Persistent Grid Fan Makes The Play

CORRECTION (Page N2, North Side Voice, January 4, 1996): In a story last week about Call the Play, a new board game created by Doug Jordan, the name of the game was misstated.

Doug Jordan is an evolved football fan.

He sits upright, is well-groomed and trim, drinks Diet Coke instead of beer, has a real job, and talks to his wife during the game.

His evolution from a limp, sloven blob of a football fan to normal started seven years ago.

That was when he and his brother, Jeff, thought up The Play, an interactive roulette-type game for football watchers.

It’s amazing what seven years can do.

He is now an entrepreneur, with the game on the market in several Spokane stores. He has a sweet wife and two normal kids. He has no facial hair, gut, or nicotine addiction.

Doug Jordan is the missing link from Joe Sixpack football fan to accountant.

“Doug is a tax auditor,” said his wife, Judy.

There are, of course, many factors in making a football fan sit upright during games. Buy The Play (subtitled, The Family Friendly Game) for $14.95, wives, and you may have your husband not only developing a spinal column on Sunday afternoons but, like Jordan, asking if you and the kids want to play.

“I hear how couch-potato fathers spend all day Sunday, so this is a way to get the whole family into it,” said Judy Jordan.

Thinking ahead, Judy wrote the simple instructions in monosyllables.

To play the game, players simply bet on the next play: a run for less than five yards, a pass for more than 10 yards, an incomplete pass, a turnover.

The less likely the play, the bigger the payoff. The game board lists the odds - a short run pays 5-to-1, a touchdown, 25-to-1.

Jordan, of course, uses chips and would not sanction his game being used for illicit monetary exchanges.

Jordan has refined the game by breaking it out during his annual Super Bowl parties to keep fans from ripping up his favorite bean bag chair when the beer runs out.

At his wife’s urging, Jordan had the game boards manufactured and began marketing this fall. The timing, Jordan says, is his impending 40th birthday next September.

“I might be 50 before I make money,” Jordan said.

In a demonstration during the Monday night game between the 49ers and Vikings, neighbor Dan Woods got testy when the Vikings came up short on a third-and-13 pass play.

“Call for a measurement,” Woods grumbled.

Jordan is an above-average player who has the tendency to gamble big. He bet on a long pass on a first down with the 49ers deep in their own territory. It was an off-tackle run.

“I’m glad I didn’t give up the day job,” he said.

The Play can be found at Play It Again Sports and at Halpin’s in the Valley. The game is available by mail order at P.O. Box 10592, Spokane, WA 99209. Cost through mail order is $20.15, including shipping, handling and tax.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo