Long Form Task 5
Gather round, kids. Today, Uncle Chamber will tell you the tale of Carmel “Roidson” Gibson. No, I won’t be rapping it (again), but I will tell you about the scandal, the fallout, and how it perhaps accidentally led, eventually, to one of the most successful periods in franchise history for one of the league’s founding teams.
So, the story begins at the 2017 ISFL Draft. Actually no, back that up. The story actually begins early in the 2016 season. See, the Baltimore Hawks were struggling after the team’s management went A.W.O.L. on an overseas flight. The details are hazy to this day, but the team were effectively without leadership for a while, and some players simply stopped showing up to training, content to collect a paycheck for effectively making token appearances on game days. This all culminated in the eventual appointment of Gordon Gekko as Hawks general manager, and the task of the league’s first “rebuild”.
And that brings us to the 2017 draft. The Hawks drafted wisely in a deep class, picking up two future Hall of Famers in Owen Taylor and Avon Blocksdale, a bellcow running back in Darlane Farlane (more on him later), some much needed support for Antoine Delacour in the secondary, and completely restocking the offensive line. Carmel Gibson is also selected, with the fifty-eighth pick overall, by the Baltimore Hawks. Ostensibly as a potential replacement for the underperforming Gabriel Tenzini (the Hawks’ first round pick from the previous year).
Gibson was a quiet guy, who literally never showed up to training according to everyone involved with the Baltimore Hawks at the time, and yet somehow, he wound up being one of the best tight ends in the league in the 2017 season. What I mean by this is that despite being suspended for the final three games of the season (again, we’ll get to that), he still finished fourth among tight ends for receiving yards, and led the group in touchdowns. For some of you younger folk, that probably doesn’t mean much. However, let me tell you that other tight ends in the league at that time include Ricky Maddox, George Wright Jr, and Hall of Famer Paul DiMirio. They were the only three tight ends to outperform Gibson that season. Despite him playing three games fewer than everyone else.
Naturally, there was a lot of suspicion about just how this guy was so good without training. It was a strange time for the league, with incidents of performance enhancer abuse (most notably overuse of so-called “Testosterone Production Enhancers”, or “TPE”; which the league encouraged use of, but only to certain levels) rife throughout the league. Other scandals would come to light later, but those aren’t the focus of this story. A particularly determined journalist would eventually find that Gibson had in fact, been playing the entire season on a much higher TPE dosage than the league allowed at the time.
The scandal was bad enough. Eleven games with a “roided up” tight end, whose performances had seemingly provided a clear benefit to the Hawks was a big problem for the league. But compounding the issue was the lack of clarity on how the problem wasn’t spotted sooner. Some suggested Gibson deliberately misled league officials, others suggested oversight by league officials, a few even suggested that the Hawks’ management team were aware of Gibson’s dosing and kept it quiet.
While various figures in the league and the media debated the situation, league head office discussed it quietly. They were quick to exonerate the Hawks’ management of blame, but still had to find a way to placate the many voices calling for punishment. One stance was effectively “they unfairly gained an advantage and should now be disadvantaged accordingly to balance it out”, and it was difficult to dispute such logic at the time.
The league’s leading analyst at the time later waded into the discussion to point out that while Gibson’s situation may have provided an advantage, it wasn’t going to be a “huge” one. When faced with opposition to such claims, he ran detailed simulations to show that the gain to the Hawks was roughly a tenth of a win. Further analysis suggested that the Hawks likely would have won the exact same number of games without Gibson’s involvement.
Ultimately, the league decided no punishment would be handed down to the Hawks, who went on to play in the Ultimus that year.
This sounds like it should be the end of the story, right? Nope.
You see, some people didn’t like this outcome. They would target the Baltimore Hawks organisation as a whole, harassing some players and staff repeatedly. When Gordon Gekko attempted to calm the situation down, he was punished by the league head office for overstepping his authority as a general manager. The continued hostility eventually led to promising running back Darlane Farlane refusing to travel to The Aviary for training, and ultimately killed his career. The knock on effect of this, was that Owen Taylor retrained as a running back in his stead, eventually becoming one of the greatest to play the position in league history. Similarly, several other players would begin to avoid attending training, with the Hawks organisation stuck for options on how to prevent this pseudo-exodus. Avon Blocksdale openly criticised head office at the time for their inaction, and the reception around the league was mixed.
