Matthew Osborne
Like a football player who takes a hard hit in a game, I have been trying to shake the cobwebs all week.
I have been battling what a home test told me is a nasty non-COVID cold for five days, easily the longest of my entire life. I tried to rest Wednesday but I did not improve my condition all that much.
But the newspaper cycle goes on, and alas, we have to push forward.
It is hard to watch from the sidelines when you put so much work into something, whether it’s a school project, or a profession, or playing sports. You put in untold hours to be a part of something bigger than yourself, and football is a perfect analogy of that.
That’s why I know it was hard for injured Raiders Blandon Grizzle and Chase Colbert to watch from the sidelines last Friday night.
Both went out with foot injuries during the game, and in the final, frantic moments, they both looked on from an unfamiliar position.
They watched as first a roughing the passer call, then another personal foul by the Raiders on Forsyth Central’s final drive gave the Bulldogs new life each time. They watched in horror like the rest of the visiting sideline as the home team completed a long touchdown pass that could have helped tie the game late, but it was the Bulldogs’ turn for a game-changing flag.
Eventually, the Raiders held on for the win, but it was a new perspective for players who are used to being in the thick of things.
It may sound cliche, but the Raiders embodied the “next man up” mentality on Friday and were able to pull together as a team to pull out a win. The ultimate test of our character and mettle is not to see how we do when things are going well. It is in the face of adversity that we truly find ourselves and what we are capable of.
I recently watched “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story” for about the 100th time, and there are a lot of quotable lines in that film. One that sticks with me that also falls outside of the realm of an R-rating is this: “This sport doesn’t build character – it reveals it.”
While I believe high school sports do build character, the adversity faced in those contests is what reveals it.
The Raiders fumbled five times Friday night, failed to score in the second half, committed multiple back-breaking penalties and finished the game without the quarterback, running back or cornerback who started it.
And yet, they won.
Football is in many ways a metaphor for life. You get hit, you get knocked down, you get back up. Things go right, things go wrong … you have to keep moving forward either way.
Sorry to get so philosophical this week, but I have had a lot of time to think while laying in bed.
Hope to see everyone Friday night, especially since we aren’t home again until nearly Halloween.
Matthew Osborne is the editor of The Northeast Georgian. He has not had a cold like this since the Helsinki Incident of 1919, and we all know how that turned out.