Oakes: So, I don’t know if you noticed while editing a dozen stories on deadline at 11:19 p.m. this past Friday night, but Gray-New Gloucester beat Mountain Valley, 44-37, at Chet Bulger Field. This was significant, as you know, because the Patriots hadn’t won a game since 2012 and had never beaten the Falcons. And let’s be honest: They hadn’t come close. I covered one or two of those hammer vs. nail battles, and the customary procedure was that Mountain Valley would roll up 48 or 55 points before painstakingly trying not to score in the second half. I remember Jim Aylward’s rhetorical “How do we get better from this?” query from “The Rivals,” and frankly the only thing resembling a good answer was, “you don’t.”
I bring up none of this to embarrass Gray-New Gloucester, but rather to express my respect, admiration and pride that the Patriots stuck with it the past decade. Social media has its good and bad points, obviously, but one of my favorite elements this past week was watching Patriots’ alumni, many of whom won only one or two games in their entire four-year careers, posting or sharing pictures of the team in front of the Hosmer complex scoreboard with a caption loosely translated, “How do you like us now?”
That’s one of my favorite elements of high school football. You never really graduate. It stays with you. Look around these days and I think we would both agree that football is generally under attack from those who question whether or not the risk of head injuries is worth it for kids (or adults) who have an entire lifetime ahead of them. Some of our most powerful social and political leaders have publicly expressed that they would have second thoughts about their own children playing the game.
‘Tis a low-down, dirty shame, as far as I am concerned. Life is dangerous, and football teaches lessons that help its participants navigate that journey in a way other games don’t. The Gray-New Gloucester win is a real-life, in-color demonstration of a concept adults teach but can’t easily demonstrate: persistence. It does pay. The most successful people in life fail repeatedly until they discover what works for them. This year’s Patriots now have proof to put in the memory bank, and it will prove invaluable to them as they progress into other endeavors that have nothing to do with football.
What about you, dude? Can you think of other specific, real-world lessons that football uniquely teaches? Ones that justify the crazy amount of time we both spend serving as apologists for it?
Pelletier: Well, “dude,” I suppose I can. I think the “real world,” whatever that is, is currently populated by way more people than it should be who believe that assigning a trophy, or a banner (ahem, Colts), or an accolade for everything under the sun is better for our collective psyche.
Unless you win something, you haven’t won anything.
And in high school football (as well as other sports, to be fair), that mentality remains. The MPA will hand out a trophy for being a regional finalist in each class. And they’ll hand another out for being a state finalist.
But come in third place? Sorry, buckaroo. You didn’t win. AND THAT’S OK.
As you so eloquently mention above, the journey, dedication and labor of competing alone is often as memorable and important as the end result. But you shouldn’t be rewarded for what is ultimately failure to reach the assigned goal, in this case winning a title.
Would be a far better place if people learned how to lose along with learning how to win, eh?
Oakes: Yes, we have lost our minds with the participation trophies. God bless the MPA, James Harrison and anyone else affiliated with football who has taken a stand against that affront to athletic competition. Because it is still competition. These young people will compete for jobs in the future, and it’s a long, difficult life when you can’t afford to eat.
The other lesson I appreciate — and again, we’ve gotten squeamish with this — is that it teaches the participants to play hurt. Now, don’t get me wrong: I do not advocate messing around with head, neck, or back injuries, or anything else that could limit the sufferer’s future. I’m talking about the minor stuff. You will not get through a football season without a little sore, a bit sick, a smidgen beneath your optimum level of health.
Yet you play on, and that’s also a harsh reality of life. You’ll be expected to show up for work when you have a headache, or when you’ve had a disagreement with your spouse or child, or when you simply don’t “feel” like it. Football teaches the idea that the team needs us no matter what, and that our place on the assembly line is vital or that it all falls apart. I love that.
That said, I’m tired. Hardy, har har. You feel like wrapping this up?
Pelletier: Only to echo your point about playing through adversity. The sentiment is one that forever sticks in my head as a quote from my late mentor and friend, Jack Falla, a sports writing legend:
“Sometimes, in sports writing like in life, you’ve just gotta play hurt.”
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