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what really happened after My High school football team lost the state championship game

I truly loved all of the guys who I played football with, our brotherhood was second to none, so I knew I wanted to be a good teammate and show appreciation for them.

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what really happened after My High school football team lost the state championship game

My fondest memories from high school come from the days playing football in Suburban Chicago for the Libertyville Wildcats. From taking the field with the guys who I called my brothers, lifting at 6:00 in the morning four times a week before school, and obviously playing the game as an offensive tackle, I miss everything about taking the field for the Wildcats.

My senior season in fall 2015 was the best year I had ever played of football, and ultimately, one of the most successful seasons in Libertyville history. Nobody could stop us as our offense, led by senior quarterback Riley Lees (now playing at Northwestern), kept lighting up the scoreboard every week and shattered many school records.

Defensively, we fielded quite a ferocious group of men to keep up the pace to slow down our opponents to keep up with the rate our offense was scoring. With a combination of many amazing athletes, my Libertyville Wildcats advanced to the 2015 IHSA Class 7A State Championship with an undefeated 13-0 record. Ultimately, we lost the game, to another undefeated 13-0 team, the Hilltoppers of Glenbard West High School.

I have never revealed what it felt like, or what had happened after I lost the biggest game of my life. But going on nearly three years since that game, I thought now would be a good time to reflect on the night after losing the game.

I remember Saturday, November 28th, 2015 very fondly to this day. We had just come off a thrilling victory in the Semifinal game the week before where Riley Lees scored a last-second touchdown in the middle of a snowstorm to advance us to the Championship Game. Not only was did we get our last-second victory in a field blanketed with snow all over it, we also did this while throwing in 25 MPH winds and 15-degree weather.

All week long, I knew in my heart that there would be no way we would lose this game. We had dominated nearly every opponent we faced, and after winning what will be the craziest ending to a football game that I will ever see, I truly did not think there would be a way my Wildcats would fall short of a State Championship at Northern Illinois University's Huskie Stadium on Saturday evening.

Not even the Hilltoppers All-State running back Sam Brodner scared me, I knew the guys on defense could stop him. I had eyed down getting myself a State Championship Ring ever since my junior season ended in a disappointing Semifinal loss, and I felt it was just our destiny to bring the Football State Championship back to Libertyville for the first time since 2004. But I will make a long story short, Lees played very well in the State Championship game, throwing for four touchdown passes, but also had two costly interceptions.

Our defense just could not stop Brodner and allowed him to rush for four touchdowns and an IHSA State Title game record of around 260-270 total rushing yards. The final score of the game was 34-28 in favor of the Hilltoppers. Now here is where I will get into talking about what happened after the game. Obviously, I felt disappointed that we had lost the game, but I took the loss with a lot of grace.

Prior to getting myself in line to handshake the Glenbard West players, I did one last wave at the enormous crowd of Libertyville fans who made the trip to DeKalb, consisting of families of the players, teachers, townspeople, former players, and of course many LHS students. It felt like the final scene of the show MASH, but I had to wave at the crowd one last time because the students in my school, as well as the families and everybody else in Libertyville had been incredibly supportive of us throughout my career.

So I knew I had to show all of them one last gesture of respect before I walked off the field. While in the handshake line, I did congratulate the Hilltopper players on their victory. Once we were completed with the handshake line after every game, win or lose, all of the players would get down on a knee and listen to what the coaches had to say about the game and what to expect heading into the next week.

But after this handshake line, there was maybe about a minute of silence between the players before my head coach spoke to the team. I do not remember what my coach had said, but I had done something that I had rarely done, that was to speak to the whole team after a practice or a game. Some guys were crying, others were just in shock, but I told the whole team I was proud of all of them.

A few minutes later, we had to go up to the podium as a team to accept the State Runner-Up Trophy. But I accepted the trophy with a lot of grace because I was grateful for having myself a nice career which I never envisioned after starting to the play the game for the first time in my sophomore year of high school. Walking off the field, I heard one of my teammates sobbing.

And it was my beloved All-State quarterback Riley.

I walked up to him and I put my arm around his shoulder. I do not remember what I had said to him, but it was definitely some words of gratitude.

But what I do remember saying to Riley is that I told him I loved him. All of the sudden, Riley stopped looking down and looked at me right in the eye, and he told me he loved me too. Shortly thereafter, the whole team headed back into the locker room, and it was dead silent.

Many of the players and coaches had their heads bowed down before they could even take off their pads and cleats. But I went around to a good number of the guys, gave them some hugs and I did tell them I loved them.

I truly loved all of the guys who I played football with, our brotherhood was second to none, so I knew I wanted to be a good teammate and show appreciation for them.


Inevitably, all of us had to undress from our white jerseys and cleats to change into our sweatshirts and street shoes for the bus ride home to Libertyville. Whenever traveling to away games, the standard was offensive players on one bus, defensive players on the other bus. However, instead of a normal school bus which we had used to travel to all other away games, we got big long coach buses to and from DeKalb. And the division of offensive players on one bus and defensive players on the other was still in use for that night. Playing on the offensive line, I was obviously made to go on the bus that the offensive players traveled on. And for about the first half hour of the bus ride, it remained dead silent as we tried to recover from losing the biggest game of our young lives. But all of the sudden, it became the best bus ride home from a game.

