Joy in Mud Bowl: Football tournament celebrates 50 years of messy fun

CONWAY, NH — College football players aspire to play in bowl games. Professional players dream of playing in the Super Bowl.

A bunch of amateurs in New Hampshire just want to have fun riding through the mud.

A three-day mudbath ended Sunday at the Mud Bowl, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Players were left wading through knee-deep mud as they tried to reach the end zone.

For these athletes, playing in the mud brings out the child in them.

“You’re playing football in the mud, so you’ve got to have a smile on your face,” said Jason Veno, the 50-year-old quarterback for the North Country Mud Crocs, who described mud as an equalizer. “It’s just a different game in the mud. It doesn’t matter how good you are on grass. It doesn’t matter in the mud.”

The annual event takes place at Hog Coliseum, located in the heart of North Conway. It kicked off Friday night with revelry and music, followed by a Tournament of Mud Parade on Saturday. A total of a dozen teams of men and women entered the tournament hoping to emerge as the dirty winner.

Ryan Martin said he’s been playing mudball for almost 20 years and it’s a good excuse to catch up with old friends he grew up with.

“You get to a point where you think, I’m not going to be a pro anymore, I might as well feel like I’m fighting day in and day out,” he said.

He also admitted that the sport still has its consequences, especially with mud seeping into every nook and cranny of his body.

“It gets in your eyes. You get cracks in your feet. And you get mud in your toenails for weeks,” he said. “You get it in your ears. You’ll have to clean your ears for a long time … you’ll blow your nose and you’ll get some dirt and you’ll think, oh, I didn’t know I had that in there.”

Mahala Smith is also convinced of the camaraderie the event brings.

She said she fell in love with soccer at a young age and has been playing the sport since first grade. She eventually joined a women’s tackle football team in 2018 and played for a few years before being invited to play in the dirt.

She said the weekend was a treat.

“It’s like a little mini vacation and everyone is friendly,” she said. “People hang out in the hotels and restaurants, people camp, we all have fires and stuff, just like a fun group event.”

While it’s fun, the teams are serious about winning. And the two-hand touch football can get a little rough on the field of play, but it’s all fun when the games are over. Many of the players were high school and college star athletes, and there have been a few retired pros over the years, Veno said.

The theme was “50 Years, the Best of Five Decades.” Over the years, the event has raised more than $1 million for charity, officials said.