In high school in the early nineties, my biggesgt goal was not to do well academically, but to make it to State in any sport. Well, I stunk at wrestling, so that was never going to happen. Our football team my senior year, fell just short of knocking off Scott City, the four-time undefeated defending state champions, in a game that would have sent us to the state playoffs. That next spring in the tennis match to determine who would make the state tournament, the team my doubles partner and I played against cheated on ten line calls and we lost a close third set. I had done everything I could to win the match, but it wasn't to be. I remember the feeling of rejection as I climbed a hill overlooking the tennis courts in a park in Pratt, Kansas, thinking, "That's it. Three strikes. There are no more chances. IT'S OVER." Doom. Impending doom.
I was given a second chance my Sophomore year in college in 1995. Playing the number six spot for a good junior college team, I had match point to go to Nationals! All I had to do was win ONE POINT! I served a huge kick serve down the middle to the deuce court, a strategy that had successfully gotten me to that point, and my opponent, some surfer punk from California, returned the ball right at me. As I came up to volley, I had an easy shot to put the ball away. I had hit that very shot thousands of times for winners. There was no way I was going to screw it up. Then fate reared its ugly head. As it came at me, the ball, instead of hitting the net or crossing over it cleanly to connect with my racket, instead clipped the net cord, jumped up into the air and over my head, landing in the court behind me. Guaranteed victory turned into the agony of defeat five minutes later and after the match, I sat down on my rump besides that stinking net and let the tears flow. There were no two ways about it. I was destined to be a loser. That was as close as I ever made it to Nationals.
Let's turn the clock back a bit now. In 1985 the Kansas City Royals won the World Series and we rejoiced. In ’88 Danny and the Miracles made their surprise run from the number 6 seed to the NCAA championship at Kemper, and we rejoiced again. Rooting for winning teams was easy when championships came so readily. We the fans found confidence in our own abilities because our heroes showed us how it was done. In '88 I was only eight years removed from the Steelers’ last Super Bowl title, so I just knew they would be coming around soon also. Law of averages, right? But then the drought hit and none of my teams won their respective championships. The Royals just plain stunk (and still do,) the Jayhawks came close a time or two but never made it over the hump, and the Steelers failed to put that fifth ring on their owner's thumb.
It was rumored that Fenway Park would be closing its doors, so in 2001 my friend Tad and I took a trip to New England to catch a Boston Red Sox game and pay tribute to one of three truly historic ball MLB ball parks. I wasn't particularly a Sox fan, but I rooted for them because they were about the only team that had a shot at beating the Yankees. By this time, the Royals had become nothing more than a farm club for the Yankees. The Royals would groom their players to maturity and the Yankees would welcome them with open arms and an open check book. Needless to say, I was shopping around for a team to root for. And on that trip I fell in love with the Sox.
So three years later when the Sox were down to the Yankees three games to zero in the ALCS, I had given them up for dead. The Sox were the American League version of the Cubs: lovable losers. But then something miraculous happened. Base hit, pinch runner, stolen base, rbi, Sox win. That little string of events took less than ten minutes to occur, but it started a turn around that hasn't seen an end yet. The Sox became the only team to come back from three games down in a best of seven series, and eventually took out the Cardinals in the World Series for their first championship since 1918. Sixteen years without without one of my teams winning a championship, and I just knew all the weight of losing would be off my shoulders. But what I felt wasn't relief. It was... nothing.
At first I thought I was just in shock, but a few days later, I still didnt' feel fulfilled like I thought I would be. My grandmother had passed away a few weeks before, so I thought it might just be residual depression, which would be totally understandable, but as time went on, I felt no great insights into what it meant to be a winner again. So I justified it. I hadn't really put in my dues to fully consider myself a member of Red Sox Nation, so I couldn't really share in their joy. Yes, that had to be it.
But the next year, my beloved Steelers won Super Bowl XL. Afterward, as I waited again for the feeling of relief, nothing came. Just as no happiness entered my soul when the Sox won the World Series again in 2007. Just as I wasn't fulfilled when my Jayhawks won the NCAA basketball championship in 2008, or when my Steelers added a sixth ring to Mr. Rooney's other hand just last February. Don't get me wrong. These were great moments, and five championships in six years is bordering on gluttony, but none of them filled the hole I had carved out in my heart for just such an occasion.
Maybe as a kid I would have appreciated these five championships more. Maybe I had grown up and I now saw sports as entertainment, not life or death (then why do I still yell at the TV?) But maybe if childhood dreams aren't fulfilled at a certain age, then they won't ever be. Maybe it's not merely enough to take pride in rooting for the winning team. I'm too old to be much of a competative player at any sport. I was down for a week this summer after playing in a tennis tournament in Wichita (in which I took 5th out of 8.) So if winning isn't important in life, what is? I guess that if I learned anything from all my near misses in high school and college, it was to accept losing as a part of life? To hold my head up high and know I gave it my all when my entire being knew that if I only had had a little more to give, then elation would replace the feeling of agony?
Holding oneself up to such lofty standards as champion is dangerous. Only the top one percent of one percent can claim that prize. But I think back to the RC car I mentioned in Part I of this post. I had simply yearned for it with not the slightest hope of ever receiving it, and once it was mine, it simply ceased to be special. It held flaws that lessened its value, not attaining the bar that my imagination had raised. If we had gone down the field and scored on Scott City instead of throwing an interception that was returned for a touchdown in the last minute, would I have felt complete? If those jerks had called a fair match my senior year, would I have been at peace with myself? If my serve had been returned by the beach boy one-half inch higher or lower, would it have atoned for all the agony of the past? At the time, and just a few years ago I would have said, "YES! A RESOUNDING YES!" But now... now I think it would have just been an empty feeling.
It would have been nice to find out though.
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