The Last Hurrah

Reflections at Game’s End

by David P. Hillgrove

Copyright DP Hillgrove 2022

The match is long ago over.

The referees … have moved on, leaving the day’s multiple matches on the field, where they belong. The hollering coaches, the vociferous fans, the yellow cards … all but a blur as they travel to their next assignment.

The Moms and Dads … have gathered siblings and players, piled into their Urban Assault Vehicles and hurried off to their next appointment on their over-booked social calendar. The Dads focused on the players’ pride and the effort, while the Moms reflected on the result and the standing; but even for them, the game has been played, the result soon to be forgotten as the hectic family parade continues.

The Grandparents … have returned to their lonely abode. The memories of the afternoon centered on their offspring’s seed … their wonderful and blame-free grandchildren. They understood little of the nuances of the game itself; in fact, the rules escaped all but the veterans of the elderly set. But the joy on their namesake’s faces reminds them why they came. The happiness of the child’s heart, the smile on their entire face following their “lucky” goal and the subsequent team celebration are what the Grandparents take home with them. There, in the Saturday’s afterglow, they will file these memories away with so many from their children’s past. And the perspective that they share on the game itself said nothing about the match’s score, but spoke completely to the winning players.

The players … have removed their cleats and their shinguards and their long socks. Some changed quicker than others, who clearly sit around the perimeter of the field with nothing more to do than rest, laugh and relive a few of the many plays from the match now ended. They have drained their water bottles and forgiven their teammates for the errant passes, the missed traps, the misjudged serves. The competitive burn they felt for the opposition has long since passed, and many walk out to the cars with what was the enemy, just moments prior.

The League Administrator … removes the corner flags from yet another field. Each game melded into the dozens and hundreds of matches already played this season. His gaze reviews the lines that need repainting, the grass that needs recutting, the nets that need replacing. This game means no little or no more than the next. The ecstasy and the joy that the Game itself used to bring does so no longer. Though rarely thanked, this administrator knows the games would not continue without him, just as he realized that some faceless soul did the same for him when he was young. And thus, his reward.

The Coach … has given his final talk, summing up his feelings of the game and the players, interchanging the two. This veteran of so many last whistles has learned to leave the game and all it’s frustrations on the pitch, where it belongs. 

Soon after he exits his car, he is enveloped in the realities of a lawn which needs cutting, gutters which need clearing and a birthday present for his own child, now in his late teens.

But his feeling takes on more of a melancholy tone, as this last game means the end of a way of life, a pattern of thinking, a investment of emotion. Somewhere in the quiet of the locker room there is hope that something he did to and for these players will help them to grow and make decisions on their own. And since this hope exists in a vacuum of reality, the coach never really knows if he made a difference. 

He’d like to think that he affected eternity, in that he will never know where his influence will end, but with interpersonal communication being what it is “these days” he worries that he will never know. And since there is no “next season” for this coach to look forward to, he is left with the nagging feeling that he didn’t do quite enough. Or that he could have done more.

But either way he doesn’t know; and this uncertainty is what troubles him. For unlike a match where he can see the goals scored for and against, there is no scoreboard for life’s lessons learned. 

But it is on Life’s field where he hopes the real successes will be realized for these many former players of his. A decade and a half of hollering, laughing, pointing and smiling has many memories but . . .  more and more it was viewed as an investment. 

They shared the present as he introduced his past, all for the players’ future. 

And through all of the road trips, the soiled seasons, the championship banners and the player tryouts, the Coach is centered on the his first season, that first anxiety-filled annum when he thought he knew so much. Only now in his final match is it clear to him just how little he knew then, and perhaps how much he’s learned since.

For beyond all the balls, all the calls, all the goals and all the souls, the Coach is at peace with the ME he gave all of them, and the THEY he received in return.

And it was good . . .