To be honest, there are worse ways of spending a late fall evening than roaming the opposing sideline wearing five layers of clothing while your boys are getting their butts handed to them on a silver platter. For one thing, there’s the warmth generated by the mocking laughter of “friends.”
What I’m getting at is that it doesn’t get much better than high school football as a way for communities to celebrate and ritualize small-town America. And, for me, for quite some time now, the annual gridiron match-up between Park City and Wasatch has filled that role.
This year, with both teams winding down one-loss seasons and the Region 10 title on the line, anticipation was high. And, as expected, the game proved to be a nail-biter. Until the second play from scrimmage, that is.
That’s when the Park City quarterback, demonstrating absolutely no consideration for the emotional well-being of the portly gray dude on the sideline, tossed a 77-yard play-action scoring strike to a receiver who was so wide open he looked lonely. For us Wasatch fans, it was all downhill from there.
Sometimes the opposition executes so well within the spirit of the sport that it becomes difficult to wish them ill. The manner in which the Miners rolled over the Wasps last Thursday evening easily qualified under that yardstick, so to speak. They got off the bus with energy and attitude and flat-out schooled the Heber lads.
As the old clock on the wall winds down toward column deadline, word just came that Park City will host Grantsville in the opening round of the 3-A Utah state playoffs at 3 p.m. Friday at Dozier Field.
Wasatch hosts Desert Hills of St. George in its opening-round game, also this Saturday at 1 p.m. The good news is that the Wasps are in a different bracket than the Miners. The bad news is that they are in the same one as Juan Diego, the only team to beat Park City this season. It’s crunch time, baby!
I’m also attempting to deal with post-season losses by my Dodgers and Angels. The fact that they both lost to teams which just happened to be more skilled than them is of little consolation. Better pitching, more timely hitting, and a couple of dozen additional miscues by the opposition and it could have been them facing off in the World Series. Where’s the justice?
Then there are my USC Trojans. An always-highly-ranked college football team with more talent than most, their problem lies not in the passing game or their running attack or their defense but, rather, in what some term the “mental component.” Not to say they are complete idiots, but certainly marginally so.
They are like chess masters with no “end game.” Oftentimes, they are unable to seal the deal, as it were. The past two Saturdays, after pulling way ahead of, first, Notre Dame and then, more recently, Oregon State, they did their best to, as they say, snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Untimely and, if I might be allowed a personal opinion here, stuuuupid penalties are becoming the norm. They are in dire need of a behavioral-modification intervention prior to their trip up north to Eugene this weekend where the University of Oregon Ducks will be lying in wait and licking their chops.
To say that visiting teams are welcomed to the no-so-friendly confines of Autzen Stadium in the normal course of events would be a gross misstatement in itself. But you gotta believe that, on a Halloween night with the hated Trojans coming to town and the entire student body clad in a witch’s brew of the very latest in ghoulish drag, milk and cookies will not be served.
Following the consecutive debacles of the Dodgers, Wasps, Angels, and the two ugly wins by the Trojans, you might say I’m looking for redemption. I’m finished being a sucker for the randomly-raised expectation and the subsequent letdown. I’m tired of being humble and giving good meek.
But, if the truth be known, even in the most disappointing of circumstance there are reasons aplenty for great happiness and pleasure in the sporting and cultural life. Why just last week there emerged from the Dylan concert and the Book Festival more than enough positive ju-ju to cancel out any number of playoff blunders. The secret is to never stop believing. Joy, shipmates, joy!
Jay Meehan is a culture junkie and a free-lance writer with a background in commercial and community radio, among other pursuits. He has been a columnist and feature writer for various Park City publications going back to 1973.