Tecmo Super Bowl: The Rest of the Story

For those of us who lived it, it was the Woodstock of our generation, with even less showering. So FanHouse sent Clay Travis in search of the masters of the soaring golden football, the electronic gladiators of Tecmo Super Bowl. This is their story, eight bits of gridiron glory at a time. Nay, this our story. Part I can be found here.

My name is Clay Travis and I'm in love with a video game, Tecmo Super Bowl. There, I said it.

That's why I've traveled all the way to Madison, Wisc., to compete against 87 strangers in the largest Tecmo Super Bowl tournament on Earth. I've already lost my first game 21-14 and now I'm playing one of the best players in the tournament, Josh Holzbauer, a defending champion.

And I have to win or else I will be eliminated from the tournament and have nothing to do but walk outside and kick icy snow drifts.

It's 11 in the morning, I'm 30, my wife and son are back home in Nashville, and Barry Sanders is literally running circles around my defense. I can't tackle him. No matter how hard I try. Worse than that, my running back for the Minnesota Vikings, Herschel Walker, appears to have ingested 14 bottles of quaaludes and a bottle of gin. He has no speed.

For the first half, I stay competitive.

Somewhat.

Trailing 14-0 late in the second quarter, I have a first and goal against the Detroit Lions. Score here, and since I deferred possession after winning the opening toss, I'll begin the second half with the ball and a chance to tie the game. My first down pass into the end zone is incomplete and then on second down I'm intercepted.

Josh has time for just one play, and he drops back to the end zone and uncorks the Tecmo Super Bowl Hail Mary.

Anyone who has ever played the game knows the aching feeling as the ball traverses the entire length of the field, climbing high into the video game sky.

Josh's receiver soars into the air to make the length of the field catch and scores as time expires.

It's 21-0 and my Tecmo Bowl tourney chances have just given up the ghost.

I lose 35-0 without marshaling much of an offensive effort.

Now I'm 0-2, it's barely 11:15 in the morning, and I'm effectively eliminated from contention.

It suddenly hits me that I'm in Madison, Wisc., about to spend eight hours watching other people play a video game.

16. With just one game remaining, my only goal is to win a single game.

That's what I've traveled this far to accomplish, a single win at a video game from 1991.

Nothing else matters.

My final competitor is Andrew Happel, a dark-haired player who is also 0-2, having failed to score against Josh or Bryan, the other competitors in our foursome, in his first two games. Andrew wins the toss and selects a match-up between the San Francisco 49ers and the Houston Oilers.

I take the 49ers.

Predictably, Andrews scores his first touchdown of the tournament on his opening drive.

Once more, I'm down 7-0.

Worse, Andrew's drive, featuring three fourth down conversions, has taken almost the entire first half. Worse than that? In fifteen plays, I have not managed to pick his play.

Not once.

There are only eight play options.

Many times Andrew has faced third or fourth down and long so I know he's going to be passing. Yet, even still, I can't stop him.

My hands are white-knuckled on the controller. I need something, anything, positive to happen.

17. I take possession.

On my second offensive play, Jerry Rice goes 70 yards for a touchdown.

Finally, I can exhale.

Then I get a stop and take my first lead of the tournament at 14-7.

From there I punch in a fourth quarter touchdown to finish with a win, 21-7.

It's now 11:30 in the morning and the bracket challenge portion of the tournament, the 32 single elimination games, won't commence until 3 p.m.

18. Bryan Johnson, who finishes 2-1 and will advance to bracket play, and I head for lunch at State Street Brats.

Over lunch we debate the lasting popularity of the game. Why, of all the video games we have ever played, this one stands out so much in our memory and has attained such a cult following. Why, in essence, even as adults we are willing to cross state lines to compete against other grown men we don't know.

Neither of us would make this trip for any other game.

Ultimately, we decide Tecmo Super Bowl's allure is a combination of many things: the inclusion of actual NFL players, the fact that unlike Madden there was not a yearly Super Tecmo Bowl update so the game captured several years of players without changing, the relative simplicity of the game that, unlike a modern Madden game, allowed everyone a chance to win, the season-long competitions and statistics keeping that allowed one game to build upon another, the impact of luck -- the Hail Mary length of field pass is the great equalizer -- and ultimately the psychological battles over play selection.

As we would later describe it, "The get in the dome factor."

Could you reliably predict what plays your opponent would run given the circumstances? Mere happenstance would suggest that one in eight times, you'd predict the right play of your opponent. But good players had a much higher rate of play selection than the odds would suggest. In fact, once you could get inside a player's head, a series of correct play calls wasn't impossible. In fact, it could become downright likely.

Not only were you playing a foe, you were reading an opponent, poker meets football.

19. By the time we return, the psychological intensity of the games has increased.

Banter is more limited. The players left in the tournament know how fine the video game line is between success and failure. How quickly the Tecmo Super Bowl gods can take vengeance on the unworthy.

