Faith, friendship and the art of the 'tag'

The voices are growing louder and the footsteps coming nearer as Father Sean Raftis sits crouched in the trunk of a car ready to pounce as soon as the compartment opens. What kind of desperate situation is this? What would bring a Catholic priest to prepare such an ambush? It’s quite simple, Raftis does not want to be “it” for another year.

Since 1990, Father Raftis has been playing an ongoing game of tag with nine of his friends from Gonzaga Preparatory High School. The game has grown to legendary proportions, grabbing the attention of The Wall Street Journal in 2013, ESPN’s Sports Center and, eventually, Hollywood.

“Tag” opened in theaters on June 15, bringing the “Tag Brothers” into the national spotlight.

The Tag Brothers – Raftis, Bill Akers, Rick Bruja, Mark Mengert, Brian Dennehy, Chris Ammann, Joe Tombari, Patrick Shultheis, Joey Caferro, and Mike Konesky – have been engaged in a game of stealth, cunning and surprise attacks each February for the past 28 years, with no end in sight. According to Raftis, it’s fun, it’s silly and it’s a great way to stay in touch as friends.

“It’s a juvenile kid’s game that we started for a laugh in high school. It’s an easy game to play and everyone knows it, but it is not about playing the game for the game’s sake. It’s about keeping in touch with one another. It’s a reason for getting in the car or hopping on a plane to go see a friend,” Raftis said in his office at St. Richard’s Parish Saturday.

The game began innocently enough in the halls of Gonzaga Prep, with the 10 friends attempting to tag each other in the hallways between classes, but ended when Tombari was unable to tag anyone else before the final bell of their senior year. When the group got together in 1990, they decided to take pity on Tombari (who had been declared it for life) and begin the game anew.

The game is for only for fun, but make no mistake, the players are in it to win. Each player was required to sign a four-page participation agreement (drawn up by lawyer and participant Patrick Schultheis) and must pay a “prep payment,” which is donated to Gonzaga Prep each year.

For the month of February each year, the 10 grown men go into hiding as best they can and recruit all the help they can get in an effort not to be tagged.

The rules are simple: The game is played in the month of February each year. There are no geographical restrictions and no safe havens. Whoever is “it” has to answer honestly when asked about it, there are to tag-backs and whoever is “it” at the end of the month will remain it until the game starts again the following year.

“There’s the exhilaration of Christmas and New Years, and that has waned by February. It is a month that can be a bit hard for people to get through. It’s wintry and spring has not yet arrived. It just seemed like a good month that we could make better by having an excuse to go see some friends,” Raftis said. “There is a lot of conspiring and planning involved, not only with one another, but also with wives and others. Wives are enlisted. Office associates are enlisted. Even everyone’s kids are enlisted to help. Everyone is fair game. It’s kind of like a mini cold war. There are spies, intricate plans and a whole lot of intrigue.”

The players have used everything from intricate disguises to home break ins to get their tags, even going so far as to tag Schultheis at his father’s funeral.

According to Raftis, the title of “it” can change dozens of times in a single February, but he has not yet been tagged while living in Columbia Falls, where he as been for nearly two years.

That doesn’t mean he hasn’t been it while in Montana.

“I was tagged after giving mass while I was at Holy Cross in Townsend a few years back,” he admits. “I looked out and Mike and Joe were in the crowd, so I wove a message of friendship into the homily. I knew it was coming after the final blessing. I was ‘it’ for a week and then I went and got Mark.”

As for waiting in the trunk waiting to strike, Raftis used that trick to tag Tombari, but it did not go as planned. Raftis conspired with Mike Konesky, waiting in the trunk of their rental car to make the tag, but when he lunged out, it was Tombari’s wife that he had targeted by mistake. Startled, she fell backwards over the curb, tearing a ligament in her knee.

“I felt so bad about it,” Raftis said. “After I made the tag on Joe, we tended to his wife and then took her out for pizza.”

While the game has stayed competitive over the years, Raftis says its most enduring quality is the way it focuses on the friendship between the players.

“The whole idea of friendship really resonates with this story. It’s been great. The good, the true the beautiful and the friendship with Christ, anytime you have friendship with others you become a part of that friendship,” he said. “It has changed my life in that I value friendship even more. To be able to have these nine guys and their families, with whom I am close, has changed my life for the better because it has made me appreciate the meaning of friendship through the ups and downs of life. It has filled me with gratitude and it has humbled me. It makes me not take friendship for granted.”

The friendships, and the game, will continue.

“One guy will eventually be left standing, and then he will be it for eternity. We plan to still be doing this while chasing each other down the hall in our wheelchairs. I’m looking forward to it,” Raftis said with a chuckle.

So, if Father Raftis is seen looking over his shoulder or ducking into a corner during the month of February, there is no need to be concerned. He just doesn’t want to be “it” again.