The loss of players would hurt the Hawks in 2019, where they missed the playoffs owing partly to loss of talent, and the move of Blocksdale to quarterback, replacing Scrub Kyubee, who had begun attending training far less frequently in the wake of the harassment.
The difficulties faced by the Hawks would overspill onto the field around this time as well, as a rivalry of sorts began to develop with the Yellowknife Wraiths and Philadelphia Liberty. This would crystallise into the Hawks-Liberty rivalry when Kevin Cushing -- an outspoken linebacker/defensive back hybrid -- moved to Philadelphia, and his then-Wraith partner-in-crime, Francois Lamoreux, retired. The Hawks-Liberty rivalry is often cited as being the league’s first real rivalry, and the negativity persisted even beyond the retirement of some of the Liberty and Hawks’ key players from the 2019-2020 period, when the rivalry was at its most vitriolic, with Hawks legend Antoine Delacour clashing with his protege, Lennox Garnett, over the latter’s role with the Liberty.
All these events surrounding the Gibson incident, however, fostered a strong sense of camaraderie among the Hawks players and staff. After four seasons of mediocrity (between 2019 and 2023, the Hawks’ best record was 8-6), the team’s core players from those troublesome times (Blocksdale, Hendrix, Turkleton, Taylor, and Delacour) had formed strong bonds with new additions like Willie, L’Alto, Roenick, and Fletcher among others, and dominated the NSFC for the following four seasons, even when some of those veterans retired, making four straight Ultimus Bowls starting in 2024.
Though this period would only yield one championship, those four straight appearances equalled a league record, jointly held by Orange County (2019-2022) and the New Orleans Second Line (2023-2026). Yellowknife would later equal this streak as well (2033-2036).
Gather round, kids. Today, Uncle Chamber will tell you the tale of Carmel “Roidson” Gibson. No, I won’t be rapping it (again), but I will tell you about the scandal, the fallout, and how it perhaps accidentally led, eventually, to one of the most successful periods in franchise history for one of the league’s founding teams.
So, the story begins at the 2017 ISFL Draft. Actually no, back that up. The story actually begins early in the 2016 season. See, the Baltimore Hawks were struggling after the team’s management went A.W.O.L. on an overseas flight. The details are hazy to this day, but the team were effectively without leadership for a while, and some players simply stopped showing up to training, content to collect a paycheck for effectively making token appearances on game days. This all culminated in the eventual appointment of Gordon Gekko as Hawks general manager, and the task of the league’s first “rebuild”.
And that brings us to the 2017 draft. The Hawks drafted wisely in a deep class, picking up two future Hall of Famers in Owen Taylor and Avon Blocksdale, a bellcow running back in Darlane Farlane (more on him later), some much needed support for Antoine Delacour in the secondary, and completely restocking the offensive line. Carmel Gibson is also selected, with the fifty-eighth pick overall, by the Baltimore Hawks. Ostensibly as a potential replacement for the underperforming Gabriel Tenzini (the Hawks’ first round pick from the previous year).
Gibson was a quiet guy, who literally never showed up to training according to everyone involved with the Baltimore Hawks at the time, and yet somehow, he wound up being one of the best tight ends in the league in the 2017 season. What I mean by this is that despite being suspended for the final three games of the season (again, we’ll get to that), he still finished fourth among tight ends for receiving yards, and led the group in touchdowns. For some of you younger folk, that probably doesn’t mean much. However, let me tell you that other tight ends in the league at that time include Ricky Maddox, George Wright Jr, and Hall of Famer Paul DiMirio. They were the only three tight ends to outperform Gibson that season. Despite him playing three games fewer than everyone else.
Naturally, there was a lot of suspicion about just how this guy was so good without training. It was a strange time for the league, with incidents of performance enhancer abuse (most notably overuse of so-called “Testosterone Production Enhancers”, or “TPE”; which the league encouraged use of, but only to certain levels) rife throughout the league. Other scandals would come to light later, but those aren’t the focus of this story. A particularly determined journalist would eventually find that Gibson had in fact, been playing the entire season on a much higher TPE dosage than the league allowed at the time.
The scandal was bad enough. Eleven games with a “roided up” tight end, whose performances had seemingly provided a clear benefit to the Hawks was a big problem for the league. But compounding the issue was the lack of clarity on how the problem wasn’t spotted sooner. Some suggested Gibson deliberately misled league officials, others suggested oversight by league officials, a few even suggested that the Hawks’ management team were aware of Gibson’s dosing and kept it quiet.
While various figures in the league and the media debated the situation, league head office discussed it quietly. They were quick to exonerate the Hawks’ management of blame, but still had to find a way to placate the many voices calling for punishment. One stance was effectively “they unfairly gained an advantage and should now be disadvantaged accordingly to balance it out”, and it was difficult to dispute such logic at the time.
The league’s leading analyst at the time later waded into the discussion to point out that while Gibson’s situation may have provided an advantage, it wasn’t going to be a “huge” one. When faced with opposition to such claims, he ran detailed simulations to show that the gain to the Hawks was roughly a tenth of a win. Further analysis suggested that the Hawks likely would have won the exact same number of games without Gibson’s involvement.
Ultimately, the league decided no punishment would be handed down to the Hawks, who went on to play in the Ultimus that year.
This sounds like it should be the end of the story, right? Nope.
You see, some people didn’t like this outcome. They would target the Baltimore Hawks organisation as a whole, harassing some players and staff repeatedly. When Gordon Gekko attempted to calm the situation down, he was punished by the league head office for overstepping his authority as a general manager. The continued hostility eventually led to promising running back Darlane Farlane refusing to travel to The Aviary for training, and ultimately killed his career. The knock on effect of this, was that Owen Taylor retrained as a running back in his stead, eventually becoming one of the greatest to play the position in league history. Similarly, several other players would begin to avoid attending training, with the Hawks organisation stuck for options on how to prevent this pseudo-exodus. Avon Blocksdale openly criticised head office at the time for their inaction, and the reception around the league was mixed.
The loss of players would hurt the Hawks in 2019, where they missed the playoffs owing partly to loss of talent, and the move of Blocksdale to quarterback, replacing Scrub Kyubee, who had begun attending training far less frequently in the wake of the harassment.
The difficulties faced by the Hawks would overspill onto the field around this time as well, as a rivalry of sorts began to develop with the Yellowknife Wraiths and Philadelphia Liberty. This would crystallise into the Hawks-Liberty rivalry when Kevin Cushing -- an outspoken linebacker/defensive back hybrid -- moved to Philadelphia, and his then-Wraith partner-in-crime, Francois Lamoreux, retired. The Hawks-Liberty rivalry is often cited as being the league’s first real rivalry, and the negativity persisted even beyond the retirement of some of the Liberty and Hawks’ key players from the 2019-2020 period, when the rivalry was at its most vitriolic, with Hawks legend Antoine Delacour clashing with his protege, Lennox Garnett, over the latter’s role with the Liberty.
All these events surrounding the Gibson incident, however, fostered a strong sense of camaraderie among the Hawks players and staff. After four seasons of mediocrity (between 2019 and 2023, the Hawks’ best record was 8-6), the team’s core players from those troublesome times (Blocksdale, Hendrix, Turkleton, Taylor, and Delacour) had formed strong bonds with new additions like Willie, L’Alto, Roenick, and Fletcher among others, and dominated the NSFC for the following four seasons, even when some of those veterans retired, making four straight Ultimus Bowls starting in 2024.
Though this period would only yield one championship, those four straight appearances equalled a league record, jointly held by Orange County (2019-2022) and the New Orleans Second Line (2023-2026). Yellowknife would later equal this streak as well (2033-2036).
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Originator of the Sim League Cinematic Universe (SLCU)
Super capitalists are parasites. Fite me.
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