This is my son's fourth year of organized football. Before yesterday, his teams (three seasons of PAL football and the current season of his middle school team) were a combined 0-20-1. Some lowlights:
So yesterday was the Bruin Bowl, where the two middle schools that feed the high school play in the high school's stadium. Although it isn't the last game of the season, it's usually the high point since they get to play where the Big Boys play, at night with lights, with a P.A. announcer, and all that. Anyway, their opponents came in 2-1, and I was all ready to to have to console my son after yet another blowout.
A funny thing happened on the way to the beating. After forcing the other team three-and-out, we scored on a beautiful 40-yard pass on our first play. After forcing another three-and-out, we returned the punt inside the 20 and scored two plays later. Well, it went on like that all game, and when the siren sounded (a siren! really!) at the end, his team had won 28-0, and we were finally on the other side of the kind of thrashing we were used to receiving.
There's a cliche about feeling like a weight has been lifted from your shoulders. Most cliches are cliches (i.e., overused) because they have more than a grain of truth to them. As I walked down the ramp and out of the stadium, I truly did feel like I no longer had a burden I was accustomed to carrying, when flower_goddess and I would try to sneak back to the car without being noticed because we just got pounded again. My son wanted to quit after the 24-0 game earlier this year -- he literally believed that he was a jinx to his team. The same group of kids had gone 5-2 the previous year, and the only difference this year were the addition of him and a couple of other kids who graduated from PAL. We were able to convince him to stick it out mainly by making him consider how he'd feel if he quit and the team then won a game.
Fortunately, now he'll never have to know.
Posted by Chris at October 2, 2003 03:18 PM