Perfect Strike

As published in The County Times (countytimes.somd.com)

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

Another long week was ending.  The sun had set hours before in what seemed like the late afternoon as much as the evening; November offers rare daylight in the northern hemisphere.  This being Thursday night, a prize awaited – an NFL football game.  The offering didn’t promise much.  The visitors arrived red hot, winners of five straight games.  The home team was, needless to say, adrift – victors in just two of 10 games, a coach in peril and with a regrettable quarterback situation.

With no expectations or rooting interest, this appeared to be an uneventful, semi-competitive affair supporting an early trip to bed (not a disappointment).  But this game was played next to Lake Erie, and it being mid-November that meant weather was a wildcard. 

The snow started with a few flurries then intensified into near whiteout conditions.  The underdog took an early lead.  The favorite was inefficient on offense and uncharacteristically leaky on defense.  A back-and-forth struggle in the second half saw the home team score on a dramatic touchdown run with just 57 seconds remaining.  The favorite stormed back in the last minute, driving to within range of a final heave to the endzone.  The pass fell incomplete.  The spirited crowd, unaffected by the weather or dismal state of their team (and perhaps energized by adult bootleg elixirs smuggled through stadium security), went nuts.  Players did snow angels on the field.  And at least for a night, the woeful Cleveland Browns could claim supremacy over the Pittsburgh Steelers.

In the days after this monumental NFL upset, other stuff happened in the sports universe.  A mediocre Oklahoma Sooners team hanging out at the bottom of the SEC standings beat Alabama.  Quarterback Daniel Jones, a first round pick by the New York Giants just five years ago, was released after an inconsistent tenure.  Florida ruined Mississippi’s promising season.  Auburn broke Texas A&M’s heart in triple overtime.  And the St. John’s Red Storm defeated a loaded Maryland Terrapins team in the 1999 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.

The outcome of any of those individual games was, in the moment, surprising.  Jones’s fall from franchise savior to released failure was more of a gradual tragedy and an organizational indictment.  The random 25-year-old Terps basketball reference?  My son mentioned Meta World Peace, formerly Ron Artest, last week for some unmemorable reason.  It opened a wound.  World Peace starred on that 1998-99 St. John’s squad.  They were tough, gritty and talented.  They ran into an elite Terrapins squad led by Steve Francis in the Sweet Sixteen of the 1999 NCAA tournament.  The game promised elite competition and suggested a Terps win.  It wasn’t close.  The Red Storm outclassed the Terps in a soul-crushing 76-62 defeat.  Yes, it still hurts.

Reflecting on these recent and aged occurrences, ranging from unexpected to bizarre, it feels like sports’ wink to life’s uneven ride.  Not every day will be our best.  Not every moment can be met with maximum physical and emotional energy; humans are not machines.  And even at max effort, the breaks might not fall our way.  Sometimes it’s just not your day.  If The Dude were to interject at this moment, he might suggest, “The earthly journey is filled with strikes and gutters, man.”

It is, indeed.  Sometimes the ball obliterates all ten pins.  Other times it lands in the gutter after a disgraceful roll.  Still others it slams the headpin dead-on and leaves the dreaded 7-10 split.  Regardless, the ball returns and begs for another toss.  The pause offers a moment to reflect on what went right, what went wrong and, most importantly, another chance to succeed.  When next tossed, the ball won’t care what happened before, only the quality of this attempt; the pins will react only to this effort, agnostic to all others.  A second chance, if one’s so courageous to give it a roll. 

The rewards for resilience can be quite profound, as a future Terps team proved.  That disappointing 1999 Maryland squad had two freshmen on the roster named Juan Dixon and Lonny Baxter.  Steve Blake arrived a year later.  Fast-forward to April 2002 and the Terps threw the perfect strike.