Steve Christilaw: When season – or high school career – ends, goodbyes aren’t easy

Some days are harder than others.

Especially the ones that come after you reach the end of a long, hard road.

The day after.

It’s an odd feeling, suddenly finding yourself adrift after spending a significant amount of time being a guided missile heading toward your target, whatever that target may be.

Imagine what Saturday night was like for the Central Valley and West Valley football teams. Or Sunday.

Both had aspirations of playing for a state championship and both were denied one game shy of that goal.

Both teams left all of their goals and aspirations and energy on their respective football fields, which is all you can ask of an athlete. In every aspect of the game, they “left it all on the field.”

It was the same with the CV girls soccer team, which had its undefeated season come to an end in the state championship game.

There is always some level of disappointment in coming up short of a goal – more so when you are so tantalizingly close. When your goal is almost within your grasp, only to be snatched away at the last minute, it raises any number of emotions.

What’s the John Greenleaf Whittier quote? “For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: It might have been.”

Perhaps it’s harder to make the transition when you get older and your journey to a specific goal takes longer than August to November.

I admire the ability to get up, dust yourself off and move on that you find in the young.

At any age, I like to think of it as “Inigo Montoya syndrome.”

You remember Inigo Montoya, right? The Mandy Patinkin character from “The Princess Bride”? The swordsman who dedicates his life to avenging the death of his father?

OK, everyone, repeat after me:

“Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”

And then he achieves his mission.

What do you do the day after your life’s mission is over?

Win or lose, you have to move on. And for most of us, the option of becoming the Dread Pirate Roberts isn’t on the table the way it is for good ol’ Inigo.

I cannot begin to count all of the state championship events I have covered over the decades. Football, basketball, soccer, volleyball, wrestling, track, cross country, tennis, golf, softball.

For the vast majority of athletes, the end of their season, and in many cases the end of their high school career, comes on a date and at a time that’s certain. I think every high school coach includes the date and time of the state championship game on their preseason calendar.

In so many cases, athletes have told me they don’t want to think of endings before they get to that actual end. They keep those thoughts out of sight and out of mind.

I have come to believe that, for most athletes, the hardest part to deal with, the most difficult part to imagine, is the sense of loss that comes with no longer having the team itself to add structure to their lives.

Season ends. The team disbands. And goodbye is a word you just don’t want to say to people who have become your brothers or sisters in arms.

That may be one of the most universal truths there are: Goodbye never comes easy.

It takes time to make the mental shift to the next goal – the next, well, whatever.

Time heals all wounds, right?

Sometimes it’s exactly that next “whatever” that does the heavy lifting to get you through the inevitable process of having your quest end.

On Monday, I was reminded of how quickly a young athlete can make that process work.

Barely 48 hours after his CV Bears were denied that trip to the Tacoma Dome by Richland, quarterback Grant Hannan was hard at work, zeroing in just outside jump shot and preparing for the Bears’ basketball opener Saturday against Coeur d’Alene.

That’s all – 48 hours.

Impressive. Most impressive.