It’s pretty easy to detect by the swagger and self-congratulatory words of each professional Madden NFL player that the game is strictly an individual one. Unlike popular competitive games such as Halo and Counterstrike, a Madden gamer hits the gridiron alone, allowing their destiny to fall on their shoulders…and only their shoulders.

Still, even though there is no way that gamers can ever escape the one-on-one style of play, many are opting to adopt the ‘safety in numbers’ theory by rolling with a crew…a posse if you will, of like gamers that share the same passion for Madden NFL and drive to succeed. Call them what you want: crews, clubs, organizations, whatever…apparently there are some clear advantages to banding together in small sects of the community to bring a group atmosphere to an individual game.

Seasoned veteran, a one of three founding members of the South Florida Madden Ballers, Jose Boza, opted to go this route. Unlike some of the crews that the community has seen pop up in the past month or so, Boza’s organization is somewhat time-tested and he hopes to continue to watch it grow in to a strong community where ballers can come to enjoy the game and excel at the same time. His organization bands together local Madden players in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties of Florida.

“We have actually gotten players from different areas of Florida, outside of South Florida to attend our tournament: Naples, Ft. Myers and Orlando, which is four to five hours away,” Boza explained. “That excites us, as the word has gotten out about our tournaments and ballers are willing to travel far distances to attend.”

Boza added that he hopes to form SFMB in similar nature to Game Time Philly (gametimephilly.net), the brain child of Bobby Storm which is a larger east coast-based club. Storm also runs Madden Federation where national tournament organizers come together under one label to plan out the national events.

“In the last couple of months, we have experienced significant growth,” Boza said. “We are also affiliated with Madden Federation, where our top tournament finishers receive national raking points on www.gametimephilly.net.”

The organization stays active by constantly labbing with each other and both hosting and participating in tournaments. Boza said he labs frequently with The Preacher Man, a Madden player that has recently emerged on the GotFrag.com Top 50 list and is a member of the SFMB. Boza said the advantages of belonging to an organization are clear.

“In general, name recognition and familiarity of your group if there are top ballers in your group (are advantages),” Boza said. “The advantage is having other ballers to lab with and also practicing new things against each other before playing in tournaments, leagues, etc.”