Hunter Shirey

Mrs. Thomas
UWRT 1101
11/23/14
Flag Football
In college it seems like everyone is looking for that one extracurricular activity to spark their
interest. Many do greek life, clubs, or even recreational sports. What all these things have in
common are their ability to bring people together for the same cause. If you take a ride down
John Kurk road at night you will see the bright lights. These lights put a distinct glare onto the
fields of UNCCs recreational fields. The green fields have white lines that break the big field
into smaller fields. You will see people often throwing a ball or the frisbee, or maybe they are
playing soccer. The shouts of students playing games are heard through the night along with the
whistles of the referees. You will see one game that captures the excitement of everyone
involved, and that game is flag football. I will be exploring this glorious sport as a discourse
community and why it is so captivating.
Before I got my data I had to figure out what a discourse community is. In class we read what
John Swales, who is a professor at the University of Michigan, had to say about discourse
communities. We learned that there are six characteristics that define a discourse community.
These six characteristics are common goals, intercommunication, participatory mechanism,
different genres, lexis, and level of members. Participatory mechanisms are how the people
provide feedback to each other. Genres include the types of communications such as verbal
communication, text messages, e-mail, etc. Lexis is the stock of language or code words that
the people of the community must know. There are levels of members in each community that

shows who has been around the longest and who is a rookie. All of these characteristics are put
into the discourse community found in flag football
To find the information I needed I observed other peoples games, and since I am in the league I
was able to get an inside view to what really goes on in between the lines. During my research
my team played one regular season game and two playoff games. It was great to see both types
of games, because playoffs bring a whole different type of atmosphere to the game. I also
interviewed one of my teammates named Cam Sweet to get a more justified view from everyone
out on the field. Since Cam was unable to take part in the playoff games due to illness, he was
able to give me a view of the game from the sideline as a coach. With the help of Cam, my
observations of other games, and my observations of my own games I was able to fill out the six
different types of characteristics found in flag football.
My first observation from when I walked out onto the turf field was the common goal. It was
clear. You must win. I could tell, because I saw that kids had bought cleats worth upwards of
$100. I saw kids wearing gloves that are wore by professional athletes. I saw teams showing up
an hour before their game to practice plays, which is not typically seen in the more for fun
backyard football. During the game is where you get to see more characteristics. I witnessed a lot
of intercommunications from other teams. One team had their receivers raise their hand at the
quarterback if they saw that they had a smaller guy, or a slower guy on them so that the
quarterback knew that they were going deep. Sometimes the receivers before the play would run
behind the quarterback to quietly tell him a weakness in the defense. The receivers werent the
only ones using intercommunication. The quarterback would point out to the lineman if he saw a
guy on the defense that was getting ready to blitz. Also when the quarterback would scramble
you would see him point at the receiver to either block so that he could run, or to get open to be

thrown a pass. I also noticed after playing a team that used a lot of intercommunication that it
was a necessity to make yourself into the best team possible, because we got mercy ruled by that
team.
Participatory mechanism was used for teammates to get on the same page so that when
they were on the field nothing got messed up. Using face to face conversation, teams would
create gameplans on attacking a different team. In between quarters they would make
adjustments based on what is going on out on the field.
When it came to the genres on the flag football field there werent that many. However,
to play in the league you must read up on the rules of the league then pass a test that consist of
twenty questions. This test was not easy though. You are not allowed to miss a question or you
will have to restart, and it does not tell you how many questions you miss.