Finding beauty in season- ending losses

As I sat watching Hinsdale Central's players get ready to receive their second-place trophy following their Class 8A loss to Maine South a week ago, my thoughts drifted away from the makeshift stage where the presentations took place at Memorial Stadium.

A part of me was ecstatic. As a Maine South grad from the days when the school was known as a basketball power, the idea of a third football championship trophy heading to a trophy case was unbelievable.

But while avoiding the urge to belt out "Hail to the Hawks" - something I'm sure my neighbors were thankful for - I was riveted by the Hinsdale Central players as they got their medallions and carried off the trophy.

There was no celebrating with the trophy, very little emotion at all. Certainly there was pride. The Red Devils were a great team, had a great playoff run and pushed the Hawks throughout the championship game. But this is football, the one game in the IHSA team sports kaleidoscope that is played with passionate emotion and brute force - and when it is finally over, sometimes emotions are so drained that, paradoxically, all that are left are raw emotions.

My thoughts moved to West Aurora after the final week of the football season.

This was a tough year for Blackhawks football. The team got off to a great start, had some midseason wobbles but then had a disastrous eighth week of the season, where a variety of issues conspired and the team eventually fell to West Chicago.

In the final week of the season, the Blackhawks faced Glenbard North in a downpour with nothing to play for. But there is always something to play for, and the Blackhawks gave what they had before losing.

That's the "history" part of the season. But what happened next is what drew my interest.

I should take one step backward and say that I have seen Buck Drach-coached football teams since 1989. I got to see him build the Saints program into a perennial playoff qualifier and watched some gut-wrenching losses, including the 23-21 loss in the snow to Naperville Central in 1992 and the 14-12 loss to underdog Downers Grove North in 1998.

But what happened after those losses was always as interesting as the games - especially if the loss came at Norris Stadium. Players would hang around outside the locker room. Some would go in, and then come out again in full pads. Tears flowed like water. On one occasion, a player kept repeating over and over again that he didn't want to remove his uniform.

Drach would always say that when he was done speaking with the media, he'd head into the locker room, and they'd laugh and they'd cry and it'd all be a beautiful thing. This year, after the loss to Glenbard North, some Blackhawks players hung around the school field for ages following the game, hugging teammates. Others just walked and stood by themselves, reliving the game, the season and their careers. As with most high school sports, most football careers end when senior seasons conclude. So for many of these players, the game also meant the final time they would wear any form of football uniform.

And while every sport has worth, only football focuses everything on one day of the week, and gets the school to put its focus on that day as well. There are only nine games, each one a spotlight in which a massive amount of the school is involved.

But then the underclass players made a tunnel, through which the seniors would walk - a final trip to the locker room as teammates and team members. Let me tell you, there were tears and emotions in a very meaningful symbolic act.

And it was all, most assuredly, a beautiful thing.

Playoffs? State championships? At 3-5 entering the final game, those things were beyond the Blackhawks before they stepped onto the field. But that doesn't mean the game was meaningless. To play well or to even play poorly, you have to bring high levels of passion emotion and brute force to the field, or else you are going to end up getting hurt.

The evening before I attended West Aurora's final game, I watched Mooseheart's season end. The Ramblers entered the final game 2-6 and were out of playoff contention from midseason, and Wisconsin's Wayland Academy made sure there wasn't a glorious end to the season when it handed a 38-8 defeat on the hosts.

After the game, Ramblers coach Gary Urwiler invited me into the locker room. This doesn't happen and, even given the fact that I work for Moose International, is still a rare thing. Locker rooms are sacrosanct and it is always a privilege to stand in one, especially at the end of the season.

Urwiler thanked the seniors, urged the younger players to work hard in the off-season to help the team return to the playoffs and briefly discussed the game that had just ended.

But then he went around the room, senior-by-senior, and talked about their contributions to the team. There weren't tears but there was silent acknowledgment. And finally, Urwiler came to Blake Mason, who Urwiler said begged to play despite being incredibly undersized as a freshman. They somehow found some equipment that would fit him. Mason is now over 6 feet tall and was one of the team's leaders, and Urwiler mentioned to some of the undersized freshmen on the Mooseheart squad that this is what can happen if you put in hard work.

And Mason, who had smiled and said, "You're not going to tell that story again?" when Urwiler started speaking, was emotionally silent when his coach finished. And his face looked very much like those West Aurora seniors walking a teammate-created gauntlet getting patted on their shoulder pads - or like the Hinsdale Central players will be happier in years to come as they look at that trophy than they were in the immediate aftermath of the loss.

My Maine South days ended in 1981, I don't live in Park Ridge and don't know any of the players or their parents, though the team's coach, Dave Inserra, played on teams with my brother "back in the day." Even my teachers have all retired, none of which made me less proud of the alma mater on Saturday night.

But there was something too in watching the Hinsdale Central and the grace with which they handled defeat - something I felt as Geneva and Aurora Christian accepted their runner-up trophies as well. It was, definitely, a beautiful thing.