Your last game

[JaredL]

Somewhat a spinoff the crying discussion, I am interested to hear others expereinces in the final game of their athletic careers.

Mine didn't end particularly well. It was a league playoff high school soccer game. We were tied for second but lost the tiebreaker so we played the fourth placed team. Winner played the team we were tied with and that winner went to state. We played the game at night under the football lights, which was I believe the first soccer match played there since I was a kid and played an AYSO match. In foreshadowing, my AYSO team lost 0-1 as well despite being favored.

So we were playing a team from a smaller school that was relatively close, maybe 30 minutes away. All the other teams in our league were from about an hour away from my school and further from our opponents so there was a bit of rivalry there. My team, however, had never lost to the other team in soccer, though we had several close games. The previous game against these guys ended with us winning on a free kick with a couple minutes left put in by my friend who was a foreign exchange student.

It was excellent playing at night. We always had a lot of fans at our games, but the atmosphere was excellent. First half was tight, neither team really had good chances. I played rigth back. About 10-15 minutes into the second half I was tired and asked for a sub (I don't know why but this happened a lot, I could play the whole first half but something about stopping and starting made me tired again soon after the second half started, after coming back in I would be fine). A few minutes later they scored coming down my side. Obviously I'll never know if I would have stopped the guy but I still think "what if..." since the guy that replaced me wasn't as good and didn't work as well with the other defenders. We had a few chances after that, but weren't very good attacking. With about 10 minutes left we got a penalty kick. For some reason, the guy that usually takes those panicked or something and didn't want to take it so another guy took it. Needless to say the kick was weak and the keeper saved it. Just at the end we got another free kick in pretty much the same spot but the Brasilian guy kicked it poorly.

When the ref blew the final whistle, like most of the other guys on my team, I fell to the ground and started crying. There's a lot going on there, losing the huge game, last game - done playing HS soccer, really close to most of the other guys especially the seniors so it gets very emotional. Front page of the sports page the next day (I'm from a very rural area, incidentally the same area as Troy Polamalu) was a huge picture of my friend squatted down crying with his dad patting his head.

I don't keep up with any of those guys anymore but I did see one of them when I was back in Oregon for thanksgiving.

Anyone else care to share?

Jared

[MEbenhoe]

I had a pretty good career in track that carried over into college briefly until an achilles injury ended my track career.

My main event in track was triple jump. I did long jump, hurdles, and the occasional relay too, but triple jump was my thing. My senior year I was one of the better triple jumpers in the state. I began the year by going with my summer/winter track club to a large preseason meet in Indiana and winning the meet. I went on to be undefeated through the indoor season in triple jump. After, a solid outdoor season I was struck again by the same thing that had cursed me in previous seasons, getting injured right before the championship season (conference, regionals, sectionals, state). This time is just happened to be my ankle on my main jumping leg.

I ended up having to miss my last conference meet, and then having to fight my coach to allow me to compete at regionals. I was able to get through regionals, but noticeably less competitive than usual. So it came down to sectionals and my last chance to qualify for state. I still wasn't 100% at all, but there's no way anyone was keeping me out of that meet. At the time in WI, the top 2 places in sectionals qualified. As we went through the jumps I was jumping ok, but nowhere near where I should've been.

As it came down to my last jump I was sitting in 3rd. I was kneeling at the other end of the runway, deep in thought, and gathering everything I had left in me for one last jump. I sprinted down the runway, took off at the board and glided through 3 jumps, landing in an explosion of sand. I knew what I had to jump, and as I looked at the sand pit it was too close to tell. The tape measure stretched out towards the board, and i made my way to see the measurement just in time to see that I had come up just a few inches to short, and I was done. I was in shock. Had I jumped even what I had jumped in my first meet of the year I would've qualified, but instead I ended the year with the longest jump in my sectional by almost 2 feet, but not going to state.

