Group's gathered every Saturday since 1969 for touch football game: "We want to play forever!"

MILWAUKEE -- You don't have to be Aaron Rodgers and Jordy Nelson to play football together weekend after weekend, year after year. You could be part of a long-standing local recreational game!

The same year the first man walked on the moon, a few guys started playing touch football on Milwaukee's south side. They may not have been Neil Armstrong, but they took a small step that became a giant leap of their own.

That Saturday morning game continues to this day. It has been played every week September to February since 1969.

"We play with the wimpiest rules we possibly can, so we can all play forever, and that's really the goal of this game. There's joy between these cones, so we want to play forever," Chuck Kubiak said.

Gary D'Amato has been playing for two-thirds of his life.

Gary D'Amato

"It's a little bit of a stress reliever for me. For three hours, I can be out here and act like a little kid and kind of forget about all the stresses of life, so it's fun. Once I quit, it's going to be a little depressing, I think, that I can't come out here on Saturdays," D'Amato said.

Chuck Kubiak

"Gary's father-in-law was one of the originals. That was Phil. So Phil played, Gary played, and then Gary's son played with us for several years," Kubiak said.

There are many examples of different generations sharing the field over the years. Most of the guys these days are in their mid-20s to mid-30s. They play man-to-man defense and there are no running plays. There is a healthy bit of competitiveness on display, but all of the guys have somewhere to be on Monday morning.

"Really everybody out here likes each other. We've had guys over the years who have played with us who didn't quite fit the group -- big egos or tempers, that sort of thing. We kindly tell them they are not invited to come back," D'Amato said.

If you're in the group, you're really in the group. This is football, but this is also kinship.

"In our history since 1969, as far as we can remember, there hasn't been a Saturday canceled. The one Saturday canceled was three years ago. My mom died and I called the guys up and said 'I can't play. Come get the equipment and play.' Instead, 18 guys showed up at my mom's funeral, and they never met her. They showed up for me. It still tears me up," Kubiak said.

Kubiak and those guys ended up playing the next day.

Since the "season" runs for several months, it includes several different types of weather.

"Start of the year and Labor Day weekend, we've played in 95 degrees and humid, and then, of course, we've played in monsoon rains where you're running in ankle-deep water and the whole field is just a quagmire -- all the way to two to three feet of snow on the ground. It has to be bitter, bitter, dangerous cold for us to miss -- so we've been out here when it's 10 below zero -- a little crazy that way," D'Amato said.

"At noon, the game's over and there's a bar right across the street. A lot of guys will head over to the bar and watch college football, or now, college basketball, and then next Saturday, we're here and we do it all over again," a player said.

For 47 years and counting!

Regarding the two main guys -- Gary says he's made more than 3,400 receptions on Saturday mornings since 1980, and Chuck says he intends to pull a Brett Favre -- playing for as long as he can and maybe even "un-retiring" a time or two!