Every year I make a trek down to Cincinnati at the end of July to play retro video games, and every year I come home and write about it. You may now let your 8-bit nostalgia commence.

This past weekend, my good friends, the four Vogt Brothers (Chris, Matt, Jimmy and Joey) held their 16th(!) Midwest Tecmo tournament, featuring inarguably the greatest sports video game of all-time: Tecmo Super Bowl.

Quick background: Tecmo Super Bowl is the sequel to the original Tecmo Bowl, which lacked official team logos and NFL affiliation, as well as player approval for use in the game, and not all of the NFL teams and cities represented. In December 1991, Tecmo Super Bowl (TSB) was released on the original Nintendo. 

This time around, the NFL and NFLPA were on board, and the entire 28-team league was represented. There was a season-mode, which followed each team’s exact schedule for the 1991 season. In season-mode, stats were kept with each passing week, making the game seem much more real than the original. The playbook for each team was doubled from four offensive plays to eight, with more than 80 total plays to choose from.

With the NFLPA on board, most of the NFL’s players were in the game from the time. Only defensive starters from a 3-4 scheme made it, with backups being left off. Each offense was only 2-deep on the depth chart, and rookies weren’t included. 

The stats, data and attributes for each player were taken from the year prior, in 1990, so a mediocre-at-best player like Tampa Bay’s Wayne Haddix would resemble a superhero and a top-2 defender in the cartridge. RB legend Eric Dickerson was left out of the game because he entered the 1990 season in a contract dispute with the Indianapolis Colts. New rookies in 1991 were also left out — a group that included future Hall of Famers Brett Favre and Aeneas Williams.

Most notably absent were three Pro Bowl quarterbacks: Randall Cunningham, Jim Kelly and Bernie Kosar. The three QBs were not in the NFLPA’s marketing contract, and all three players were generically named QB Eagles, QB Bills and QB Browns.

Despite the game coming out pre-internet, it became an instant classic. It was the top-selling game not only when it came out — but for three straight months almost a year later, and at a stunning price that would cost $115 today. It has been named among the most influential video games of all-time because of how it took a sports video game from a singular one-on-one exhibition and expanded it into (at least at the time) a very realistic look at a real life simulation.

More than 30 years later, the game lives on. With the benefit of game code hacks, modifications, and the internet, thousands of adults still play the game. Many play online, while others still like the feeling of sitting in front of a tube TV with a cartridge, console and rectangular controller in their hands. 

Many of these players belong to the “Tecmo Community,” of which I am one. There are about two dozen open tournaments each year at various cities around the country, as well as a wide variety of online leagues to play in. They are tiered leagues, too, so beginners or those coming back to the game after three decades aren’t torn to shreds in their first action against another human.

I don’t do the online scene — I lack a personal computer and time to dedicate to it. Instead, I beg my wife to let me go to 2-3 events a year, and she obliges. The tournament in the northern suburbs of Cincinnati is can’t-miss for me. I love the Vogt brothers like they were my next door neighbors growing up. Of the group of 30 players that came this year, I knew 20 of them and got to know the other 10. 

Former Bengals DB David Fulcher has been a part of the tournament all 16 years as well. A college football Hall of Famer, Fulcher was a hard-hitting menace on the gridiron in the 1980s and early 1990s. When Chris Vogt reached out to Fulcher back in 2007 to see if the former NFL great would want to be a part of it, the response came back the very next day: Yes.

And so for 16 years, fans of a retro football game have gathered at Rick’s Tavern and Grill in Fairfield, Ohio to play TSB and chat with a legend of the sport (and the game). Money fundraised throughout the day, via GoFundMe, a raffle, donations and autographed merchandise, all goes to the David Fulcher Foundation, which helps families with MS in the Cincinnati area, as well as other awareness and outreach activities. 

In 16 years, more than $21,000 has been raised. This year, $1,000 was donated online and from the 30 tournament-goers. Last year, I made football cards of all of the Vogt brothers to give to the other participants, plus 100 of David Fulcher that I donated to him. These are ultra-rare, as I was the only one to make them. I also couldn’t just up and sell them without worrying about getting sued, so I figured the best for everyone would be to give him cards that he could then sell himself. 

When he walked into Rick’s Saturday morning, he sought me out right away, thanked me again for the cards, and let me know that they are all gone. It was a moment that made me feel like I had made a direct difference.

The cards were a part of my hype-train build up I like to freely promote for the tournament. Last year, I created a Facebook page called the Vogt Busters, playing off their name and the Ghost Busters. I have edited profile pictures for nearly 100 tournament players from across the country, and this year I added some fun A.I. artwork during the preparation.

