They come slowly, piece by piece, trickling off the gravel drive and
onto the grass parking lot around 6:30, just as the sun touches the
southern Indiana leaves, colored by fall.
Easing out of their cars, they laugh, enjoy a beer, catch up on the
week that was. This is a release point, when they can slow life down
and let the game take over.
They come from all manner of careers – accountants mix with blue-collar workers mix with IU students. Some have no jobs at all.
“That’s the unusual thing about semi-pro football,” head coach Brent
Slinkard says. “You’re getting a host of age groups and a host of
different backgrounds and educations all coming together for one thing
that we all have in common – it’s just passion for the game.”
They come every Tuesday and Thursday night to the green and brown field
behind Brown Elementary School, white helmets and mish-mash practice
gear in tow. They come to play football.
They are the Indiana Cutters, a semi-professional football team based
out of Bloomington that competes across the state and sometimes into
Ohio.
Their cobblestone roster boasts the likes of former IU wideout Jahkeen
Gilmore and Lee Becton, the only Notre Dame running back ever to tally
seven straight 100-yard games and the Irish’s 12th all-time leading
rusher. Anywhere between 60 and 65 men from college age on up call
themselves Cutters, as they have since conditioning began in January
and practices started in March.