It was the final championship game, and the last football game I would ever play with this team. We were down by 7 points and, out in the November rain, we were freezing. The drizzling began before we started playing, and it only intensified as time passed. At halftime, we were playing in a downpour, barely able to see ten yards in front of ourselves. As we went inside to regroup, lightning struck, and thunder followed soon after. Once we were in our locker room, a referee came to the door, hunched over in the rain, and told us that the remainder of the game would be delayed for an hour and a half due to the severe weather conditions.
The door he held open pressed into his hand with great weight, pleading to return to its frame and protect us from the turmoil. He gave in and allowed the door to usher him inside. Our coaches immediately gathered around him, unintentionally cornering him with his back pushing into the door handle. From inside the locker room, their quiet conversation sounded like an angry swarm of bees. After a few minutes, however, the intensity lowered and our coaches regained their manners; they brought the referee into the locker room and through the rows of our sweating, soaking bodies and our unlatched helmets resting on benches. He nodded at us with sympathy regarding our uncertainty, but he kept his head tilted down to avoid any confrontation. Some of the boys in that room had insulted his calls during the game, and everyone was aware that he wasn’t in a position to respond to them anymore. He kept walking, surrounded by our coaches, past every bench, until he reached the other exit. The coaches told him he was welcome to rest in the gym, and that they were grateful for his kindness and hard work. He entered the gym, took off his hat, and turned back to thank them. They nodded as they closed the door and left him alone.
Still sitting on my bench in the locker room, I thought about the poor man wearing his sopping white and black striped outfit, and what he might be thinking about. Before the game started that afternoon, the team had gathered in the gym he was in to prepare ourselves for the concluding battle of the year. The fluorescent lights in the gym had been completely off. Beautiful light filled the room from the ceiling window that was narrow and long. I imagined that now with the violent rain, the glow of the light seemed less ethereal. I imagined that the frightening nature of the weather had beaten the peace the team had felt in that gym a few hours earlier. I imagined that the expansive gym now only amplified the terror of the situation and the question of what would happen if the game was really over, and if everything we worked for had already come to a close.
My friend, Ryan, the quarterback, elbowed me and said, “That ref was such a pain in the ass. He made every call in favor of the other team, it was ridiculous. He’d never ref a game again if it were my call.” The goosebumps from the cold on my forearms spread upwards as I physically cringed at his lack of awareness. I moved my gaze until I met his, and I huffed, “Ryan, grow a brain. You’re probably never going to be in a game again yourself. Have some decency just for right now.” He kept eye contact for a frustrated second, then looked down toward his shoes to adjust their fit. I didn’t feel like he had any intention of speaking to me again, so I refocused on my meditation about the referee and how I wished I could be him, watching us play our last game instead of feeling the angst of actually playing our last game. The finality of that day had petrified me for years, and now I realized it wasn’t worth that fear. Not anymore.
The door to the gym opened, and the referee stood holding the door open, looking out at us from under his untrimmed grey eyebrows. He said, “Look, I know this isn’t what you all wanted, and I know that this seems like a nightmare. But I wanted to come out to let you know that I would do anything to sit where you’re sitting right now. In high school, I fell out of a tree the summer before my senior year and I had a broken leg throughout the football season. I never played in a championship game, and I never even played with the Varsity team. Treasure these moments in case they tell you it’s all over. Rain can’t stop you from loving the game of football. I’m wishing you luck. I’m going to make the call now to see if there are any updates.” The referee sniffed as if to shift the tone of the room back to casual, and then shut the door behind him as he stepped back into the gym.
Everyone held their breath, and Ryan was still fixated on his shoe. We didn’t want this moment, soaking in the cold rain and the stink of cleats, to be the defining snapshot of our high school careers. It was too big of a concept for us to handle, but we tried to. We tried by remaining silent and letting the rain fall on the roof so that we could listen and try to understand why it fell upon us that day.
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