For every winner there's a loser

The image remains: the yard lines all but invisible under wet snow, it's a long pass. It seems out of reach, but Butch Zehr races through the slush, arms extended and, yes, he has it, then, no, the wet ball ultimately slides from his grasp.
The star member of the senior high school football team falls to his knees and thrusts his arms upward, as if lamenting to the heavens. A completed pass near the opponents' goal line in those dying minutes might have turned the game around. It wasn't to be, and our school lost out on the championship.
That, as I recall, was the last football game I ever attended.
So it was with eager anticipation that I joined in on plans among a couple of the guys at the office to go down to a game at St. Francis Xavier University this past Saturday. Ray and Kevin usually managed to attend one or so of these games each year and it sounded like a great outing - watching the X-Men and checking out the crazed, young fans on a crisp, sunny fall day.
We rendezvoused at the office. Immediately I knew the game wasn't to be the only element of competition.
"You're just wearing that cap to bug me," Ray said, eyeing the Rickard's ballcap I'd got at the liquor store the day before upon purchase of a 12-pack.
I snickered. This had been a matter of one-upmanship for some time. It started when I bought the - oddly enough - one and only box of Rickard's White to come into a county store earlier this year. Up till then it had just been available in the sampler pack. It wasn't until about a month later that they brought in enough for everybody.
Then, to top it off, Ray informed me that upon making a similar purchase at a different store, there were no caps. Talk about inter-town liquor store inequality. That's as bad as not having cold beer.
Now it's no secret that when it comes to sports I'm pretty green. I stopped following things back in my teenage years. On the drive down, I asked some advice on what to holler during the game, so as not to appear too much of an amateur fan.
One the guys offered was from an annoying fan at a past game: "Watch the fake." We chuckled a bit over that one.
Another good, solid standby, they said, is "Get him." That one should just about cover everything.
After some moments of silence, Ray couldn't help himself. "Gee Al, if you don't take off that cap I'm going to have to steal it from you."
As for cheering and hollering, that was taken aptly care of by a host of highly spirited students.
A lot of the guys were shirtless, with big Xes smeared on their chests. Many had their faces painted. It was like you'd just stepped onto the set of a modern-day Braveheart movie. Some of the gals had crazy slogans painted on T-shirts.
Not long after the opening kickoff by the X-Men deep into Saint Mary's Huskies' territory, it looked like the home team would dominate over the undefeated SMU. They piled up the points.
A brave group of SMU supporters, a guy and three young ladies, did their best to keep up a vocal challenge to the legion of home team fans.
I had to admire them for that, even as they looked on to see their squad take a whuppin'.
We had to leave on the early side, but the team had such a lead we were sure we'd left them in good stead. During the trip home, Ray and Kevin congratulated themselves: St. FX won every time they attended. They'd done their part.
It wasn't until some days later I learned that the Huskies managed to turn things around and squeak a win out of it. I'm not sure what to think about that. The lucky hat didn't work. Maybe Ray should have worn it. That's probably some of the reason why I left sports behind. Too often I was saying, "Well there's always next time."
Mainly, I just hope that little clutch of SMU fans didn't get too cocky with the win. They were seriously outnumbered.