Eagles make cuts on higher plain

While the players of the Commonwealth Football League spend plenty of time on the practice field to get their offensive, defensive, and special teams units to work together like a well-oiled machine, they also have to study their playbooks at home in order to effectively work in concert with their mates on every play.

If you add in the time they spend at their paying jobs, it seems as if they have little if any free time to relax with the family during the season—in effect, the team becomes their family for three months of the year.

After returning from their victory over the Tinian Typhoon across the channel, the Express Electronics Eagles family made the most of their free time during a rare bye-week in the schedule by rising with the sun and heading to Saipan’s highest point in an effort to clean house.

Armed with bush cutters, machetes, and a team-size tube of elbow grease, the Eagles and their sponsor Gary Sword journeyed to Mt. Tapochao and took part in an unsolicited island clean-up mission in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

While many would have take the day off to sleep in, Sword and the Green Machine picked up trash while hacking and slashing away the high grass.

“It’s a lot of fun. We should do this more often,” said linebacking lawnman Paul “Commando” Camacho while taking a break atop the mountain with a few of his teammates.

Express Electronics is computer software company based in American Samoa with offices on Saipan and Honolulu, and since setting up shop on Saipan a year ago, Sword has sponsored a number of teams to include volleyball and basketball as well as the Eagles.

Sword said that the idea to come to the mountain for a community clean-up came to him while on the job installing equipment for CNMI Customs.

“We were here doing a customs job for Saipan and so we’re doing a wireless network and I looked around and said ‘this looks like it needs some help.’ We spent four days up here and we saw at least 10 or more 15-passenger vans and busses a day just bringing tourists up here. You know, it’s a nice view—an excellent view. It’s one of the prettiest views in the Pacific. We do work in Palau, here, in Samoa, and this is one of the prettiest views and since it’s our day off we told the boys let’s barbeque and do something constructive and clean up this place—make it look nice,” he said.

Sword said that he hopes that he isn’t the only businessman in the community that feels this way, and that he is looking for everyone to pitch in to clean up Saipan.

“Our feeling is that if we are going to do business here and if we are going to be a part of this community we need to really participate not only in sporting activities. Cleaning up is really everybody’s job. It’s not the mayor’s, not the governor’s, it’s everybody’s job. Everybody should get out here and do something constructive—stop complaining and do something about it. We’d like for others to get involved with community clean-up and make the place look better. Also we want more tourists to come to Saipan, we want more businesses to come to Saipan,” he said.

By the time the group finished clearing out the area, the mountain gained some definition and was free from trash, but the team made a few discoveries as well.

“When we started, the grass was over those coconut trees. We didn’t even know that there were coconut trees there,” said Sword.

Though they were focused on cleaning until the job was done, the Eagles quickly shifted their thoughts to football as they packed up the trash, brooms, and grass clippings to catch the game between the Barbarians and the Shell Lightning

Before the team descended the eroded coral road, Sword explained that taking care of the CNMI is the responsibility of everyone who lives here, and that he plans to continue giving back to the community as long as he is here.

“Let’s just say that if you want to make this place better, you’ve got to get out there in the community to better this place. It’s everybody’s home, right? It’s everybody’s job. If this is your home I think you should take care of it. It doesn’t matter if you’re Chinese, Samoan, Korean, or Chamorro—it’s home,” he said with a smile.

Thankfully the players and Sword weren’t venturing alone, as SaipanCell, the Saipan Mayor’s Office, Carmen’s Safeway, Lt. Gov. Diego T. Benavente, and Pacific Trading Co. joined Express Electronics in providing the team the equipment for the mission on the mountain as well as provided refreshments for their post-work barbeque at the game.