“It’s an awesome feeling to not only bring the championship back to D.C., but to be able to add the second championship for a D.C. team within the same year,” Generals captain and wide receiver Donald Mitchell said in a phone interview this week.
(It’s unclear whether Mitchell, 38, forgot about the Capitals' Stanley Cup title or the Valor’s Arena Football League title. When a city wins so many championships, it’s hard to keep track.)
Gay Bowl XVIII welcomed 57 teams from 22 cities to Commerce City, Colo., just outside of Denver for a three-day tournament starting last Friday. The D.C. Gay Flag Football League (DCGFFL), which was founded in 1994, sent five teams to the event, which was supported by the NFL’s Denver Broncos. In addition to the Generals, the D.C. Admirals, D.C. Commanders and D.C. Delta Force competed in the men’s division, while the Washington Senators competed in the women’s division.
Mitchell, who joined DCGFFL in 2013, was making his fifth Gay Bowl appearance, but his first as a captain. Back in April, he and his fellow captains were tasked with drafting travel teams from among the players in DCGFFL, which plays its regular season games at Carter Barron Park in Northwest Washington. Mitchell’s Generals finished fourth at the Pride Bowl tournament in Chicago in late June, giving them confidence that they could finally end a long title drought in Denver. (The Washington Monuments won back-to-back Gay Bowls in 2003 and 2004, but a D.C. squad hadn’t won it all since.)
"This was the one tournament that had always escaped D.C.’s hands,” Mitchell said. “We’ve been close several times, but just couldn’t quite get over that hump until this year.”
The Generals won all six games at the Gay Bowl, including three in pool play that earned them a bye into the quarterfinals. But it wasn’t a cakewalk to the title. Mitchell said the Generals won four of their six games by a touchdown or less, including a nail-biting 33-27 win over the L.A. Express in the semifinals.
“They’d been our Achilles' heel in the past,” Mitchell said.
Washington defeated the San Diego Toros, 29-13, in the championship game Sunday. The Generals' Mark Summerside was named the defensive MVP of the tournament and Jeremy Steslicki won offensive MVP honors.
“Everybody on our team made some play that was memorable,” said Mitchell, who grew up in Nashville and moved to D.C. 11 years ago. “There wasn’t one or two or three standouts. Everybody put in. I’ve been on several teams and I’ve never been more proud of a team that came together to fight for each other. ... This team was just hungry and was willing to do what we needed to do to get there.”
Due to a scheduling quirk, Mitchell and his teammates will now turn their attention to the DCGFFL regular season. The Gay Bowl had been held on Columbus Day weekend in recent years, including 2016 in D.C., but the tournament was moved up a month this year due to weather concerns. As a result, the DCGFFL, which normally kicks off the weekend after Labor Day and takes a one-week hiatus for the Gay Bowl, will open its regular season schedule on Sunday.
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