As I walked back to grab my warmups still in shock my coach came up and put his arm around me and started talking to me about what a great job I'd done this year and the usual stuff coaches tell kids when they can see their dream has just been shattered, and thats when I broke down. I just knelt down, buried my face into my sweatshirt and cried. Yes, I was going to be competing in college, and I had had the opportunity to compete in national level meets while in hs, but 4 years worth of effort in the pursuit of the single goal of winning a state medal were over and unfulfilled. I then had to go on to face all the other jumpers who had grown to be my friends and some who i found even had looked up to me, parents, teammates, etc all coming to say their words to me about how great i'd done, dont be discouraged, you'll get em in college, etc. It was nice, but still deep down it hurt.

This experience is likely why I took such offense at the people ripping on Redick and Morrison tonight, and I'm sure I'll get ripped on by my fair share of people too, but when something you've put so much effort into is lost, its an emotional experience and can be heartbreaking at the time. but you live and you move on and hopefully you become stronger for the experience.

[Jakesta]

My last soccer game in high school we won the Class B championship in soccer in NYS, so needless to say I wasn't crying.

[pryor15]

I almost got in a fight as we got blown out in a road game after getting eliminated from the playoff race in our last home game. I spent most of the second half on the bench, got put back in w/ 2 min left, and scored on our last possession.

so, yeah, it sucked.

[ChromePony]

I had a PK blocked in our first round playoff game senior year. Wasnt a terrible shot, but I sure didnt make the keep pull out an incredible save either...still bugs me sometimes. Second year in a row we go out in PKs, at least I made mine junior year. Oddly enough though I wasnt too upset when it happened, it was kinda a numb feeling, but I also remember how burned out I was from the season and there was almost this relief that it was over. This is of course mostly our coach's fault who I think really pushed us too hard especially at the end of the season, and looking back I'm not too pleased with the way he handled things.

Jared: Im also kinda curious cause I was playing in Oregon, you go to HS here? Im South Eugene '02.

[PropPlayer]

I played Soccer for my entire life, joining a 7-8 year old team when I was 4 years old, and playing under the same coach till I was 14. When I was 13 our team won the state championship. The following season we became a traveling team which was something a lot of players from other teams in the league were going to try out for. Never in my life did I expect to be cut from the team the following year, but I missed the final caught and ended up playing on the worst team in B division.
The order from highest to lowest for division were:
1) Out of Town: Team I expected to be on for the first time w/ several of the key starters from my previous team and same coaches.
2) A Division: League I had been playing in 2 seasons per year for the past 3-4 years.
3) B Division: League I started on when I was to young to get much playing time, but did start the year we won the championship and got moved up to the B league.
4) City League: Never played on, this was mostly catholic schools and Park Districts, Not much team choice.

