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1) The last game of a season always hits me. It doesn't really matter the sport or the team. But the last game of the year, those moments after, it's just different. Only one team gets to end the season walking off the field happy. Everyone else has a sour taste in their mouth for a few minutes or hours or days. That was the case at Mizzou Softball Stadium on Sunday night.
The Tigers lost to Duke 4-3 and you can get caught up in whether Larissa Anderson should have lifted Laurin Krings (I don't think so) or how the difference in the two teams ultimately was defense (Duke's won it, Mizzou's helped lose it). But for me, it was the finality of it. It happens so fast. You go into the ninth inning thinking about Oklahoma City and a few minutes later you're walking off the field knowing this team will never be together again.
For Mizzou, it's the end of an era with the departure of a senior class that did a lot for the program. None exemplify that more than Jenna Laird, who played in and started 246 games over the last four years. While her freshman teammate, Abby Hay, and her coach sat on either side of her fighting back tears, the constant presence for Mizzou over the last four years was asked what she hoped her legacy would be.
"I think that I would just love to be known for playing for the community," she said. "I mean, nothing else but the community. I mean, I love it here. You're gonna see me around a bunch. I mean, just it's very hard to reflect on because I don't want to be done, but I mean, just, I would do anything for this community. Anyone. Literally anyone here. It doesn't have to be anyone I know."
2) That quote is part of what makes college sports different. We form connections with pro athletes and we cheer for them and if we're lucky we get to see them for their entire careers in one place and it's awesome. But they don't really choose to be there (yes, I know some do through free agency). In college, these players chose to be here. Jenna Laird came from East Meadow, NY and Alex Honnold from West Des Moines, IA and Laurin Krings from Loveland, CO. Abby Hay stayed right in her home town. But they all chose your school. And because of that, there's a connection. They probably chose it for different reasons than you did. You might have loved it before you got there; most of them probably didn't. Most athletes choose a school because it's a means to an end. They want to play at the highest level they can play and this happens to be that place.
But for the lucky ones, it becomes something more. It did for Laird and for Honnold and Krings and Maddie Gallagher, who was only here for two years. But it means something to all of them that will last forever.
"Those are my baby girls. I've known them since they were nine years old," Anderson said when asked about the moment above. "I'm just so proud that they took a chance on me in traveling halfway around the country to play at this university.”
That's the good stuff guys. I know they lost. And that does matter. But the rest of it matters too.
3) I haven't covered many coaches who are able to put the games in perspective as well as Larissa Anderson. She did it on Saturday night before her team took the field for what might be its last game (turned out it wasn't).
"Before the game started, I talked to the team in left field after we take line balls and what I said to them is I want you to look around and to start to look down the right field line and I want you to scan the entire stadium. You built this. And this is what we play for and it's every little girls dream to play in an atmosphere like this. And we're so unbelievably blessed and thankful that we have the community support and the athletic department support to be able to put on a Super Regional like this and they're gonna remember these moments for the rest of your life. Regardless of the results. They're not going to talk about a strike out or base hit or a save. They're going to talk about who they celebrated these moments with."
That's the whole thing about sports. I'd guess most of us played a sport somewhere along the way. Maybe your career ended in little league. Maybe you made it through high school or college. Maybe a handful of you even played beyond that. But at its core, the level doesn't really matter. It's a scoreboard business and the wins and the losses matter. Don't ever fool yourself that they don't. But 10, 20, 30 years down the road, that's not what you remember. I don't know my stats or my times. I remember some of the wins and losses, but it's not what I think about. I think about the guys I started swimming with when I was 12 years old that are still my best friends. Four of us have a text chain 35 years later. I think about the people I'd never have met if I hadn't played baseball. I think about all the friends my kids made and the opportunities they got because they played sports. I think about the joy it gave them to succeed and just as often, the joy it gave them just to be on a team with their friends.
Most of us don't think about all of that stuff until it's over and the memories have faded some. I appreciate that Anderson was present in the moment and told her team to appreciate what they were experiencing as it was happening. Would they rather have won? Of course. Would the memory hit just a little different if Julia Crenshaw's line drive had fallen and tied the game and led to a win? Yeah. But down the road, when they think about this season and this chance they had to play a game, that's not what's gonna last.
Sorry for the sentimentality. Like I said, last games hit me.
