0
0
Near Truist Field yesterday afternoon, I slowly stopped and started in my car through an abnormally large traffic jam. On the roadside curb, I saw young men and women sitting wearing black skirts and black t-shirts.
They weren’t talking much, just being with each other. A few hundred feet further a 100 or so more of them lined up waiting for a campus bus to climb on to head back to their Wake Forest campus a mile or so away. The noise wasn’t discernible.
In my car, I thought about how they felt and wondered if it was how I felt. They had spent the last three hours shouting for their football team to beat #5-ranked, Clemson. Had their team won, it would have been the first time in 63 games dating back to 1948 that their school had upended a team ranked in the top 10 nationally.
Only 30 minutes earlier that monumental achievement actually seemed to be coming true. Late in the game with Wake in the lead they must have been thinking, as I was, about storming that field and having one of the greatest celebrations of their young lives, then heading over to the Wake Forest center of campus to join their fellow undergraduates heaving a roll of toilet paper into the trees, a tradition reserved for the school’s biggest sports victories, then some cool beverages and something to eat and partying all night.
Beating Clemson would have been one of, if not the, biggest win ever certainly over their four years at the special university. Clemson beats Wake Forest in football all the time, but today would change all that.
It didn’t, though.
All those visions were so plausible, probable actually after Wake scored a touchdown in overtime. Then thud. A bummer, shock, thunderbolt, and knife penetrated our hearts when a Clemson player intercepted Sam Hartman’s pass in the endzone in the second overtime.
Game over. The entire American college football world had been riveted for three hours watching this all-time classic football game swing back and forth and, after two overtimes, some team had to lose.
Sure which it hadn’t been us. Why is it always Wake Forest that plays the role of “losing team”?
Wouldn’t that have been a fantastic time yesterday on the field dancing and telling each other it was the greatest football game and feeling afterward we had ever experienced? Now it’s just a great football game that we’ll all feel sad about – forever. A few fond memories yet — let’s tell the truth — predominantly pain.
Once the interception happened, I put my head down and started walking up the stadium stairs with tens of thousands of Wake Forest fans, quieted, stunned, so so so so frustrated that it was, once again, not us having the big post-game celebration. So rarely has this ever been us, especially when the games matter most. Why the other schools?
Yesterday it was within seconds, within inches of it being us as America’s college football wonders. Instead today everybody’s talking about Clemson still having a chance to play for the national title and no one at Wake Forest has any interest in that topic. What a bore. How annoying. It feels awful like something died inside every single Wake Forest football fan. Yes, I believe that’s true.
In my car watching those kids, I hurt for them. Their delicious day and moment got swiped away at the last moment leaving them hungry and thirsty. This was going to be historic – but it wasn’t. They were quiet.
In my car, I noticed the silence like I don’t recall ever; loud as hell that quiet was. For three hours during the game, Truist Field was never more noisy and electric. We were a real college football team on national TV having risen to gain national respect for our beloved and amazing football team thanks to the players and coaches. We appreciate them for bringing us together and making our lives more fun and hopeful.
I usually just sit and watch games, stewing and thinking and getting agitated. Yesterday I actually tried to help by making noise every time Clemson lined up to snap the ball, and tens of thousands of Wake fans did the same. We did what we could because we love coach Dave Clawson and the excitement and grit his players have brought to our lives.
But all the shouting didn’t work. As we yelled louder on third and fourth down, Clemson converted more first downs and big plays. Our voices couldn’t shout away their five-star wide receivers against our three-star defensive backs. Raw talent they had more of, and you can only channel so much emotion and noise to overcome better athletes – it usually just didn’t work.
When a team has more talent, you’re usually going to get beat. When someone is smarter than you, they process information faster, they get accepted to more prestigious universities and get paid more, and have bigger houses.
Sadly in some ways for those of us less talented.
Man the car ride was noise-less. Man those students were subdued. Man losing to Clemson yesterday stung our souls and pummeled our minds.
When I arrived home I turned on the Wake press conference to see reactions and feel someone else having painful emotions so I felt less alone in misery.
“The locker room right now is hurting,” said coach Dave Clawson. “That’s a football game that has invested a lot and they care and they expected to win this game.”
Michael Jurgens, a key lineman for the team, stood at the podium and choked up while talking, his eyes seeming to be either on the verge of tearing up or having moistened before he met the room packed with reporters.
“We put a lot into this,” he said. “It hurts to lose. But in 24 hours we have to start over again. That’s football.”
As he made his final remarks, the team’s quarterback stepped behind him to be next in line to answer questions.
“I love him,” he said of Hartman. “He’s the best friend and competitor you could ask for.”
Hartman looked more sullen than Jurgens. He didn’t look like a quarterback who had just thrown a stunning six touchdown passes – an exceptionally high number for any college quarterback in any game at any time ever. A reporter asked how he felt about having all that success.
