Fall playoffs usually a time for emotions

High school playoff time is a time of emotion. Of joy. Of pain.

It is also the beginning and the end for so many of the seniors who will spend their final minutes on the field of their choice. They inevitably leave the field in tears.

But these mixed emotions are not limited to seniors. Underclassmen, coaches, teachers, parents, fans and even cold-hearted knights of the keyboard are often moved by what happens at this time of the year.

We see the kids for what they are at this stage in life – untarnished (for the most part) dreamers, believers – and we wonder why we don’t have those feelings anymore.

But the sights and sounds this time of the year impact us.

The view alone is worth the trip to a Dexter field hockey game. The field was cut out of a wooded area, and the trees surrounding the field have just changed their color.

A few years ago a reporter for Sports Illustrated came up here and wrote an article that depicted us as living in the last bastion of society. That our primary excitement came with the arrival of the L.L. Bean catalog in the mail and watching the leaves change.

If he’d lifted his derriere off his bar stool long enough to have a look around, he might have done as many people who visited here once have done – stayed. I’m on that list.

At Dexter, a visitor would also have received a surprise. After game after game of hearing hip-hop music blaring out of speakers during pregame warmups, it was almost a shock to hear country music coming out of a boom box as the Dexter team got ready for its game.

The visitor comments on the music and is told, “These are good kids,” as if country music and virtue go hand in hand.

But they seem to be. They seem friendly. And they seem a little concerned for an opponent who is struck by the ball during the game. She falls in a heap to the ground, her sobs easily heard 50 yards away. The player who struck the ball approaches her, too, and offers an unnecessary apology.

A man walks down the hill where fans sit and after a few minutes lifts the girl off the ground and carries her to her team’s bench, talking quietly to her every step of the way.

He places her on the bench and leaves after offering (one more time?) to take her to see a doctor, a father’s work done for the moment. Her friends wrap her in a blanket to protect her from the cold and the rain falling and the wind blowing in off Lake Wassookeag. She sits and smiles, tears still rolling. Her team’s season coming to an end.

The previous night in Bangor, a season had come to an end for a visiting football team. The players circled together at the Garland Street end of Cameron Stadium and their coach talked to them. He talked about accomplishments in a tough year. He told them he liked their character. He liked the way they fought and the way they never gave up.

And then he did what every coach does in that position, he leaves his team and tells a reporter the same thing he has just told his team, hoping just a little of what he says will get in the game story.

And his players begin to make their way off the field and you can hear the voices.

A player stops and tells a teammate while slapping his hand against his thigh pad, “This is it. This is the last time I’ll ever walk off a field wearing this uniform.”

The player he was talking to slaps him on the shoulder pad and they continue their walk. A bus and much more awaits.

Don Perryman can be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or dperryman@bangordailynews.net.