"The GAME Doesn't Know Who's Supposed to Win"

I was watching the NCAA Softball World Series when I heard the quote in the title.  A coach was preparing her team to take the field against the top ranked team.  Hers was considered "lucky" to be there.  She didn't do anything theatrical.  She simply stood in front of her players, and said-

"Just go out and do your best, and play the game  because you love it.  And play with your maximal effort.  It doesn't matter if no one  picks us to win.  It doesn't matter if our opponent has more talent.  The game doesn't know who's supposed to win.  That's why we play it.   We play it to find out."    

Last night the Aptos Varsity Football Team found out where they stand:  As CCS Division 3 Champions, and SI knows it.  

It's easy to identify talent.  We told both groups, during their freshman seasons, they had the talent to win a Title.  That's a no-brainer  (When you win with the future "Junior of the Year", and Championship Quarterback at guard talent isn't the issue).

You need to convince the individual who 'get's by on it' that doing so isn't enough.

You invest in effort, and turn your back on talent, until those who hold it do the same.

Talent is common.  It's boring, and ordinary.  Accepting responsibility for it, and its development, is rare.

Sacrificing a dozen 'easy, sure things' for one that demands maximal effort without guarantee is gutsy.

Being witness to 50 young men who agreed to it together, is extraordinary.

My investment in coaching is uncomfortably related to the indifference I hold toward myself.   I know my talents, and I know how to employ them for benefit.  I also know that my effort to see them ripen has been average, at best.   I use them to get by.  I've found some solace in that admittance.

I coach for penance, and it's granted me some.  When a player tells me I said something inspiring, I know what I've done.  I've named the lie in them, the one they use, to keep pain, and truth, at a distance.

I've shown how it disfigures spirit into something unrecognizable.  I've provided consideration for what they do with their own.

Title

I watched two events last night.  I watched a a high school football game with a Title at stake.  Two teams representing clashing beliefs. I watched as they  used the other's to confirm the value of their own.

I also watched a group of boys  I knew as tentative, or afraid, or unaccountable, or vain, when we had them as freshman. I watched them present themselves to the world as something different, as who they will be.

I watched the game alone, leaning on a rail, behind one of the goal posts.  I watched boys I barely recognized make a statement to eliminate the doubts of others.  I finally saw what I've waited decades to see.

I saw that despite stoic appearances, we still have a need for Heroes. And I saw young men willing to consent to it's call.

Football, like many things, is theater of the spirit.  It's objective has been the same since it began.  You step on the field, and face your opponent in a contest of strength, and will.  Strength can be developed as long as there's will.  Will is the unknown.  You can't determine it's depth with a report card.  You can't teach it in a class.  You have to demand it.  If it appears, you challenge it.  If it refuses to dim, you Honor it.

I've seen thousands of football games.  I've seen  a handful that are still worth reflecting upon. I've  only seen one reassuring my belief that the life a man lives inside himself is the real one, and the outer appearance of life is a tool we use to uncover its truth.  It doesn't matter that I never culminated in the manner I had hoped.  I needed to see that someone could.   I needed someone to show me that we're within reach of ourselves. Without that, I'd be gone.

Congratulations Aptos Varsity.

That one will be in me forever.

Thank you....

Championship Game Highlights 

Photos on Sportswurlz

Santa Cruz Sentinel Article

SF Examiner Article

Semi-finals Highlights

Prep2Prep Site/Article

  

  

LAST GAME

This year's Seniors made up our first freshman team.  They are the first group to complete the four year program implemented by Coach Blankenship.  A program that requires dedication, and sacrifice.  A program that asks for your deepest commitment.  Coach Blankenship's program asks players to believe that the depth of pain, effort, and preparation they're capable of, exceeds the vision they hold.  

Those seniors play their last high school football game tonight.  For many, it will be their last football game, ever. The last.   When they step on the field against Saint Ignatius for the Division 3, CCS Title, they'll have the opportunity to achieve what every Aptos Football Player has tried to, and only one team has.

Tonight, when you're down on the field, take a glance up into the stands.  Look past the people you expect to see, like your family, and friends.  Look past the people you recognize like the families, and friends, of a teammate.   Look past the 10 year-old boys wanting to be you, and the teenage girls waiting to claim you.  

Instead, look for the faces of men you've never seen.  Look for men you've seen in the same place, at every game, standing alone.  They'll be there, you can count on it.  Those men are the regrets of boys who didn't play for a championship, but know they could have.  Those men are the shadows of boys who finally confessed  their arrogance, as fear.   Those men are the ones who come back, year after year, with one hope, and a prayer.

They come with the hope that this team of boys will be different, that they'll play with desperation, and purpose.  They come hoping this team of boys will play like their lives depend on it, as if the only way to become a man is to leave the boy on the field.  They come with the hope of seeing themselves resurrected through you.

They come with a prayer for you to finish your past while it's still in front of you.

They come with a prayer that your effort, and commitment, will be rewarded.

They come praying that the depth of your commitment will forgive the refusal in theirs.

They come to get their championship through you.

You don't need a trophy to prove anything to yourself.  

You don't need one to prove it to the people who know you.

You need one if you want the world to remember who you were, and what you accomplished in your time, together.

Tonight, leave everything on the field.

A Few Statistics for Saint Iggy

Aptos plays Saint Ignatius (hereafter referred to as "SI") for the Division 3 CCS title on Friday. It's well known that Aptos is a public school, and SI is private.  There has been a lot of press serving a public debate about whether it's fair that God's schools plays down a division.  I'm going to throw a little gas on the flames.  Stand back.

Before I continue I want to say this:  none of what I'm saying reflects the belief that Aptos will lose to SI.  The seniors mark the first class to play all four years with Coach Blankenship.  And the junior group, to put it plainly, Bad Ass.  They have been since they were freshman.

And it's not about a belief that SI, or Bellarmine, or Valley Christian has more, or better talent than Aptos.  Our freshman team proved this year that they don't.  Our boys played their boys head-to-head with the talent each program will develop.  They played teams they won't see again until the CCS playoffs of varsity year.

And they kicked the snot out of them.  Head-to-head, based on raw talent, we beat them down.  Not 'close' games. Beatings.

Out of the 10 schools we played, 8 qualified for CCS playoffs. They're good programs, and the frosh tore through them.  Here are the 8 teams and how they were ranked going in:  

Terra Nova #1/Open Div.

Archbishop Mitty #5/Open Div.

Alvarez #1/D-1

Los Gatos #2/D-2

North Salinas #7/D-2

Christopher #4/D-3

Sacred Heart Prep #1/D-4

Monterey #7/D-4

The difference between the present, and the past, is we have program now.  They have a plan that will develop that talent over the next four years, and leave a mark.

Here's my issue with private schools, and public schools competing for titles:

Once again, those who make the rules, change the rules, when they're faced with them. This is about what the Declaration of Independence promised, but failed to deliver.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"

No, I'm not saying it's unconstitutional to allow public schools to play private schools.  I'm suggesting that those who have money have power, and they use that power to manipulate  who is created more equal than the others, or who has a bigger pile of unalienable rights, or deciding that those who are governed, and have money, ARE the consent.

• Saint Ignatius finished 2-5 in league, and finished 6th out of 8.  They are a losing football team, yet they're allowed to slip through the back door, and into a championship game.
• Aptos had to fight each opponent, and spill their sweat and their blood, and DEFEAT them, and be the last one standing to get in.

I don't know of any other institution, business, or competition that is given a free pass around the requirement of winning to get there, or that makes such a mockery of the principles in the Declaration. Even the sport's parent program, the NFL, puts equality as the primary objective.  

• Each team has the same salary cap of $123 million.  The Dallas Cowboys and New England Patriots don't get more because they have larger revenues.
• Every year, the teams with the worst records, get the first selections in the draft.  The weakest teams add strength before the others.
• There isn't one group of teams who can only pick Pac-12 players, or one who picks exclusively from D-2, and another who lucked out with the SEC. It's equal.  It's fair.  Like we were promised.  
• The changes to overtime are a recent example.
• And the teams in their playoff brackets get in by going in descending order, from most wins, to fewer, until the bracket is full.  No one waves their wallet and says "you don't know how difficult it is to be 2 and 5 every year..."       

The people toward the top can't keep quoting the Declaration of Independence to those toward the bottom, like it means something, if you're going to step on our fingers each time we reach the top rung of the ladder.  We're not stupid. We see what's going on.

ALL men means everyone.  Not just those with money.  Not just those with shared ideologies.  Not just those who are Saints.  Everyone.  You WCAL teams remind me of that big, awkward 6th grader who got whomped on everyday by his peers, so he'd hang out on the 3rd grade side of the playground, and boss kids around.

I'm tired of it, even if you are nice people.  Aptos is coming for you the same way they've come at everyone. With fury.

We know that our effort, and determination to fight through every opponent, and winning, is the lie we were told while you got entrenched.

 

If we were "2 and 5", I like to believe we'd refuse the invitation, and request it be given to a team that earned it.

Don't kid yourselves.  Men may be created equal, but they're not treated equal. You only need to spend a couple days at the bottom end to know that.  

And the people with the most aren't more valuable than the ones with the least, like Saints.  

I know you private schools who are out-manned in your own divisions, get it.  I think it's why you agree to hold your finger in the air yelling "We're number one!" when everyone knows you finished in sixth place, and this is only the 3rd game you've won all year.  

You do it because you also know men are far from equal.  You know that because you've seen what those at the bottom are willing to endure to have a shot at the top.  You've seen the tenacity, maybe you even knew it once.  If you're at the top you took some one down to get there, so the fear of it happening to you is real. That's how it's supposed to be.  

The more people who know the experience of both extremes means less fear of either, and more compassion for both.  Man, what does that Saint teach you, anyway?

To SI's credit, on the varsity football section of their website they have a 2013 schedule, and playoff projections.  This is what it says, typo's or not:

• "semi-finals vs. Christopher
• finals vs. Burlingame
• CIF State vs. Aptos

A look at CCS 2012-2013: (public schools in red)

Last Years CCS Finals: (ALL divisions with a private school team, were won by a private school)

Open Div

St. Ignatius   (5-2) 13/Bellarmine  (7-0)  10

Div 1 (no privates schools in division)

San Benito 35/Milpitas 28

Div 2

Los Gatos 0/St. Francis 17

Div 3

Valley Christian  51/Aptos 20

Div 4

Sacred Heart Prep13/Menlo 7

This year, 2013

Open: Serra/Mitty (both private)

D-1:  Milpitas/San Benito (No WCAL teams)

D-2   St. Francis/Los Gatos

D-3  Aptos/SI

D-4  SacHeart Prep/PG  

So, this years finals are set up to replicate last years. No public school in the Open final, all others pit Public vs. Private. Last year, 

EVERY DIVISION WITH A PRIVATE SCHOOL IN IT, WAS WON BY A PRIVATE SCHOOL, EVEN IF THEIR RECORDS WOULD'NT HAVE QUALIFIED THEM TO GET IN.

"WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT...."