I’m sure most of you can relate to me. I’ve been playing “Madden” football video games for years now. If you can’t relate to me, you probably think I need to spend a few minutes to reevaluate my life.

The game is fun, though, and is there really anything better than having fun? Hey, at least I’m not playing “Doom” or “Dungeons and Dragons.”

Over the past three years, “Madden” has gotten progressively more realistic and even more entertaining. If there wasn’t anything to do during the day, a group of us would just sit around and play each other. We would taunt each other as if we were playing something that had actual meaning to it, but, in the end, it stopped being as fun for me.

Just ask my friends. I’m better than all of them. I won’t name names, but I can guarantee that they’re reading this right now, and my tires are about 15 minutes away from being slashed.

So when I heard about the, “Madden Challenge,” a tournament in its third year now, I knew I had to sign up for its date at Gillette Stadium on Sunday. I might actually get some real competition outside of my living room for once.

Unfortunately, when I showed up to the Fidelity Investments Clubhouse at 10 a.m. on Sunday morning, I was questioning my own game. I didn’t even know which team I was going to play with.

Should I play with the Patriots and give my opponent a decent shot at sacking me every down due to the immobile Tom Brady, or should I play with the Eagles to have an agile quarterback in Donovan McNabb while sacrificing talent all across the rest of the board?

These are questions I shouldn’t have to ask myself the morning of a tournament that could land me a trip to Las Vegas and $50 thousand. But I had just spent six days in Hilton Head Island, which set my game a week behind the other 511 people in the tourney.

I’m not asking you to feel sorry for me because Hilton Head is a beautiful place, and I wouldn’t trade that trip for the world. My problem is that I’m just too competitive to let variables like that slide. I absolutely hate losing. I won’t even let my little cousins win a game of basketball in my backyard. It doesn’t matter that they might only be four feet tall, but I’m going to shut them down in every phase of the game.

Well, before I knew it, I was thrown into my first round game. I ended up siding with the Eagles, and my opponent did the same.

Now, if you have never played in the Madden Challenge before, you have no idea how much different it is playing a video game with money and pride on the line in front of a thousand people. I was flat out nervous. My palms were sweating, my stomach was a mess and I couldn’t stand still.

Luckily for me, this guy had no idea how to handle a zone defense. I picked off his first pass of the game and took it back to the house for an early lead. I was able to play the rest of the game with a calmness that would have made Manny Ramirez proud.

Two more interceptions and a forced fumble later, I advanced to the second round with a 17-0 victory. That poor guy had to go home to his mother and tell her that he didn’t score a single point in the Madden Challenge.

My next opponent turned out to be a guy I stood next to in line during the registration process earlier in the morning. He made the mistake of telling me he won two games in last year’s event, so I knew he could play. I casually told him that I had never played a sober game of “Madden” in my life. It was a strategic move on my part since I knew that I would be paired against the people who were closest in line to me.

Well, that strategy worked when he decided to punt on his first possession of the game instead of going for it on 4th-and-2. What I didn’t realize was how good of a Patriots’ defense I would be up against. I couldn’t do anything on offense, so we traded punts through the first half until he took a 7-0 lead.

I thought I was cooked. I had -2 total yards, and there were only a few remaining seconds left in the first half. Then, something magical happened. With “Beast,” the tournament emcee behind me, I tossed up a prayer off my back foot to Terrell Owens about 20 yards down field in order to avoid a sack.

It was a dumb throw without question. This was the kind of throw that the Philadelphia media wouldn’t have let McNabb live down for the rest of the season. Sometimes in video games, though, crazy things happen. The ball floated through the hands of Ty Law, Terrell Buckley and Rodney Harrison and landed softly in T.O.’s hands, he then sprinted another 60 yards downfield for the tying score just before halftime.

The crowd went ballistic, and Beast starting yelling into the microphone that my lucky clover had just fallen out of my pocket. I was back in the game with two quarters to play.

My opponent received the kickoff and methodically drove down the field. He had crossed my 40-yard-line as the third quarter expired, and his friends told him to run the clock out before kicking a field goal.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This guy was about to break the man code, and run the clock out. Any normal guy would have to throw a pink skirt on and be referred to as “Princess” for the next week. He had no shame, though.

With 20 seconds left in the game, he was attempting a 45-yard field goal to clinch his shameless victory. What he may have forgotten, though, was that the luck in this game was on my side.

The field goal looked good for the first 20 yards, but then it gradually began hooking to the left. I began leaping as though I were Carlton Fisk in the ’75 World Series. My arms were flailing to the left side of the screen, and the ball followed them. Wide left! Once again, the crowd erupted, and everyone was on my side after they watched him run the clock out in a foolish attempt to claim victory.

I would go on to win the coin toss in overtime and march down the field to win the game with a field goal of my own. Throughout the entire game-winning drive, I must have heard 30 people behind me say, “That guy missed a field goal to win the game, and he’s now about to lose.”

I was a fan favorite, and I was advancing to the third round. Some people say that it is better to be lucky than good, but I say the “Madden” gods were watching this sorry excuse of a player run the clock out in an attempt to steal the game from me.

My third round opponent had no business being at this tournament. He was awful, but whatever forces helped me win my second game stopped me from winning my third. I couldn’t figure out why my defenses weren’t blitzing in the direction I was telling them to or why my receivers were running the wrong routes.

By the time the first quarter was over, I realized that my right analog stick was busted. The referee fixed it, but since the score was knotted at zero, he wouldn’t let us start the game over.

I was rattled, though. Two of my drives were wasted. A camera crew decided to get in my face next, and I knew my karma had run dry. What’s worse is that Ken Walter snuck into my controller, and I shanked my next two punts out of bounds.

The score was tied at zero just before halftime, and my opponent was starting a drive at his 20-yard-line. Tom Brady hit Ben Watson on a five-yard-out pattern. Watson not only broke two tackles as soon as he caught the ball, but he outran my entire secondary on his way to an 80-yard touchdown reception.

Where Watson developed the strength of a tank and gained Mike Vick-like speed was beyond me. The Playstation 2 was against me during this game, and it was even more evident when I was stuffed on a goal-line stand in the fourth quarter. Final score: 7-0.

I wasn’t beaten by my counterpart but by the Playstation. Throw in a television camera, and Ben Watson who had the attributes of Bo Jackson in “Techmo Bowl” and I had no chance. I’m getting angry just writing about it now.

Oh, well. I knew that I would need a little luck to bring home the championship, so I won’t get too worked
up over it. The experience was priceless, too. I had a group of 30 strangers behind me cheering my every move during a video game, and that alone was exciting enough.

I didn’t get a trip to Vegas, I’m not $50 thousand richer and I was beaten by the system. Somehow, though, I walked away with a smile on my face.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to play my 11-year-old cousin in home run derby.

Jeff Howe is a Collegian columnist.