I’ve accelerated past denial, and I’m rapidly approaching anger. Not sure if I’ll ever reach acceptance.
My Fitzpatrick Trophy ballot arrived via snail-mail last week. While I am leery of having committed a federal offense by opening an envelope addressed to Ms. Kallie Oaks, that is not the source of my angst.
What I hope while I’m sorting through these feelings is that somebody, anybody, will explain how there wasn’t a representative from Class C champion Lisbon High School on said ballot.
This would be forgivable, even understandable, if the Greyhounds put their paws on the Gold Ball the way most transcendent teams in the distinguished tenure of head coach Dick Mynahan and right-hand man John Murphy did their business.
Lisbon is usually devoid of star power and short on size, but otherworldly in terms of overachievement and preparation. This year’s squad coupled that same hard-nosed personality with two freaks of nature and geography that few Campbell Conference coaches are lucky enough to inherit once in a 25-year career.
Levi Ervin or Elijah Trefts was robbed. End of discussion.
Ervin was one of the top three running backs in the state, regardless of class. He exceeded 1,800 yards and 25 touchdowns, and those numbers might have doubled if Mynahan was not both a gentleman who didn’t feel like humiliating weaker foes and intelligent enough to save his pupil for November games that mattered.
Had Lisbon elected to line up Ervin at wide receiver, as often was the case his sophomore and junior campaigns, he would have been among the best at that, too. Ervin would have been a top-notch quarterback or tight end, if needed there. Oh, and lest we forget his defensive contributions, Ervin is an absolute shutdown safety who adores contact.
It’s tougher to quantify Trefts’ contributions, since he’s one of those unappreciated linemen we fans and journalists pay or get paid the big bucks to ignore. But it’s safe to say that if the 6-foot-5, 280-pound Trefts was removed from the equation, Ervin wouldn’t have run roughshod and Lisbon probably wouldn’t have reached the state final.
Trefts’ ability to stuff the run as a defensive tackle also far exceeded his teenage physical limits. I can only imagine what he will accomplish under the auspices of a Division I weight training program.
Maybe the problem is that Trefts and Ervin both were ridiculously good. But each of the state’s 67 varsity football programs was allowed to nominate only one senior for consideration as Maine’s outstanding player. Were they such a two-headed monster that Lisbon couldn’t articulate a case for one without the other?
That shouldn’t matter. For the statewide committee that sorts through the nomination papers and whittles down the list to a manageable number of semifinalists, there is no excuse for failing to acknowledge what any casual fan with a shred of football common sense could see in Ervin or Trefts by surveying five minutes of game film.
You might also wonder if their absence has something to do with academics. Classroom performance and citizenship are at least part of the Fitzy equation.
Nope. Last time I checked, Trefts was weighing Yale and Columbia among his options, while Ervin was considering Bates if a D-I offer didn’t pan out.
These aren’t chowderheads we’re talking about.
Granted, it’s nice to be debating this. Less than a decade ago, Fitzy consideration was limited to Class A players. In addition to opening up the discussion to Class B and C athletes, the review panel does a better job these days of acknowledging that there are more than two counties in Maine. One of Lisbon’s own, Jeremy Shorey, was a finalist in 1999.
But the omission of a player from Lisbon on this year’s ballot sets back the process a hundred years, as far as I’m concerned.
We were given two token candidates in Class B (the deserving local duo of Tyler Angell of Leavitt and Travis Fergola of Mountain Valley) and Class C (talented runner Duncan Markie of Mattanawcook and hard-hitting linebacker Josh Pelletier of Foxcroft).
Ten names have been sent out to the voting public on past Fitzy ballots. This year, we were given only nine.
I want to believe this year’s shortage represented an unintentional omission. But I’m afraid it was simply a mistake, far greater than a few typographical miscues on an envelope. This was a grievous error in judgment that will cheapen the statuette for whoever does walk away with it in January.
Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. He can be reached by e-mail at koakes@sunjournal.com.
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