XAVIER 55 - ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST 31
Won't Back Down...
Reset
Hey, you know what this football season needs? A theme song.
"Say what?" I hear you saying. "And who are you, anyway? Do we know you?"
Yeah, yeah. Sorry about that, kids. I know I've been mostly AWOL these past few weeks. The fall is usually a relatively quiet time for me business-wise— until around mid-November, anyway— but not this year. That, combined with an unusually busy social schedule— a family wedding in D.C. and a college reunion, especially— have resulted in my missing three out of Xavier's first four varsity football games this season. And I haven't had much time to write, either.
It looks like smooth sailing for the foreseeable future, however— although I told the Xavier High Command that last week and was immediately proven wrong— so let's see if I can get back on track here.
Tomorrow, Sunday, The Team Formerly Known as the Kaydets... and then the Bruins... (Est. 1882) are playing St. John the Baptist at Cougar Field on the school's West Islip, Long Island campus. Kickoff is at 1:30 PM. (The address, directions and an interactive map can be found at
http://www.stjohnthebaptistdhs.net/directions.)
There is no love lost between these two fierce rivals, as that hoary old sports cliche goes, and in this case the cliche happens to be true. In 2007, the Cougars were on the losing end of one of the epic comebacks in the 131-year annals of Xavier football history when the 16th Street Kids, down 13 points to Baptist in the 2007 CHSFL A Division championship game, came roaring back to score 31 points in the game's final seven minutes to win going away, 45-33.
And then there was last December's CHSFL AA Division title game at Mitchel Field in Uniondale, Long Island. The Knights, with a quarter of their number made homeless by Hurricane Sandy and reduced to practicing in the school cafeteria, had battled their way through the playoffs against all odds to make it to the championship game. But the opponent was St. John's once again, and the Cougars had shut Xavier out— at Aviator Field— back in Week Two. Just days before the big game, Baptist's athletic director had been quoted in Newsday saying that their victory over Coach Chris Stevens' gridironmen in the upcoming final would cement once and for all the Cougars' claim to a place at the table in the CHSFL's elite AAA Division. What happened next is a tale that will be told around the council fires of our tribe for a thousand years.
But tomorrow afternoon, Baptist will be lying in wait for Xavier at Cougar Field, just behind the school. Which reminds me— did you guys know that there are high schools in this country where the football team just has to step out the back door of their building and they are right there at their practice and game fields? Swear to God: if I'm lyin', I'm cryin'.
And the St. John's faithful will be there tomorrow in their hundreds, just as classy as always and eager for revenge against the 16th Street Kids for having twice crushed their championship dreams. Ah yes, Cougar Field. Where the public address announcer has been known to lead the hometown crowd in boisterous cheers for the hometown team... even as the visiting team strains to hear its signal caller on offense.
Xavier has played four games this season, three of them away. Tomorrow's contest will be our fourth on the road. And while Cougar Field is a long way from 16th Street, Coach Stevens' Road Warriors are even farther still from last December's historic championship win.
As I wrote back in early September, "That was then. This is now." This year's Knights have one of the toughest schedules any Xavier football team has ever played. That's because the CHSFL eliminated its three-division structure for the 2013 regular season, lumped all 22 teams together in a single conference, assigned each school a "power ranking", and drew up a schedule based on those seedings. The league poobas, in their infinite wisdom, then decided that AA Division Xavier would open the CHSFL season against traditional AAA Division powers Stepinac, Farrell and Iona Prep.
Xavier's coaching staff knew there was a possibility that the Knights, after demolishing upstate public school district champion Minisink Valley 35-7 in the season opener, might well go 0-3 in their first three league games, and they have. Did those coaches think that Xavier would lose those games by the combined score of 24-107? Probably not. But we did. So what happened?
The last time the Knights opened the season by going 1-3, in 2009, there were whispers that perhaps the rest of the league had finally caught up to Chris Stevens' single-wing offense and that it was time to put the Amazing Fantastic Gridiron Wayback Machine back in the Museum of Pigskin Antiques. Chris ignored the doubters and stayed the course. And the 16th Street Kids went on to win six of their last seven games, including a 35-27 thriller over the Ancient Foe in overtime on Thanksgiving Day.
I've only been to one game so far this season— a 3-41 defeat at the hands of Stepinac in the league opener— so I haven't been around to hear anything, but I'll bet the whispers are back. And yet, last year's AA Division champions averaged 34 points a game while going 9-2. Could Xavier's single-wing offense have been rendered obsolete overnight? Again? Doubtful.
What I have heard is that there have been a lot of injuries; that we have a young offensive
and defensive line undergoing a baptism of fire as they learn on the job against the CHSFL's best; and that the same is true in the defensive secondary. Sunday afternoon, I will be traveling out to West Islip to see for myself. I suggest that my fellow Sons of Xavier do the same.
Now is the time when our kids need us to have their backs. Not in the playoffs. Not at Aviator on Thanksgiving morning. Now. And when that Baptist crowd gets down on our kids— and they will— we can serenade them with a verse or ten of the Xavier Fight Song.
As for our descendants in the Long Maroon and Blue Line, the toughest part of the regular season is over. It's time to take the lessons they've learned under fire these past four weeks, close ranks and play their way into the AA Division playoffs with the highest possible seeding.
Okay. Enough bloviating. To paraphrase Pete Townsend, the 16th Street Kids are alright. This is for them... And their coaches...
If...
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too….
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same….
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there’s nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;
….If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And— which is more— you’ll be a Man my son!
— Rudyard Kipling —
"Hey, wait a minute, you muck savage," you protest, "Didn't you say something at the beginning of this opus about a theme song for this season?"
I did, indeed. Glad to see somebody's paying attention. Here's a shorter version of Kipling's If by another poet, name of Tom Petty...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUTXb-ga1fo
See you at Cougar Field.
Stand by...
Tom O'Hara '69
