SEQUIM — It takes a whole lot of pride to play semipro football.
Without six-figure deals, scholarships or homecoming queens waiting outside locker rooms (actually, there aren’t even locker rooms), that’s about the only motivation players have to strap on the pads and bang helmets each week.
For members of the Olympic Peninsula Eagles, the free hamburgers handed out after Saturday’s scrimmage may be the only compensation they will receive all year.
It’s a fact that’s not lost on first-year owner Mike McMahan, a player himself for 14 years before being inducted in the Minor League Football Hall of Fame.
“You play this because you love the game,” McMahan said after the scrimmage at Sequim High School.
“You come out and do this and take a beating because it’s fun.
“If it’s not fun for these guys . . . they have jobs, they work 40 hours a week, they’ve got wives, they’ve got kids.”
McMahan has spent the better part of seven months pounding the pavement in search of such like-minded masochists.
It appears that hard work has paid off with 46 players suiting up Saturday and 50 expected to be in uniform by the team’s home opener on April 10 in Sequim.
“I know the veterans that were on this team the last couple of years are just in shock with how many numbers we have,” said McMahan, once an assistant coach for the Eagles three years ago.
“Last year they were struggling to get 20 guys out to the games.”
Indeed, interest waned considerably during the team’s second season in Port Townsend, a winless campaign.
McMahan decided to take over ownership of the team in September rather than see it fold. Then he began the process of returning the Eagles to the Port Angeles-Sequim area.
That was where the team had played its first two seasons in 2006-07, the last of which ended with a run to the Cascade Football League championship game.
Some of the players from that team, including former Sequim High School quarterback Kenny Hall, returned to the Eagles this season.
“I’m glad I’m back,” said Hall, who played for three years with the Eagles after leading Sequim to a perfect 10-0 regular season in the fall of 2004. “Coach really convinced me.
“I took the year off, and I was like gosh [I miss it].
“I still have it in me to come out and play and be a quarterback and lead a team, I still have that and still have that passion for the game.”
So, too, do so many others on McMahan’s eclectic roster.
Prison guards, daredevils, construction workers, fishermen, business owners, college students . . . they simply can’t pull themselves away from the game.
It’s the same story, whether they are 18 years old (like Sequim’s Dave Bunnell), in their 40s (Sequim’s Gary Ristick) or nearing retirement age (65-year-old Don Pollite Sr.).
“This is a great group of players. Everyone is really competitive,” said Hall, who commutes four hours from Central Washington University each week to quarterback the Eagles’ wide open offense.
“This is comparative to my second year when we went to the championship and lost. That’s how good we look right now.”
It’s a testament to McMahan, who has rigorously promoted his team and recruited players as the team’s fourth owner in five years.
He’s also organized several community events in the process, including a toy drive during the holiday season, volunteer work at a soup kitchen and a three-hour football camp in Sequim on May 1.
“We’re trying to really bring the community into this team and be a part of it,” McMahan said. “I’m trying to change the image of this team.
“These guys live here. We’re all part of this community.
“And if we can give this community a big league program it would be awesome.”