Just a memory

I remember a time when I first began coaching. I was at Victoria High School. Our football team was "pretty" good, but what I remember is not that a win "put us in the playoffs" or that it brought us "a district championship," but rather I remember the moments just after the final seconds ticked off the clock of a game against our traditional rival. We had just won. There was excitement in the air. The band was playing the fight song! The cheerleaders were jumping up and down shouting "we won! we won!" The drill team members were shouting "We Won! We Won!" I remember looking into the stands and seeing the school principal and a counselor hugging (maybe more about that later) shouting, "We Won! We won!"
Then I remember looking at the team walking off the field. They were exhausted.
There were two "big 'ol linemen" walking off the field. They were LITERALLY dripping with sweat and blood. They were literally exhausted! Then slowly one of them raised his sweaty arm and placed it around the shoulders of his teammate; his brother in battle. With blood dripping from his elbow, and blood covering one eye he looked deep into his teammates eyes... Exhausted, he muttered "Doug, we won." Doug, too weak to even look back muttered "yeah John we did, didn't we." They walked silently arm in arm into the locker room, too tired to speak but each of them knew that only their brother in arms was aware of just what it took to gain this victory. The fans, cheerleaders, drill team, principal, and counselor enjoyed the fruits of a year's worth of these young men's labor.
I remember watching these young men walk, with arms around each other, totally exhausted, into the locker room. I remember thinking that a community of people celebrate a victory that a few young men (teenagers) literally bleed for. The very next week we lost a district game. The same people; cheerleaders, drill team, principal and counselor... were essentially damning "those boys that lost that game." It's funny how when the team wins "WE" win but when the team loses..... "THEY lose!"