As the bracketed games commence, Josh Holzbauer's girlfriend, Erin Holte, has arrived for the competition. After confessing that Josh destroyed me in an earlier game, I ask her about her boyfriend's obsession with a video game.

"I don't get it," she says.

Holte lives in Milwaukee and she and Josh are in a long-distance relationship. When she comes up to Madison, the games don't stop. "I'll watch him play 10-plus games a weekend," she says. "And it gets more intense in the month or two leading up to the tourney."

Does she mind?

"Not really, because he seems happier when he's playing."

20. Eliminated from competition, I walk among 16 opening round games, attempting to discern greater truths, Buddha-like, from listening to the sound of the trilling music.

I learn many things.

A.) Games between good competitors aren't very high scoring. No competitive game features a team putting up more than 30 points. In fact, if you can score 21 points in a regulation game, you stand a very good chance of winning in this tournament.

I'd debated this with people before I left for the games, whether offenses or defenses would predominate. For the most part, defenses keep offenses in check.

B.) Most good Tecmo Super Bowl players eschew length of field passes and other gambit plays in favor of more traditional, and higher probability of success plays.

While the length-of-the-field touchdown might be the most memorable play of the game, it isn't particularly effective. Not from a strict probability perspective, anyway.

Most good players only attempt these long passes at the end of halves or at the end of games, when scoring via another method is impossible.

C.) Scurrying out-of-bounds is common.

Why?

Because fumbles come at inopportune moments and avoiding contact keeps drives alive.

D.) In games between very talented players, luck is magnified.

Talent only occupies about 70 percent of a Tecmo Super Bowl game. The other 30 percent comes from what we affectionately call the Tecmo Super Bowl gods.

When will a fumble or interception come? Will open receivers inexplicably drop passes? All day long the largest groan comes when an open receiver drops a pass. There is simply no explaining the luck factor, but all of us are aware of it.

E.) Big gains are generally taken away and drives become important because they can milk away the entire half.

I watch one game featuring two great players. The score at the half is 3-0.

What's most impressive about the game? One of the players has only had five offensive plays in the first half.

Five!

F.) Really good players rarely give up gains of more than 30 yards.

Even when spectacular offensive players like Bo Jackson and Barry Sanders are in the open field, most defenders practice containment at this point, keeping a good gain from turning into a touchdown.

Which leads me to this:

21. Tecmo Super Bowl is like a poker match.

There's skill involved, but the luck factor is what ultimately makes the game addictive. Going to the river for the flip in poker? It's the equivalent of waiting for a Hail Mary pass to land as the final seconds of a game tick away.

Catch the length of field pass in the end zone and a last-second upset is possible even if you've played the game perfectly. You can never rest.

22. All players get along well, except for the guy wearing a Notre Dame jersey with J. Christ as the name on the back.

J. Christ is making his first and last appearance in the tournament and is rapidly eliminated. Rather than leave, he begins drinking beer by the pitcher.

Looking for a fight, J. Christ eventually finds a willing participant, another eliminated competitor. Suddenly there's a rush outside into the parking lot as the fight materializes.

J. Christ squares up in a 1910s boxing stance, fists moving in front of him like a brawler in the steerage section of the Titanic.

But before punches can be thrown J. Christ's girlfriend materializes in the parking lot and gets between he and his combatant.

Other than this, there's a respect for the game that is almost golf-like. No one attempts to look at the video game controller as a player selects plays, mutual respect governs the competition.

23. As the Sweet 16 arrives, it becomes clear that the truly good players have groupies.

Corner men, hype men, call them what you will, but these friends of the Tecmo players stand over the player's shoulders offering encouragement and leading cheers.

Bryan Johnson, eliminated in the previous round, and I agree that the finals need to be in Las Vegas. Replete with ring announcers and entrances to pulsing music.

24. By the Sweet 16, there are no heavy drinkers remaining.

Earlier, many competitors drank, now the games are too serious for alcohol. One false move with the controller, a missed tackle, a mistimed field goal, can spell doom.

25. In the Elite Eight, Josh Holzbauer, the player who offered me a video game disembowelment, is in a tie-game, 10-10, with his roommate Adam.

With Josh driving and about to attempt a winning field goal, his team fumbles. Adam's team pounces on the ball, and with the clock ticking down passes midfield.

Now, in a reversal of fortunes, Adam lines up for a game-winning field goal, snaps the ball for the final play of the game, avoids the block -- a common occurrence with good player -- and sends the football soaring into the video game sky.

At this point, Adam jumps up and down as he taunts his roommate. To most Tecmo veterans, the kick appears to be good.

Only the jumping, as you will well remember, is not the Nintendo's friend. Suddenly, just like that, the screen goes blank before the kick goes through the uprights.

