Friday Morning Reality...

I'd like to smack with my cast iron avenging skillet whoever said, "All good things must come to an end." That reality for the South Florida "Bulls" football team came to roost last evening after suffering a very disappointing defeat at the hands of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. The 30 to 27 loss will result in USF falling out of its lofty 2nd place ranking in the national polls. It will not be until this approaching Sunday afternoon, when the new college team rankings are released, that USF will see just how far it has fallen from grace.

It serves no beneficial purpose in this discourse to recap the game's turning points, as no one can reinvent the past. Unexpected set-backs can either lead to demoralizing resignation or a renewed determination to establish new goals for which to strive. The events of the world most certainly do not turn on the results of one football game. An athletic contest of any nature represents at worse but momentary disappointments or fleeting joys. At best they represent mileposts along life's road that mark how one embraces defeat or celebrates victory and learns from both.

There is always the next game...the next season...the next challenge. For the "Bulls" that next challenge comes a week from this Saturday when they travel again northward to face the University of Connecticut. What this team learned from last evening's loss will determine how they choose to approach this next contest. What they learn about this season will begin to define the possibilities for the next. What they learn from all of their athletic endeavors will in part define how each embraces the balance of their lives. None of us are immune from the peaks and valleys that we each transverse along our individual journeys of life. Sports has a way of crystallizing more emphatically such impassioned efforts. The games in and of themselves are merely games. It is the intrinsic values derived from the competition - win or lose - wherein lies the magic of transformation. Win or lose, we are all the better for having competed.

Nevertheless, I'd still like to "bonk" on the head the callous person who said, "All good things must come to an end." We Bull fans we're quite contented with the status quo of an undefeated and prefect 6 & 0 season. Go Bulls!! Look out UConn. We're not in the best frame of mind.