I've discussed this with your site admins, and they've offered their support of this charity project. I thought you'd all like to know the currently planned details of this event, so here's the proposal we've sent to The Good Samaritan Foundation and the other Redskins fan websites:
“1st Annual Good Samaritan Greatest Fans Bowl”
September 24, 2005
Sponsorship Proposal
TheWarpath.net and other Redskins fan sites on the Internet are comprised over 40,000 dedicated lifelong fans of the Washington Redskins. For the members of these sites, the Redskins symbolize not only a winning tradition, but also a commitment to the community. It comes as no surprise to us that former members of the Washington Redskins have created the Good Samaritan Foundation in order to provide greater opportunities for inner-city youth in the Washington DC area. Now we, as fans, want to thank the Redskins for the wonderful memories they have provided us and help give back to the community.
We propose to raise money for the Good Samaritan Foundation with the “1st Annual Good Samaritan Greatest Fans Bowl”-a flag football tournament involving various Redskins fan sites. This tournament would be held during the Redskins Bye week-either Sept. 24 or 25 and would be an all day event followed by an evening banquet.
Because there are more members of the fansites than could be allowed on the field we will set up an auction system where fans will bid for positions on the team. Each starting bid will be $40 and each team will have 20 players. With 4 teams involved that would be a minimum of $3200 that would go directly to the Good Samaritan Foundation. We are also working on sponsors to match the minimum bids and contribute as well to the Good Samaritan Foundation. All players would be required to sign a liability waiver in order to participate, relieving the Washington Redskins, The Good Samaritan Foundation, the fan websites and any other sponsors/partners of any liability associated with the injury of any participant. Fans would be able to download and print the liability waivers/registration forms from a page on the website they wish to play for.
We propose to use Mission Fish (the charity arm of eBay) as a charity auctioneering tool to control the registration process. To facilitate this the Good Samaritan Foundation would register with Mission Fish as an eligible non-profit organization, so that the auction money can go directly to them.
Publicity for the event would be driven by advertising/announcements on the various Redskins fan websites, as well as that of the sponsor/partner's websites. With assistance from the Washington Redskins and The Good Samaritan Foundation, the individual fan websites would seek out sponsors to cover the cost of team jerseys, flags, etc.
TENTATIVE SCHEDULE
Our tentative schedule for the day would be as follows:
10am-12pm: Teams report and practice
12:15pm-1pm: Two games are played simultaneously, each game comprised of two 20-minute halves
1pm-2:30pm: Lunch
2:45pm-3:30pm: Consolation game
3:45pm-4:30pm: Title game
Depending on which location we ultimately find to host our postgame dinner, dinner would be scheduled for sometime between 6 and 7pm.
FORMER REDSKINS PARTICIPATION
We would like for former Redskin greats Charles Mann and Art Monk to serve as our honorary coaches for the day. They would each be assigned a team for the consolation and title games, and would call plays and substitutions for the teams. They would also serve as MCs for the evening where prizes will be given to the winning team as well as the offensive and defensive MVPs. Additionally, we would like for Charles Mann, Art Monk and Tim Johnson to participate in biweekly Q and A sessions on TheWarpath.net (which would then be linked to other fansites) starting at the beginning of the regular season. The players could rotate this. They would be given a set of questions via email that they could then answer and respond to TheWarpath.net.
We hope to develop a strong relationship with the Good Samaritan Foundation and continue to find ways to give back to the community with your help.
Whatever support and/or ideas the fans on this website can provide would be greatly appreciated! We really need everyone's help identifying and recruiting potential sponsors for this event. We need sponsors to match the winning bids for the roster spots and/or the total roster bid total for each website's team. We also need sponsors to provide financial and/or logistical support for the event, in the form of cash contributions, or purchases/provisions of meals for the teams, sports drinks for the players, flag equipment, team jerseys, etc. Again, whatever any of you can contribute to this effort would be greatly appreciated.
You can share your ideas with us at TheWarpath.net by posting in the following thread on our site:
http://www.thewarpath.net/showthread.php?t=6833
Or, if you prefer, simply reply to this thread here.
Thanks, and Hail to the Redskins!
Joe Crisp
