It is challenging to put a season to rest, let alone in perspective, the morning after a disheartening defeat.
If I was in a daze after a frantic 22-point comeback at the Big Sky Conference Championship Tournament, I was even more reflective sitting courtside at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif., after the Grizzlies first-round loss to New Mexico.
It wasn’t even really about the loss – almost every season, after all, ends in defeat – or even the sudden culmination of a 32-game season; it was more the finality to the preparation that leads to the playing of the games of youth that always leaves me aghast when it comes crashing to an end after nearly seven months.
While I said little as I jotted notes for this column about my impressions, and gazed out the window on the short bus ride back to the hotel, I pinched myself. Another remarkable season had come to a close.
Exiting at the Doubletree I breathed just a slight sigh of relief knowing that travel was just about completed for another season. Waking in a hotel room not knowing what city I was in or what I was doing there was done. Producing a daily radio program was finished and hosting weekly coach’s shows, pre-game, halftime and post-game interviews are now put aside.
Hey, but wait a minute, I’m not ready.
After all, that’s what I have been doing for 25 years and I’m already bored that I have but one more program to handle.
And walking into the hotel lobby to the thunderous applause of family and friends who greeted the vanquished Grizzlies on their return, while enjoying the repartee and well wishers, I was swept back to the reality that I’d seen the four UM seniors in uniform for the last time.
The quartet of Anthony Johnson, Ryan Staudacher, Jack McGillis and Vassy Banny in different ways contributed so much to the success of the UM program during their two to four years in Missoula. And it is so fitting that their departure was marked by a visit to the NCAA Tournament for just the eighth time in the program’s history.
You’ve already read the statistics and know about many their accomplishments, so you don’t need me to tell you about that.
But what you may not know, if you are not close to the program and view it from afar, is what an outstanding job the seniors and the entire Grizzly contingent did representing first of all you – whether you are a basketball fan – themselves, their school and the state.
They are a kind, considerate, respectful group who carried the UM banner high and did it with joyful charisma, but also with humility.
To be around them was a joy and you could sense, even oftentimes outwardly, how they genuinely cared about their teammates, coaches and everyone they encountered from a bus driver, a room attendant or other service personnel to other team’s fans.
When I walked through the first-class section where many of them were seated on the charter plane return to Missoula, I smiled to myself, like an old guy (say veteran) is entitled to do, but I felt a sense of melancholy that they soon will leave the University of Montana where they were prepared to make their mark in the world in the endeavor of their choosing.
While I’m sad to see them go, I’m extremely joyful that I had the opportunity to spend a bit of both of our lives together and will cherish the memories.
And let the good times roll. Spring football already is upon us.