Our French interns meet the Vikings cheerleaders

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

This week the National Sports Center is hosting the 4th annual NSC Football Classic. This youth football tournament is one of the few times we host "American football" on our campus (as opposed to "futbol" the more familiar, international term for soccer.)

Left: Members of the Blaine Bengals relax in the Schwan Center lobby during the NSC Football Classic.

We have 50 teams from 5th to 8th grade. Most of the teams have just started their seasons. Some, in fact, have just been practicing for barely a week. So we market this as a pre-season tournament. True to that spirit, coaches are allowed on the field to help their teams learn new plays and techniques, as they use the tournament to prepare for their league season.

Right: Former Vikings Pro-Bowler Matt Blair signs autographs.

Today was Minnesota Vikings Day at the tournament. As a steady rain fell outside, players and parents came into the warm, dry Schwan Center to meet retired Vikings great Matt Blair and three of the Minnesota Vikings Cheerleaders. A week from Friday, tournament players will have the chance to attend the Vikings pre-season game against the Dallas Cowboys.

But let's get to the point of this blog. If you've been at an NSC event this summer, you may have met our French interns, Camille Saliot and Adrien Bequart. (And at Schwan's USA CUP earlier this summer, you might also remember Camille and Adrien as co-hosts of a very funny episode of Kick TV entitled "Kick TV learns about Bastille Day.")

Anyway, Camille and Adrien are really from France, they're great guys, and they'll be the first to admit they don't know much about American football. So we're working hard to teach them the elements of the game here, like why Minnesotans murmur in reverence when someone says "purple," that it's actually legal to touch a football with your hands (they're more proficient with their feet), and explaining some things that confused them -- like why the game stops every 30 seconds for the teams to huddle up.

So, ever eager to learn all they can about American football, Camille and Adrien jumped right to the front of the line to have their staff shirts autographed by the Vikings Cheerleaders. It was a heartwarming moment, sort of a futbol-meets-football hands-across-the-sea cultural moment.

Vive le Purple et les Blues!

Above: Camille Saliot (front) and Adrien Bequart meet the Minnesota Viking Cheerleaders.