By Bob Hertzel
For the Times West Virginian
MORGANTOWN —
As the beginning of West Virginia’s football camp draws closer and closer, now just a couple of weeks away, the time has come to begin thinking about just what this football thing is all about.
That is a deeper subject than you may give it credit for being, for those who believe football is just a game also believe that Ben & Jerry’s is just an ice cream and Jimmy John’s is just a sandwich shop.
Football is many things, and a game is almost the least important part of it. Without getting into it too deeply, it is a test of man against man and a test of man against himself, a gut check and, at the same time, an intelligence test.
It is not life itself but it well may be the closest thing we have come up with to imitate it.
See the season is its own universe, the game the challenges that life itself presents and the team … ah, the team, that is the family unit, with coaches in the parental roles and teammates making up the brotherhood to which the players belong.
A couple of weeks ago the veteran defensive line coach Bill Kirelawich was discussing the society that is a team, which he believes is what separates football from so many other endeavors, especially sports that are individual in nature.
Kirelawich admitted that he enjoyed such games as golf and tennis, but they lacked the infrastructure that makes team sports different and that is magnified with what football teams must go through year round.
“It is,” Kirelawich said, as only he can, “like going to a movie alone.”
After giving his listener a moment to think about that and let it sink in, he continued.
“You know how it is, you really like the movie and you want to nudge the guy next to you in the ribs at the good parts, but there’s no one there. You want to talk to someone about it when it’s over, but there’s no one to talk to.”
Indeed, you are busting to talk about that moment when Rocky said, “Cut me!” but you find there’s no one to listen. It is an empty feeling, one you do not have in a football locker room when things are going good or, more importantly, when things are going badly.
Unlike in most sports, football teams are stressed daily in practice, pushed to limits they don’t see even in games, challenged with the daunting task of running the stadium steps or losing their position or simply trying to physically beat someone who is physically better than they are.
Their very belief in themselves is challenged and so many emotions are stretched and reshaped that one person alone can’t endure it. He needs his teammates, just as they need him.
“A brotherhood is a good way to put it,” offensive lineman Eric Jobe said. “I’m with these guys every single day, running, we’re exhausted. We’re there for each other. We have their back, they have our back. We can do just about everything.”
This team thing is a fraternity with a never-ending plebe year.
In a fraternity, the idea of hazing is to bring the freshman class together, to form them into one, much the same as basic training does with a military unit.
Football is a game that you can’t play alone and that you can’t win if there is no glue to bond the brotherhood.
“It’s knowing you don’t have to do it all by yourself. You always have 10 other guys out there with you. You don’t have to worry about doing it yourself,” senior nose guard Chris Neild said. “When you feel that way, when you know you have guys behind you, you don’t have that much to worry about.”
When things are going well, this isn’t as important as it may seem. It’s when things are at their lowest that you need each other the most.
This can be evidenced over the past few years, how this brotherhood concept builds strength in the entire unit.
Three years ago WVU sat on the doorstep of the national championship game, only to have Pitt rip it from their grasp and then have their coach walk out on them. They distressed, distraught and dismayed, but because they had each other and a coach in Bill Stewart capable of bringing them closer together than they had ever been they survived.
They went on to beat an Oklahoma team that seemed invincible at that moment and rescued the program.
Then last year, after pulling a stunning, last-second victory over that same Pitt rival, they were riding high, went into a bowl game expecting to face no adversity, perhaps leading to a lack of the glue that had carried it through its rough times, and lost to a inferior Florida State team that was drawn together by winning one final game for its retiring coach.
Building that brotherhood is what this summer has all been about and what training camp will be dedicated to, for if they can recapture that feeling before the Oklahoma game and keep it this could be a memorable season.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
