TCU Football: Let It Hurt
When you love something, it hurts to lose. And it should. No amount of giving and taking is without a cost, and the cost is, all too often, the palpable proof of a feeling's value. You can't love greatly without losing greatly. There is no meaning in an easy forfeiture.
We Horned Frogs had a great season, a great run. There's no doubt about it. No one can deny us what we did, nor can we deny the dream we lived (by that, it goes without saying, our boys: what they did, what they lived, and the rest of us, however vicariously).
And on the biggest stage this team ever touched, we were beaten in astronomical numbers. Records were broken at our expense, by our hearts. The temptation to ease this fact is excruciatingly present. But in truth, we don't even have the luxury of a bad referee. The greatest TCU season in recent memory ended with the greatest defeat in National Championship history, perhaps bowl history. We made our naysayers proud. And that's that.
We are the victims of both sincerity and irony.
It is not my intent to lick the wound with a salty tongue. Far from it. Nor is it my purpose to encourage a false optimism, to hang a purple pennant on a vast scarlet sunset. It is, I think, appropriate only to say that optimism does not apply to us now. No amount of optimism will reverse or gainsay what we experienced: a love--of our team, of our Horned Frog family, of our entire athletic and academic culture--that was perfectly humiliated after five minutes of play.
I say we let it hurt. And remember the hurt. Caress the hurt. Not in hopes we might gain a great championship in the future. And not that we might one day be the "Blue Bloods" we currently despise. But in honor of what we did and experienced and loved; we play game by game, for the game, and season by season, for the season. The game is all. And we lost as badly as we possibly could.
Yes, we had a great season. Yes, we incessantly disappointed the nay-sayers and upset expectations we did not agree to. Yes, we beat every team we ever played prior to Georgia, with a first-year coach, and a unit that went 5-7 in conference play one season before.
And precisely for those reasons I say: let it hurt.
Yes, it is true, as I still maintain: "Terrible game, great season. All in all the good was better than the bad was bad."
And still I say: Let it hurt.
Because nothing will cheapen what our beloved boys accomplished, our championship season, more than to refer to what was. And just as bad would be to discredit completely their sacrifice and success by hoping for a new season, one in which things turned our properly. This was, and is, our season. And save for one game, it was perfect. Perfectly perfect. Even the loss against Kansas State was perfect for what it inspired against Michigan.
Let it hurt.
The truth is this: no one believes in the Cowboys anymore. They don't really believe in professional football anymore. For one week, TCU was "America's team"--precisely because of what we've done, who we are. Let us go further than that: for one week, we showed there could still be an "America's team," that such a thing is still possible. It was we who captured the dreams and aspirations of those who hope hard work and love of the game and fun count for more than the cruel, cold, calculated figures of facts and statistics. Further, it was we who, in these divided times, showed California and Texas could unite for a day, and on behalf of all Americans, hope for the best.
This is why I say let it hurt: to lose, without the pain, is to have won--without anything worth losing.
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