Chaos ensues.

26. Jonathan Bailey, the lead referee who has driven up from Milwaukee is faced with a difficult decision.

There are four options:

A.) Award Adam the victory on the opinion that the kick would have been good.

B.) Award Josh the victory as penalty.

C.) Attempt to rekick.

D.) Institute a sudden death overtime in a freshly started game.

/

He chooses D.

In front of a huge crowd, Josh blocks a pass attempt from the end zone, resulting in a Tecmo safety.

As a result, Josh triumphs 12-10 and advances to the Final Four.

27. The final member of the Final Four?

Not Tony Orenga.

Despite his fervent and loud fan base, the Tecmo gods are not kind to Orenga. In a tie-game, driving with the football, he throws an interception that is returned for a touchdown with 12 seconds remaining.

His devout fan base goes silent.

One man tosses down a foam fingered number one. "Sucks," he says, "let's go drink."

28. The Final Four is set.

On one side of the bracket: Josh Holzbauer, the software programmer who destroyed me hours ago vs. Matt O'Toole, a quiet math graduate student at Michigan State.

On the other side: Troy Hansen v. Francis Buennagel, a warehouse worker for a beer distributor in Buffalo, N.Y.

In front of a crowd of at least fifty players rushing from one big-screen television to the other to keep tabs on each game, Josh is crushed, falling 37-7 to O'Toole. Meanwhile, Francis Buennagel triumphs 14-0 over Troy Hansen.

Now the finale is here, O'Toole vs. Buennagel for all the Tecmo marbles.

29. The two men meet for a handshake before advancing in front of the big screen television where their finale will be played.

O'Toole, in a Hillsdale College t-shirt and jeans, wears an old camouflage hat that drapes down over his eyes, while a bespectacled Francis Buennagel, wearing an old school white Ronnie Lott 49ers jersey, nervously clasps and unclasps his hands.



There's a mad scramble for chairs that offer the best viewing area of the game. Then the best standing positions rapidly vanish as well. Everyone is tightly packed around the television screen as Buennagel wins the toss and selects the New Orleans Saints and New York Jets as the championship teams. O'Toole takes the Jets and Buennagel is left with the Saints.



Several dozen non-players gather to watch the finale in person. Online, many more watch the game since it is being streamed live on the Internet.

Both men are exceptional players with absolute mastery of their teams and their controllers: Da Vinci painted with a brush, these men use an 8-bit video game controller.

We're tied at seven as the first quarter ends. Then, with O'Toole having taken a 14-7 lead into the final play of the first half Buennagel drops back to the end zone and throws a length of the field Hail Mary pass.

It's caught!

Touchdown!

The crowd exults, particularly Buennagel's hype man wearing a faded Buffalo Bills jersey and standing directly over Francis's shoulder. "The pride of New York!" the hype man screams, "We talkin' about the pride of New York!"

Buennagel, tall and stoop-shouldered, flashes a broad grin as he stands up from his stool during halftime. "Yessss!" he squeals.

Both men score a single touchdown in the second half and our 88-man tournament enters sudden death overtime tied at 21. While O'Toole has focused on moving the ball on the ground, Buennagel has moved the football almost entirely through the air.

Francis Buennagel takes possession first and drives the length of the field before scoring on a sweep play for a 27-21 victory.

"The champ is here!" Francis exults, before placing a telephone call to inform someone of his victory. "Yep, I won," he says.

Buennagel poses for photographs with his trophy. I approach Francis and ask to get my picture taken with him. He agrees.

But when the picture is taken, Francis Buennagel isn't looking in the direction of the camera, someone else has caught his attention.

He big-times me.

Later Francis Buennagel will post a victory message on Facebook, "Just want to send a big thanks to everyone who played and participated in Madison. Just keep playing Temco, work hard and have fun. Eventually great things happen."

30. Post-game, I convince Bryan Johnson, the man who beat me 21-14 eight hours ago, that we should play one final Tecmo Super Bowl game for fun before we leave the Badger Bowl.

He immediately agrees.

The two of us go in search of an open television and two open video game controllers.

But each television is already occupied by grown men all attempting to get in one last game before the Nintendos are disconnected and the Ozzy Osbourne cover band begins to play.

Outside the bowling alley, night has come to Madison. A cool wind whips across the parking lot. It's time for 88 grown men to return to their ordinary lives, bereft of Tecmo Super Bowl tournaments.

But none of us can erase the tournament from our minds.

"I can't believe how good Wayne Haddix is," Bryan Johnson says.

"He's the best defensive back in video game history," I say.

We walk on across the dark parking lot in the direction of our cars, the vehicles that will take us back into the flow of our ordinary lives. But first we both pause.

"I'm going to be so much better next year," says Johnson, "I know what I need to work on."

"Me too," I say, "me too."