That year I was the best B Division player in the entire League but my Team went 4-9-1.
The following year I didn’t even try out for another team, I was determined to get together a good team, and recruited several players committed to join the team and practice 4 times per week. I was the captain of the Team. We won a tie breaker for 4th place that year got into the play offs and managed to win the division.
Teams who win the division get moved up to the next division, and teams who come in last get moved down a division.
The following Year it turned out that my new teams first year in the A division we had my old team in the division.
Our team started out very strong with a 5-0-1 record, when the old coach wanted me back on the old team. The next year would have been my last year eligible to play Junior Soccer and my High School Team Sucked. I wanted a chance to go to a private high school as a soccer player. This was a huge dilemma for me because the other team was 6-0-0 and very likely was going to move back to out of state for the last year. My coaches on my current team were the ones who asked me about changing teams and basically had put it to me as they want me to stay with them, but they realize it is probably in my best interest to go back to my old team and there were no hard feelings if I did. Very difficult to do but I stayed with the team I was on.
We lost the two meeting we played my old team that season and ended up finishing with a record of 9-3-2. Which got us 3rd place in this tough division.
We went on to meet my old team in the championship game.
We had a corner Kick Down 0-1 with literally about 45 second left in the game. There ended up being an incidental handball in the box by the opposing team which was called and we got a penalty shot. I was by far the best shooter on my team and played half back and was more of a defensive player and a ball mover then a big scorer. The coach elected to have me take this Kick, which he shouldn’t have. I’m saying this because in my opinion the best shooter should take this kick.
Anyways I chocked shooting hitting the top corner of the goal post.
When the game was over, I fell to the ground. I don’t think I actually cried but I felt terrible anxiety. I lead that team to an improbable trip to the championship game in the A division, and had a chance to taking the game into OT against the team that cut me and blew it. Despite all the accomplishments of that season this was the all time low. I was young but this game meant to much, my old coach was a pro player (Didn’t make much about $2000 per month) but took the game very seriously. I was bread to pretty much play this game, and I couldn’t handle the loss. Instead of giving it a go the following year and completing another championship run, I couldn’t handle If we lost.
I never played the game again and the next season started playing Basketball. I got to sit on the bench while my high school team won the State Championship in front of a huge audience at the Hartford Civic Center lol. Several players from the Area have made the NBA who I got to have some limited play against, and other were stars in NCAA Division one. At least I got to win a state championship again even though I played less than 2 min during the game. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] I did get to hit a game winner during the season in a semi meaningless game (but it gave us a win even though we won the division easily that year) when 3 starters and a first option had foul out in OT. So I did feel at least like I contributed to that team even though I was a deep bench player.
I was young then, If I could do it all again I would definitely have come back and played that game. I don’t blame players for crying when they lose in this championship and no matter how much I hate or love the player I have all the empathy in the world for them. I know what it feels like to be so close and miss.

[JaredL]

[ QUOTE ]
I had a PK blocked in our first round playoff game senior year. Wasnt a terrible shot, but I sure didnt make the keep pull out an incredible save either...still bugs me sometimes. Second year in a row we go out in PKs, at least I made mine junior year. Oddly enough though I wasnt too upset when it happened, it was kinda a numb feeling, but I also remember how burned out I was from the season and there was almost this relief that it was over. This is of course mostly our coach's fault who I think really pushed us too hard especially at the end of the season, and looking back I'm not too pleased with the way he handled things.

Jared: Im also kinda curious cause I was playing in Oregon, you go to HS here? Im South Eugene '02.

[/ QUOTE ]

wow, I remember South going out on penalties. You played the game at the U of O at Pape field right?

I'm from Sutherlin (graduated in 1998) but went to Oregon. I was a ref for high school in 1999-2001. I only remember doing 1 South varsity game, as AR. It was at Sprinfield probably in 2000, which I guess was your junior year. It was pretty boring, you guys played like crap but still won easily and I did nothing but stand at the half line for the whole second half. I did at least a couple JV games as well as some girls games, both JV and varsity.

I didn't see the game where you guys got knocked out because I had class (since I was a ref I could go for free so I usually went to the South Eugene home state games because they were so close) but remember being amazed. Can't remember which year, but you had Jaqua and some others that were damn good. I know Jaqua went to UP and Tunison went to Santa Clara (only remember him because his dad was the commissioner of the referee association) and I seem to recall a few others going elsewhere to play.

Jared

[Aces McGee]

My high school lost back-to-back state championship games my sophomore and junior years. I was on the JV team my sophomore year. Junior year, I was on the varsity, but we had a deep and experienced team (11 seniors). I was the tenth man in a ten-rotation, but would come off the bench earlier if we were turning the ball over or if we were running a box and one against a perimeter player.

Basketball had become a pretty big deal at my school, and we usually drew a pretty big crowd, but my senior year, not much was expected of our team because we had lost so much experience. Other than our 6'8" center (very big for our area -- about 3 inches taller than anyone we played against), I was the only returning player with any real game experience, and my role had been pretty erratic. Our shooting guard and small forward had seen garbage time minutes, and our starting 4 was a sophomore who had decent talent but was pretty timid.

