The Resilient Mind

Sometimes You Get Your Ass Whooped

Football Saturday started out rough.

The plan was pretty simple: grab my camera, get out around the city, catch some football and start capturing some of the stories happening on fields around Denver.

There were a few games on my radar.

Arvada West versus Cherokee Trail was one of them, but I didn’t make that game.

My nephew plays for Montbello, though, and they had Northfield on the schedule. That was definitely one I wanted to catch.

Simple enough.

Montbello vs. Northfield.

Montbello was listed first, so in my head I figured I’d head over to Montbello and catch the game.

I pulled up.

No football.

Okay…

Maybe I got something mixed up. Let me head over to Northfield.

I pulled up there.

Still no football.

Now I’m sitting there thinking, How the hell did I lose an entire high school football game?

That’s when I finally stopped driving and actually looked the game up.

Whole different stadium.

Across town.

And that’s when something clicked.

I was trying to navigate Denver football using what I knew about Texas football.

Growing up in Texas, high school football was different. Schools had their own stadiums. Some were basic high school fields, while others were massive facilities that looked damn near college level. Friday night football was part sport, part community event and damn near part religion.

If your school had a home game, you knew where you were going.

You went to their stadium.

So even though I’ve been in Colorado for years, that old football mindset kicked in automatically. I saw Montbello on the schedule and assumed Montbello meant Montbello.

Wrong.

And if I’m going to start spending Saturdays with a camera bouncing around Denver trying to capture high school and youth football, that’s something I’m going to have to learn.

Do the research.

Know the facilities.

Know where these teams actually play.

Account for Denver traffic.

And maybe don’t wait until you’re already driving around town to figure all this shit out.

Lesson learned.

By the time I finally found the right stadium and made it to the game, there were about two minutes left in the first half.

And unfortunately for Montbello, from the looks of things, the game was already getting away from them.

Still, there was another half to play.

Maybe halftime would give them a chance to settle down, make some adjustments and come back out with some energy.

We were hopeful.

There were flashes.

Montbello connected on a couple of good pass plays that showed there was something there offensively. But they couldn’t turn those moments into sustained drives. The running game never really got moving, momentum was hard to find, and as the game continued, you could almost feel the spirits getting lower.

Northfield, meanwhile, looked disciplined.

They weren’t giving away much of anything.

And eventually, what started looking like a tough afternoon turned into a straight-up clinic.

And yes.

The score was as bad as it looked.

There isn’t much positive spin you can put on 49–0.

But maybe there isn’t supposed to be.

Because this is The Resilient Mind, and resilience can’t only be something we talk about when somebody wins.

We love the comeback stories.

We love the fourth-quarter rallies.

We love watching somebody overcome the odds, shock everybody and walk away victorious.

But that’s not always how life works.

Sometimes you get your ass whooped.

Sometimes somebody is simply better than you that day.

Sometimes you prepare and still aren’t prepared enough.

Sometimes your weaknesses get exposed.

Sometimes nothing seems to work.

And sometimes when that clock reaches zero, there isn’t an inspirational ending waiting for you.

You just lost.

Bad.

Resilience is what happens next.

Montbello has talent. They’ve got a quarterback ranked among the area’s top players, and there were moments Saturday where you could see pieces of what this offense could potentially become.

But potential doesn’t change 49–0.

Now you watch the film.

You figure out what went wrong.

You own the mistakes.

You work.

You make adjustments.

And you come back swinging.

Funny enough, that’s basically how my Football Saturday started too.

I made assumptions.

I didn’t do enough research.

I wasted time.

I went to the wrong places.

And I learned something that I’ll know the next time I grab my camera and go chasing football games around Denver.

Obviously, getting lost looking for a stadium isn’t remotely the same thing as getting beat 49–0.

But the principle travels.

Learn. Adjust. Come back better.

Because resilience doesn’t mean everything works out.

It doesn’t mean you always win.

And it damn sure doesn’t mean you never get your ass whooped.

Sometimes resilience is simply having enough in you to stand back up, study what happened, fix what you can…

and get back in the ring.

We’ll see how Montbello responds next Saturday.

And after my first Football Saturday?

I’ll make damn sure I know where the stadium is.