“The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are the things that endure. These qualities are so much more important than the events that occur.”  - Viince Lombardi And then, just like that, it was over.  A journey that began one Father’s Day weekend in June had ended, rather unceremoniously, on the 50-yard line of the Home Depot Center in Carson.

We stood on the concrete walkway sandwiched between the field below us and the various booths selling t-shirts and sweatshirts and posters of young behemoths dressed in layers of padding and sporting various brightly colored helmets.  The sounds of the next game came drifting up, begging unsuccessfully for our attention and yet, it was eerily quiet.  The parents talked in hushed tones.  We forced a smile as we caught one another’s eye while we waited for our sons to emerge from the locker room.  It was not the outcome we had hoped for.

It took a long time for them to come out.  One by one, arm in arm, their faces betraying the emotion of the moment.  They had played their hearts out.  Done their best.  Given it everything they had.  And it wasn’t enough.

The large, teddy bear of a left tackle came towards us, his face red with emotion.  He lumbered slowly towards his dad, as if every part of his body hurt.  Raising his arms to embrace his son, the father pulled him close, tears streaming down their faces.  If only there was something he could do, some way to take away the pain, but there was not.  It was over.

It was a day of endings.  The dream of a championship.  The undefeated season.  The seniors had played their last game together.  For many, the last football game they would ever play other than a quick game of two-hand touch on a Thanksgiving afternoon somewhere in the future.

“What if…?” I thought to myself far too many times on that long ride home.  “What if?”  But there was no “what if?”  There was no do-over.  There was no second chance.  The other team was just better than us.  Plain and simple.  It is the nature of competition.  “On any given Sunday”, the saying goes.

It was a long drive home.  There are many lonely miles along the barren expanse of Interstate 5.  The darkness was smothering.  I lay my head back on the headrest and closed my eyes.  It had been a long 6 months.

6 months.  Eleven and a half, really, if you count weight training and spring football, but Father’s Day weekend is when it started in earnest.  Father’s Day weekend when the boys gathered together, helmets, pads, drills, … contact… the stuff that football is made of.

Contact.  And connection.

I found my mind drifting back in time, replaying moments the way one flips through snapshots in a photo album.  New faces.  Smiles and cheers.  Laughter.  And tears.  The face of a worried mother as her son is carried off the field.  A father’s pride as his son catches the winning touchdown.  A picnic in the stands.  A long bus trip to the middle of nowhere. Early morning weight training. Hours spent in the car.  Countless meals of far too much food that always seemed to be just enough.  New friendships.  Strangers becoming family.

As I stared out into the darkness, these were the images that stared back.  Not wins or losses or missed opportunities or “what ifs” but of the journey that was, of the team that they had become, another chapter in the lives of boys as they become young men.  The tears weren’t about the score.

The ride had come to an end.