The positive vibes continued for me in tournament play. I went 3-1 in group play, losing to the guy that is widely considered the third best player in the world — Regulator (Kyle Miller). I ended up seeded seventh in bracket play, and I choked away my first game. I made a return in the consolation bracket, though, dominating one player by five touchdowns before winning on a classic 90-yard Hail Mary right before time expired to win by a point. 

I finally met my maker in the fourth round of the consolation bracket to the guy that knocked me out four years ago. It was my best run at any major tournament I’ve played in. 

For the final four hours of the 10-hour event, I was on the microphone doing my best Howard Cosell impersonation as color guy, while Joey Vogt had an out-of-body experience as a Gus Johnson clone. There were several juvenile puns regarding San Diego Chargers RB Marion Butts, though my favorite line from the night came in the finals, when runner-up Joey Gats scored a touchdown against eventual champion DPS. (Both guys are on the Mount Rushmore of Tecmo.) Gats ran in a fun, zig-zagging TD with Rams RB Cleveland Gary, to which I organically said into the mic, “That’s the best Cleveland football this state has seen in a long time.”

I just burned the Cleveland Browns. In Ohio. And it felt great. (The online chat feedback and four guys almost collapsing in search of air while laughing so hard behind me let me know that it was a truly good joke).

Wisconsin player Hank also had an out-of-body experience, playing the best Tecmo of his life and going from 17-seed to fourth place thanks to five wins in the loser’s bracket. Eric, AKA Riddler, a friend of mine and high school basketball coach in Ohio, also had a big day, making his deepest run yet and finishing third overall. The entire day was live-streamed on Facebook and Twitch, and is available to go back and re-watch if you’re interested.

Seven hours down, 40-hour stay, and another seven hours back. Those 54 hours are now flush with great memories that will last me a long time — and a lot were not even from the tournament itself. 

I won a Yuengling bar sign in the raffle, which continued my streak of great raffle wins (I’ve also won a Corona sign, a Fulcher autographed sign, a Pabst Blue Ribbon umbrella and a few other items in years past). 

This year, there was a side poker tournament in the hotel where most of us stayed. We also played other retro games, like Contra and RBI Baseball. There was a photo booth at the bar, as Friday night’s bar theme for the live band was “Prom Night For Adults.”

When I got in Friday night, I helped Chris finish setting up in the back room, then played a couple of guys in exhibition games. One of them watched me pull off one of the most ridiculous upsets in the community’s history: The inconsistent and undermanned NY Jets against offensive powerhouse Houston Oilers. 

In a tiered system, according to data and attributes, Houston is a Top-4 team in the game, and the Jets in the bottom 10. Playing 1-v-1 against a real tournament player, Houston will win 99 out of 100 times, if not every time. 

But 18 months ago, at a 24-hour marathon raising money for Chris, who had been diagnosed with cancer, I inexplicably beat my friend K-Cab on the live-stream. 

That night, 10 of us were staying in Columbus, Ohio (including Chris’s three brothers). Among the many things we did in those 24 hours, we held a 1-v-1 tournament, where I went 0-9 against everyone. We then simulated an entire season and held a blind draft, per se. We saw which teams made the playoffs and had to pick a team to use. Throughout a season, players will get injured and others will go into “bad,” “average,” “good” or “excellent condition.”

My first pick was the 49ers, inarguably the best team in the game. On the swing around, I had to take the final pick, and I was stuck with the lowly Jets. 

Former Badgers legend Al Toon was my godsend that night, as he had five catches for over 230 yards and a couple of touchdowns, and I got my first and only win of that night, 28-21. On the Twitch chat, another one of friends who wasn’t there, Kevin Molnar, wrote: “Note to self: Never call HOU-JETS against Krebs.”

Cut to this past Friday, Molnar wanted to re-create the drama. Molnar and I had a crazy down-to-the-last-second game in tournament play two years ago, with him coming out on top with a defensive stand at his own 5-yard-line. He is clearly better than me, but in that game I gave him a run. In the NYJ-HOU re-creation, there was no simulated season. We just played heads up, and Molnar again beat me at the very end, this time with him scoring a TD as time expired.

He was sweating and vowed to never call a game against me with the Jets as an option, and now I am tempted.

However, in my eight games on Saturday, I won the coin toss seven times, meaning I had to pick the matchup. In these tournaments, you pick two teams close in tiers to one another, because a good player will “house” you with a good team and leave you with the bad team. Another rule is that you cannot call the same matchup a second time in the tournament. In my seven coin flip wins, I never once picked the Jets. 

I wonder now if that was the hidden special card the Tecmo Gods had waiting that would have advanced me one more round.

I guess I’ll just have to wait until next year.

— Adam Krebs is the editor of the Times and is known in the Tecmo Community by his handle, Super Duper. To contact Adam about the Monroe Times or to set up a one-on-one matchup against him in Tecmo Super Bowl, call his direct office line at 608-324-3615 or email editor@themonroetimes.com.