Missing a chance

When Waukegan High took on Evanston on Saturday, the Waukegan kids thought that winning their fifth of the year would get them into the state playoffs. At least that was the motivational word from the coaches.

But before that game even started, the coaches all knew that, even with a win, Waukegan wouldn’t make it. Because Chicago Mather had lost a morning game, the intricate crapshoot of Illinois’ playoff system had ruled out Waukegan.

Too bad. They had a nice season and turned two straight tough years into a brighter future. Reason to be proud.

But here’s the thing that makes Swami a little sad.

Wouldn’t they have been even prouder had they been given the chance to react to the adversity with a grownup man’s maturity? It would have been a truer test of how far the program had come, if the coaches had trusted the team with the truth.

The team was thus deprived of a great opportunity which, as odd as it may seem, was a chance for something even more worthy and deeply satisfying than one playoff game..

The truth could have given the team something more profound.

The team could have proved this to itself: If we are deprived of our immediate hope, let’s win for the better reasons we play the game. Not just for what we gain. But for the intrinsic value of doing the right thing and doing it as well as we know how. For each other. For our coach. For the memory of having given our best, even when the rules deprived us of a just reward?

Let the year be a measure that we have grown up as people, as well as football players.

By not telling the players, didn’t the coaches subtly imply that they feared the team would have quit had it known the truth?

They didn’t give them a chance to achieve far more than one win in one football game.

They didn’t let them be adults. Seems like a right they had earned with sweat.