“We lost so it’s a failure,” he said. “Stats are great but a loss is a loss.”
You made us all proud yesterday, Sam. You’re a hero we’ll never forget for your toughness and clutch play under pressure. Know this to be always how we feel.
Now what?
The team is allowed by its coach to take 24 hours to celebrate a win or mourn a loss. But then they must move on to the next game, which is roughly right now.
“There’s a lot of football left and you’re not going to win the league with one game or lose it with one game,” he said. “There’s a lot of football left and I feel we have a pretty good football team and we’ll be back.”
This is the right thing to say. But we all saw what happened yesterday. Glory for Wake Forest football we could taste. How do you start over, which is exactly what this emotionally pulverized squad must do now to get prepared to beat Florida State next weekend? If they allow this to linger too long, the next thing we’ll see is Wake losing two straight, and wouldn’t that feel even worse than yesterday felt? Maybe. Maybe not.
Yesterday killed our spirits – at least for a while. This loss will linger long.
Isn’t this so often how life is? Whatever happened yesterday, we have to start over again striving to accomplish something today so we’re well-prepared for tomorrow.
It’s called responsibility, adulthood, and growing up.
We interview for a job. We get the interview. We get a second interview then a third. Then we find out through some impersonal email they chose someone else. Chilly life is, often.
So we have to start over again, looking for another job. Nobody really cares all that much about our feelings and disappointment. That’s our problem. They have their own problems.
When the boss calls us and starts into that conversation we never want to hear, that we’re not what they need and our services are no longer relevant or valuable for the business, we have to take that, process what it means — it means we’re not wanted — feel the agony and hurt that someone has rejected our worth. Shaken beyond belief, we still must wake up the next morning and start looking for another job. Go. The next thing. Do it. Shut up and be an adult.
Someone in our family dies, such as my mother two weeks ago, and I can’t just stop my life and give up and figure there’s no point in trying to accomplish anything anymore. I have to start over, without my Mom to talk to, because I have no other choice because life requires all of us to keep going.
Even when we lose. Especially when we lose.
Those Wake Forest students I saw on the roadside curb yesterday have to study today even though they would have much preferred some sort of post-victory, spontaneous celebration on campus rather than a grind-it-out, subdued Sunday study session in the library after a colossal loss that could have been so wonderful.
Today’s just another day of monotonous, laborious working, doing the tough stuff without 32,000 people watching from the stands and millions on national TV. Today I had to get up and do a work assignment writing about various types of bulk bags and why manufacturers would want them. I do this because I have to because it’s my job, it’s how I get paid, so I can eat.
The writing assignment is nowhere near as thrilling as dancing on Truist Field would have been yesterday, and it’s not as unique and amusing and socially enthralling as chucking toilet tissue into trees on one of America’s most beautiful campuses, the place we all love and feel is our second home.
Today, this week, this month, we must embrace mundane work, life’s routines, and challenges, over and over again. Useful but not riveting. Done alone instead of amid 32,000 raucous fans. Wake’s football team has to get mundane all over again without all of us cheering them on, watching Florida State game films among themselves, figuring out how to out-maneuver them, all while lifting weights and running, enduring the grinding rituals of football practice. Just them, as a team, encouraging each other. Empty stands. No fans.
Coach Dave Clawson said the theme for this season is a mindset. The question is this: do they have the right mindset right now? As hard as hell as it’s going to be, this team has to adjust its mindset immediately. If they sulk about Clemson for a few more days, the chances go up they’ll fall short against Florida State, and won’t that be worth crying about even more given how high our hopes have become for this, our team we love so much?
Sorry to the players. Sorry to the coaches. Sorry to the fans. Sorry to the students. Sorry life is this way too often. Not always but more than we would like.
Continuing to feel sorry for ourselves, no matter what our responsibilities are, won’t win us anything.
Get back on our feet. Dive into our work. Nothing beats hard work. We may lose again, but we won’t be losers if we put forth maximum effort.
Today, tomorrow, and the day after, and all the way to Tallahassee, and every day for the rest of this season, and every day for the rest of our lives.
This must be our mindset.
All of us – you, me, Coach Clawson, Wake football players, and students.
Everybody. Right now.
Author Profile
-
Sammy Sportface, a sports blogger, galvanizes, inspires, and amuses The Baby Boomer Brotherhood. And you can learn about his vision and join this group's Facebook page here:
Sammy Sportface Has a Vision -- Check It Out
Sammy Sportface -- The Baby Boomer Brotherhood Blog -- Facebook Page
Latest entries
BonusApril 24, 2024German Rides Record 93-Foot Wave In Run Up to Olympics Surfing
BonusApril 22, 2024Old Friends Reconnect As New Friends
BonusApril 21, 2024Sportface Unveils Board of Directors to Land Sneaker Deal
BonusApril 20, 2024A Horrible Life Becomes Great