We surpised pretty much everyone, though, winning our first 11 games. Our three had worked hard on his game all summer, becoming one of the best shooters in the state (draining 20 of 27 threes during one four-game stretch), our five was making up for his lack of talent and instinct by being taller than everyone, and we were getting good help from our bench. For my part, I was averaging about 8 points a game and rarely turning the ball over, playing point for an offense that was heavily reliant on the small forward and center.

We lost three of our next four. Two of those were to our chief rivals, who managed to shut down the small forward and the center -- both of whom helped them out by playing pretty terrible games.

However, we won our last five to finish the year at 17-3 and grab the four seed. We had gotten a little sluggish, though, and I was frustrated; my infrequent shots weren't going down, and it was getting harder and harder for us to score.

In the quarters, we came up against a team from our league whom we had beaten twice during the year. Despite this, I was nervous about the game; both earlier meetings had been hotly contested, and we hadn't been playing our best ball.

Right from the tip, you could tell that it wasn't our night. We were out of sync. Our center got called for walking three or four times in the first half; I turned the ball over four times for the game (I was averaging right around two per game); we messed up a defensive rotation in the first half that cost our center his second foul; our three wasn't hitting his shots and looked discouraged.

We lost by about ten or so. I was so disappointed; we had had such a great season, and then to come out and play a terrible game, at home no less, with a chance to go to the "Aud" (where our state semis and finals were held) was just unbearable. I was upset at myself for not playing particularly well and not trying to do more when it was clear that our team was struggling; I was upset with the 3 and 5 for again playing terribly in a big game; I was upset with our coach for not adjusting our offense to reflect the fact that the other team knew exactly what were going to do on every play. I very nearly did what you saw Morrison do last night, actually; we were in chucking-up-threes-and-fouling mode at the end of the game, and after one such foul, with about 20 seconds left, I looked up at the scoreboard and realized that this was it; I was playing in my last competitive basketball game. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, but managed to hold them back just long enough for the buzzer to sound. I tried to go without crying until I made it until the locker room, but I couldn't; I started shaking hands with the other team and just lost it. I very fondly remember the opposing team's point guard and coach; the player was somber, despite the fact that his team had just won a huge game, as he offered his condolences to me, and the coach actually tousled my hair and gave me a little hug.

It took me four years and a 12-pack of beer to watch the tape of that game. It sounds silly, I know, but basketball is pretty much what I dreamed of doing since I was a little kid. I had long come to terms with the fact that I didn't have a future playing the game beyond high school, and it was very difficult to relive one of the most disappointing days of my life.

-McGee

[bills217]

I shot a 2-over 37 (9 holes) at my last HS golf match, which was a better-than-average score for me. Really not much more too it than that. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Before that, my last HS baseball game ended with a bizarre loss in the regional championship...we were up something like 8-2 in the 2nd inning and had knocked the other team's star pitcher out of the game, but the home plate umpire had a tiny strike zone, and our coaches inexplicably put in freshman and sophomore relief pitchers who hadn't seen much varsity action and we ended up getting beat by some bizarre score like 26-19 or something (not an exaggeration). Pretty good example of why HS baseball umpires need to be a little flexible with the strike zone.

Edited to add: In the middle of this game, one of our star players hit a grounder to first with a runner on 3rd and 1 out...the first baseman tagged first for the out and then DRILLED the batter running to first in the FACE with the throw home, resulted in about a 20-minute delay in the game...he broke several bones in his face and had a concussion, had to be carried off on a stretcher. Pretty bizarre game all-around.

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

The last time I played real organized sports (not counting adult leagues and college IM leagues) was in high school, so:

My last hockey game was the state championship - we won less than a minute into overtime.

My last tennis match was a loss qualifying for state. Disappointing, but not heartbreaking.

My last baseball game was when my friend and I walked out in the middle of a game because we had enough of our jackass coach. Disappointing, but not heartbreaking.

My last inline marathon ended with a disappointing time because I didn't train for it hardly at all and I fell off the draft I was in. Disappointing, but not heartbreaking.

I didn't cry over any of them.