By then, the whole team felt appreciation for what we had accomplished and the remainder of the bus ride became a session where all of the offensive players started talking about all of the memories that were made playing football for Libertyville. We were bringing up memories of everything that made our season and careers special. Everything from the silly moments in the locker room or at other team events as well as many other stories from our days brought laughs and smiles amongst many on the offensive bus.

Once we neared Libertyville, I noticed that the bus took the wrong exit off of the highway and needed to take the next exit to get back to Libertyville High School. Well I found out that the driver never made any mistake. All of the coach buses were meeting up on a side road off of Downtown Libertyville's Main Street, Milwaukee Avenue. On that street, firetrucks and police cars were escorting all of the buses for a couple of miles on Milwaukee Avenue. It was during our police escort across the town when the whole team really started to realize what an incredible accomplishment we achieved getting second place.

Once the escort was done, we arrived in the parking lot of Libertyville High School coming home to hundreds of Libertyville fans, mostly students and family members of the players. Everyone of them cheered for us when we exited the bus, and many of the players and I received hugs from our families who felt great joy being Wildcat football parents that year. I remember I had quite a few students and other parents who came up to me for hugs and many other words of gratitude. So I was one of the last players to leave the locker room at the LHS Stadium because I talked to quite a few people when I got off the bus. But when I was getting everything out of my locker in our teams locker room, I noticed that there were some elementary school students who had sneaked into the locker room. Unfortunately, I do not remember what I had said to them, but it was definitely some encouraging words, which I hope they remember if they play for the Wildcats when their high school careers kick off.


But the night did not stop there. Some of the parents rented out one of the banquet rooms for a private dinner at one of the most popular restaurants in Downtown Libertyville, Mickey Finn's, for the players and their families, along with the coaches to celebrate at once everyone got home. This was going to happen no matter the result of the game, and obviously I was one of the last players to arrive at Mickey Finn's since I talked with a lot of people. I remember coming into the restaurant still wearing my orange Libertyville sweatshirt I wore on the bus ride to and from the game just starving for some real food.

Thankfully, the wonderful football parents kept buying us burgers and pizzas throughout the night as a well deserved treat for such a great accomplishment and season. I headed into Mickey Finn's believing the best moment at the team dinner would be finally getting to eat a full meal since I had nothing to eat but protein and granola bars since our pregame team meal at LHS at around 9-10 AM that morning. But the delicious pizza and burgers was not even close to the best moment of the team dinner for me. It was a moment that I shared with my All-State quarterback, who amazed everyone with his dynamic, dual-threat quarterback play all throughout his career.

By this point, Riley wasn't crying when I saw him, so I told him I was very proud of him or something along those lines, and then we gave each other a big hug. Riley and I maybe weren't as close of friends as we would've liked to have been, but he is always going to be one of my most special friends I had in high school. And I will say, out of all of the memories that I have with Riley Lees, on and off the field, my favorite moment that I shared with him was when I gave him a hug in front of the whole team at Mickey Finn's after losing the biggest game of our high school careers. Both of us were on different levels of the game. I was just a guy who got his playing time coming off the bench in the fourth quarter during our many blowout victories and in our junior varsity games on some Saturday mornings following our Friday night game, ultimately receiving no accolades or anything to recognize my play. While Riley is the guy who got all of the attention from the local newspapers, the student body and everything while earning numerous accolades for his play.

That hug defined my friendship with Riley because it showed no matter where you were on the team, these guys will always be brothers for life.


A tradition we have at Libertyville High School is whenever an athletic team makes it all the way to a State tournament and earns a trophy, there will be a victory march throughout the hallways of the school led by the drumline. Coming home with a second place finish, the whole team and I got our victory march and showed off our second place trophy to everyone at LHS, cheering us on triumphantly. So it wasn't a total loss coming in second after all. And for me, I did receive an accolade from the team that was well-deserved at our annual team awards banquet in January. I was a co-winner of the Wildcat Award, which is voted on by the players to be given to a senior in the program who shows the most dedication and spirit to playing Libertyville Wildcat football. And I know my teammates may hate this, but I also won over them too.

Once we got home from DeKalb, the senior players hung up their cleats on one of the field goal posts as a way to end their respective Libertyville football careers. However, I did not know about that since I talked with so many people after the bus ride and I took my cleats home with me. My teammates from my senior class ultimately lost their cleats for good right before the spring sports season, which resulted in maintenance or somebody taking away their cleats off of the goal posts to get the field ready for all the spring sports that are played on our football field, never returning the cleats.


LINK IF YOU WANT TO READ MORE ABOUT MY FOOTBALL CAREER

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/my-football-team-...

LINK TO SEE OUR LAST SECOND TOUCHDOWN IN THE SEMIFINAL GAME THE WEEK BEFORE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtFGAKJgOVA

LINK TO WATCH THE INCREDIBLE 2015 IHSA CLASS 7A STATE TITLE GAME WE LOST:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so6ny53wZ4o

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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