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| Community should take pride in football team |
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| Sports | |||
| Written by Gene Morris | |||
| Wednesday, 25 November 2009 08:00 | |||
Life itself is a game. One that is much more important than sports. Yes, even high school football.  I think that point has hit home a few times over the years. Paola Panther coach Michael Dumpert assured his football team the sun would rise again, despite the finality of its loss to the Bishop Miege Stags on Friday night. Football, however, did offer some valuable life lessons. No matter how hard one works, there is no guarantee of victory. And, like it or not, loss is something we will all suffer. Leaving the cleat-treaded soil of the Panther Stadium field for the last time this season, I was moved by a couple of things. I always follow the players into the locker room, and ahead of me were seniors Brint Hastert and Jesse Smail. Both were holding their heads up high — as they should. Greeting them on either sides of the pad set down for players to cross the track on, were two lines of Paola Panther fans. Young and old alike stood along the track, applauding the Paola football players. This was a fitting send off for a team which gave fans so much to cheer about all season. I think sometimes Paola football fans get a little spoiled by these annual long runs in the state playoffs. It is easy to forget how much work goes into coming this far, what the kids and coaches have invested. Maybe that’s because many of us fans are sleeping in when the team is lifting weights on Saturday morning, watching a movie while the team is getting rained on for a late afternoon practice or simply sitting in the stands while the players are in the trenches battling someone who wants to win just as much as they do. Just because the Panthers have made so many trips into the playoffs does not make any of them less meaningful, less memorable or less special. Paola advanced farther than 60 other teams did in Class 4A this season. It was the sixth final four appearance in the history of the Paola Panther football program. Only four teams have gone farther than the 2009 Panthers in the history of the Paola football program: the 1984 state championship team, the 1987 state runner-up team, the 1994 state champions and the 2006 state runner-up team. Friday night hurt. When you put that much into chasing after a dream and come up short, it is painful. There was, however, no shame in it. The players on this team should hold their heads up high. They left it on the football field. What should be remembered from the 2009 Paola Panther football season is not this one game, but the string of five victories in six games which brought the program to within one game of playing for the state title again. The players in that locker room came together this season and did some great things as a football team. No one can take that away from them. This community should be proud of what these young men have accomplished and, more importantly, the way in which they went about representing their community, their high school and themselves on the football field.
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