There were no Vegas odds on the game here Wednesday between the NFL Alumni and the Wounded Warrior Amputee Football Team, but if there had been, the pros would have been underdogs.

It didn't matter to third-generation Marine Jacob Schick that he was lining up on defense against Dale Hellestrae, an ex-Dallas Cowboys center who earned three Super Bowl rings.

And it didn't matter that Schick, who survived a horrific blast in Iraq, was trying to sack the quarterback without a leg and part of one hand, or that he had an interception that led to a touchdown, putting the Warriors up 21-7 early in the game.

“These guys have the best outlook and best appreciation of life of anybody in the world,” one-time Houston Oilers quarterback Dan Pastorini said just before the game.

“We're the epitome of the one-team, one-fight mentality,” Schick, 32, of Frisco said of his teammates. “And all of us have been through a great deal of suffering and we know how to suffer well, and that by default helps us be victorious.”

The game at Toyota Field pitting NFL players from around the region against wounded troops was a fund-raising event, with the proceeds going to Morgan's Wonderland and disabled veterans initiatives in Texas.

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The final score was Wounded Warriors 56, NFL Alumni 28.

More than 25 former players from the Cowboys, Oilers, University of Texas and Texas A&M played, as did about the same number of wounded troops.

The veterans have beaten the NFL Alumni eight times over three years without a loss.

Sports fans often hear players talk about their mutual respect for the other team, but it's more than that in this case. The wounded troops have long looked up to the NFL players for their achievements, while the old pros are in awe of them for overcoming life-altering injuries.

“These guys have the best outlook and best appreciation of life of anybody in the world,” Pastorini, who lives in Houston, said just before the game.

“They've fought for our country so we can do the things we do, and to me they're the heroes,” said nine-time All-Pro defensive lineman Randy White, who played for the Dallas Cowboys from 1975-88 and was co-Most Valuable Player in Super Bowl XII.

“It's a whole different game when you put yourself in the arena where you're just not going to win or lose a game, you can lose your life,” he said.

Typically, the games start off slowly, with each side feeling the other out. That's how things went after the first snap at 7:25 p.m., but the contest quickly fell into a familiar pattern.

The plays went a little faster with each snap and players on both sides pushed just a little harder. Before long, it was a hard-fought contest, one that turned very physical, but that wasn't a surprise to veterans of either team.

“As the game wears on, I think guys are used to playing a contact sport for so long and you put that football in your hand and they just do what they do,” said Marcus Burleson, 33, a Marine staff sergeant who lost his left arm and part of his right arm disarming a bomb in 2011 in Afghanistan.

“We both come from elite organizations, organizations that you can't replicate in regular society, so we're all a bunch of Type A personalities. It's all in good nature and fun, but all of us are competitors,” said team captain and Iraq veteran B.J. Ganem, 37, a Marine who lost part of one leg in a Thanksgiving night 2004 attack that claimed the life of his gunner.

“These are servicemen and women who put their lives on the line that are competitive, so the fact that they are essentially missing a limb or something does not take away their competitive nature,” agreed former Atlanta Falcons linebacker Chris Draft, who went to the NFC Championship game in 2004. “So to be on the field and have a chance to show up some NFL players. ... Bring it on!”

At least one former NFL player wasn't surprised. One-time St. Louis Rams and Seattle Seahawks linebacker Dave Vobora was dubbed “Mr. Irrelevant” after being drafted No. 252 in the 15th round of the NFL draft, but ended up starting as a rookie.

“It's all how you frame circumstances, because if you let circumstances define you, that will always get the best of you,” said Vobora, who played from 2008-12 and trains wounded GIs at his Dallas gym. “These warriors are the perfect testament to resiliency, to perseverance, to defying the odds and always fighting through, never giving up, never quitting.”

sigc@express-news.net