Protecting Our Spirit from the Devils!

On days like today, I wish I was a true football officionado instead of just someone who has enjoyed the game as only a spectator since her own high school days. Though I have learned a little more than I knew about the game before in the last three and a half years, I still don't understand the nuances and strategy of the game. If I were a football officionado, I would better understand some of the things I heard regarding last night's loss to Chaminade.

I would understand the concept of "9 in the box" facing our five Cadet offensive line and what in reality that means. I would get the implications of having a QB who is a great passer verses one who is a great scrambler or one who "works well in the pocket". I would have more insight into the impact "special teams" can have on the game when called upon. If I were a true officionado, I would understand so much more about the game than I currently do, and I could say something here that might be truly meaningful or perhaps even profound.

The reality of the situation is in fact that I was introduced to the game of football as a consequence of having been a Pom Pon girl who happened to practice on the same field with the team when I attended high school at Sumner High . Subsequently, I have an intimate understanding of how much work it takes to create a winning team even if I still have some difficulty understanding the how of that process. Even so, most of the time I understand the essence of what I am witnessing if not the finer points of the game. Last night, this is what I saw:

• An offensive line that gave all they could to create plays and opportunities in a game where the deck seemed stacked against them from the start.


• A QB who dwarfed in size by the opponents [as were even the biggest members of our team], could barely see over the opponents' in order to find a clear passing lane; and who never gave up, but STILL did everything he could to make good plays whenever, wherever, and however he could....
  
• A defense that spent more time on the field than they could ever have imagined they would who nevertheless used everything at their disposal to change the game up even though they must have been exhausted.

In other words, I saw a team of young men trying their best to make things happen. To my limited understanding of the game of football, that is what is necessary to be successful, a team. Football games like most things in life are dependant upon teamwork. Teamwork was what I saw last night. As much as I love to win, in the final analysis, I concede that what we asked our Cadets to do, they did: They came and they played....together.

Your opponent, in the end, is never really the player on the other side of the net, or the swimmer in the next lane, or the team on the other side of the field, or even the bar you must high-jump. Your opponent is yourself, your negative internal voices, your level of determination.
--Grace Lichtenstein American Writer & Editor

If you are your opponent, then YOU control the outcome of any contest you attempt to win. The optimist in me, the Mom in me, and the life-long hard worker in me has only one thing left to say and that is:

OUR TIME IS COMING!!! KEEP YOUR HEADS UP AND YOUR NOSES TO THE GRINDSTONE CADETS AND NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP....HARD WORK ALWAYS BUT ALWAYS PAYS OFF!!!