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| The celebration continued
long after the game ended. Photo by Steve Frommell, d3photography.com |
By Keith McMillan
D3sports.com
SALEM -- About 45 minutes after it finished off a 43-34 win over Mount Union in the Stagg Bowl on Friday night, most of UW-Whitewater's team was still milling around the field at Salem Stadium.
Jake Kumerow took pictures with his wide receiver group, and some non-football playing friends, and pretty much anyone who asked. Brady Grayvold stood on the field with the Walnut and Bronze trophy until he realized it was someone else's turn to spend a few minutes with it, much like NHL players and a Stanley Cup.
Someone said something to defensive coordinator Brian Borland. His reply was an ear-to-ear smile.
The Warhawks didn't want it to end. Even as they were celebrating, enjoying the fruits of winning on Friday night, they knew they'd be losing something.
Lest anyone think championship winning is old hat for the Warhawks, they were proven wrong in those moments after the game, when they soaked it all in. Even if there's another championship, there will never be one quite like this. Not one with this group of players, or this coaching staff, much of which heads off to the University of Buffalo to climb another mountain. Lance Leipold and staff may win something with the Bulls, but it won't be a championship after a magical five-week run through the postseason.
Football giveth, and it taketh away.
The Warhawks seemed to know that there may never be a seventh championship to go with the six they won in seven seasons under Leipold. Shoot, they're still not sure how they rallied past Wartburg in this year's quarterfinals.
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| Brian Borland talks with Ryan
Tipps after the game. Photo by Larry Radloff, d3photography.com |
If anything about UW-Whitewater's run of nine Stagg Bowl appearances, all against Mount Union, in 10 years bugged Leipold, it was when someone made it seem like it was preordained. He always politely deflected questions about himself and the Warhawks' dominance, mindful that the Warhawks were representing 244 Division III teams, and there is a lot more out there than just them and Mount Union.
He wouldn't go along with the story line after the game, that going out as a champion was meant to be. He knew very well that it could've been meant to be for Linfield as well, had Spencer Payne somehow been able to reel in a pass that was tipped as he dove in the end zone in the final minutes of the 20-14 semifinal.
When Warhawks cornerback Marcus McLin in the postgame news conference said that Leipold deserves every bit of success coming his way, you could tell he was touched. There was a point, up on the table in front of the microphones, where Grayvold, the all-America cornerback, began to tear up.
Football giveth, and it taketh away,
At the same table Friday night, Mount Union coach Vince Kehres did his best to be a good sport. He said nice things about the Warhawks, and rejected any suggestion that one play or sequence of plays did his team in.
There was a placard made for Mount Union quarterback Kevin Burke, but only Kehres and star safety Alex Kocheff, who had 17 tackles, represented Mount Union in front of the microphones. And who could blame Mount Union for not subjecting Burke to postgame questioning? Honestly, what was he going to say? That losing feels terrible? That's something that all of us mere mortals in D-III are all too familiar with.
Football giveth and it taketh away.
The same system that enabled to Wesley to beat the pants off its opponents all season led the Wolverines to an unceremonious demise. Mount Union went ahead by 70 points in the semifinals, leaving coach Mike Drass searching for answers days later.
A week prior, Drass's team had handed Hobart its first loss in 13 games, and the round before that, it beat MIT, which hadn't lost all year. Widener was 12-0 before it ran into the Linfield buzz saw, ending one of the great seasons in school history with a 45-7 loss on its home field.
Linfield provided some of the indelible images of the 2014 season, with its response after a teammate was taken from them in the senseless act of violence. For as much as the season will be remembered for Linfield's wins, it was what it was because of a loss. And you can bet that the Wildcats would give up their four-week playoff run if they could have their friend back instead.
There was only one story book ending in 2014, and even that was overshadowed by a sense that as soon as the plane touched down in Wisconsin, coaches and players were going their seperate ways.
After the game, as his teammates celebrated, Grayvold went to the Mount Union sideline and put his arm around Burke. We didn't have to be privy to what was said to be able to relate to the most D-III of moments. Two players who rarely had to feel the pain of losing stood on Salem's field demonstrating what every D-III coach is trying to teach. There are wins and losses not just in football, but in life. Winners must still show respect for others, and those who lose must pick themselves up and trudge on.
Burke, who apologized on Instagram the day after the game for not bringing another title home to Mount Union, will go on to wipe the floor with us in business or criminal justice, interests he mentioned in the Gaglardi Trophy ceremony, or something he hasn't thought of yet.
Kehres said something profound about his team in defeat, unintentionally channeling Frosty Westering, one of the few men who belongs in the pantheon of coaching greats alongside his father.
"They manned up. They got their butt kicked last year and they looked in the mirror. I think they did everything they possibly could to come back and try to win this game," Kehres said. "We gave 'em everything we had."
Even Mount Union can embody the concept of playing against your best self. There are times when you give everything you have, and it isn't enough.
"Every time you lose it hurts," Kehres said. "It definitely hurts. It doesn't hurt any more now than it did last year. You lose, it hurts. You lose, you come back. We'll be resilient. We'll come back."
"Getting to here, we manned up," Kocheff said, "Last year was personal. This year it's the same thing."
We may have played for FDU-Florham or Sul Ross State or Puget Sound instead of Mount Union, but we can all relate.
Back on the field at Salem Stadium, long after the game, a kid with a fresh 'UW-Whitewater National Champions' hat kicks the ball to a woman in a purple Santa Claus hat. One kick goes right through the uprights, and without missing a beat, a UW-Whitewater player yells "sign him up!"
Years from now there'll be another Stagg Bowl, and maybe that kid will be playing in it. When it's over, the most valuable thing he'll have is the memories of the moments standing on the field, taking pictures and smiling ear-to-ear, or of the lesson learned by knowing sometimes you give everything you have, and still don't get the outcome you want. And life goes on.