For Demons, a season of grit
For the Santa Fe High Demons football team, this season will be with them always. There was the beginning, with a hint of hope that a losing streak could be ending and that winning might become part of the equation. With a new coach and independent status, the Demons were ready to turn over a new leaf.
Then reality set in, with a season opener blowout at the hands of St. Michael’s High School, a few within-reach games, continued losses and then, on Friday during Homecoming, an embarrassing defeat at the hands of a high school with about one-15th the student enrollment of Santa Fe High School. The losing streak stands at 32 games.
This week, the Demons face Clovis High School, a perennial powerhouse limping along with a 3-4 record this year. Not an easy team — even if weaker than usual — to defeat. But the Demons won’t give up; the team hasn’t quit all season. Under new Coach Andrew Martinez, the boys will be back on the field in an attempt to notch the first high school football victory many of them will know. And if that fails, there’s always next year.
The grit of this Demons team is what matters. Not the winning. Not even the losing. No, it’s the spectacle of a group of boys getting back up each and every week and trying again (even in a much-maligned sport, and deservedly so, considering the startling numbers on concussions and head injuries).
These boys take the field, play hard, lose and then have to face their classmates every Monday, this time after losing 39-6 to a much smaller school. Until the game on Friday night (which lasted into Saturday because of a three-hour delay after the Escalante team was stuck in traffic) no team from the smallest classification, 2A in New Mexico, had beaten a team from 6A. The Santa Fe High Demons made the kind of history no team wants to claim.
Yet in that reality, there remains a sort of grace, the lingering feeling that the effort of this team is meaningful. Accomplishment. Perseverance. Toughness. It is easy to bask in the glow of winning. It is easy to quit when losing is hard. But to practice, to play and to strive — and still lose — and to get back out there? Such a season forms character.
This is a team that is giving its all, under trying circumstances, when giving up must seem so inviting. To the Demons, their coaches, family and all who support them, we are proud of you. Green Bay Packers Coach Vince Lombardi was wrong when he uttered his famous (and borrowed) quotation: “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”
Not even close.