched out for the game. All this week we scouted their film and we stayed up til like 3 am one night breaking down their schemes. We pretty much knew what they were going to do, we just had to see how they blocked it and had to narrow down their tendencies.

So the game was a long hard fought battle. Defense shut down the roosters running game and so they had to resort to passing, which didn't work. The first quarter went by quickly as they were running all day. Then in the second quarter my boy Rio took a kick off back about 90 some yards for a td and got us some momentum. I can't remember what quarter it was but I did throw one Td pass, putting me at 38 Td passes and no interceptions for the whole season. We were up like 14 to 3 going into half time. The second half we scored, maybe it was the pass but we scored and then they were down 21-3 for the whole third quarter. Then we were playing ball control the whole fourth quarter and trying to run out the clock. They got the balls and kicked a field goal then on side kicked it and got it, and then scored, but by this point all we had to do was to get a first down and run the clock out. So we ran qb follows and the clock went out and so finally after about 9 silver medals the Trojans have been crowned with their first Gold medal and Maple Championship trophy. All game they were late hitting me and trying to talk junk to me to get me thrown out. I did pimp slap one guy in the pile and the referee got on me about it. So the defense bent, but didn't break and that was the key to the game. The leagues leading rusher was shut down and this is a credit to our whole defense.

After the game I was getting interviewed by the tv guys and so that was pretty neat. I gave all the credit to God and to the rest of the team because I couldn't have done any of it by myself...as I told the reporter. I did have some females yelling Clinton, Clinton, Clinton ...and all that so you know. The most rewarding part for me was to see these guys on our team that have played for so many years and not received the gold finally get it. Some were laughing, some crying, some didn't really know how to act. It was kind of weird. So that made me feel good that I could be on the team that did it. The guys were all telling me that I really didn't understand how great this was and that the monkey was off of their back now. After the game they gave me the MVP trophy, but I didn't go get it because 1.) I was doing an interview and 2.) because I couldn't understand what he was saying in Finnish. However, I didn't deserve the MVP of the game so I gave it to Rio because he had a kickoff return for a TD as well as an interception and his play on the field wasn't as crucial as what he did off the field. He was the main reason that the defense succeeded so much because he had them scouted to the T. So we got gold medals and championship hats. The Helsinki team didn't even stay on the field while we received our medals. I guess they were still in shock as many of the guys on our team were. After my shock and awe campaign the last time in Helsinki (where I dropped 7 td passes ) they had signed to US defensive backs to try to slow our passing attack down and they didn't blitz as much so they were trying to sit back and make me pick them apart....so I did throw somewhat, but I just checked to runs. There coach was calling our defense over rated and stuff all week so I think some of the guys felt good about the victory.

I won't even get into the ride home. I will just tell you that we listend to " we are the Champions" a million times. I'm typing to you now and all of the guys are waiting for me downtown so I must go. I will post again tommorrow so if you are reading and care, I will be home on Tuesday with another gold medal. And in the words of Coach Al Usher back in

1997 ....IT'S TIME TO GO STRUT, so that I must do.

PS: I was also in some sports magazine over here. I will try to get some copies of it and will bring them home. It just has some pictures of me in it and I will try to get a translation of it so that I can understand.

Regards,

Clint