Sometime this week a dozen or so players will show up for practice and find their equipment gathered in large plastic bags. For some it will be the most devastating moment of their lives. The message will be silent but clear: "You’ve been cut."
By NCAA rules, teams can only invite 105 players to fall camp, which starts August 3rd, and because the team carries closer to 120 players during spring and summer, a dozen or so players receive the dark news toward the end of each July.
For most, it will be the last time they ever set foot in a locker room as a football player. It will be the end of a lifelong dream. At that moment, they will be fans, spectators, former players. Yes, a few will be invited to play on the scout team, but for most, it’ll be the end of the rainbow.
The loss and devastation at this moment cannot really be described. Players and coaches go out of their way to avoid seeing it. Some young men cry. Some get physically sick. Others numbly pick up their garbage bag and walk back through the corridor, open the large double doors, and go out into the rest of their lives. It is a walk they will not want to remember—the darkest moment of one of the darkest days of their lives.
One wonders if there isn’t some way to alleviate the pain, to help them carry this unjust load, this unfathomably heavy grief. If there is, no coach has found it yet. This is an absolutely personal and solitary loss. Though families and friends will feel accompanying sorrow, it is a moment when each young man will have to stand on his own and apply the lessons he has learned in countless drills—to suck it up, to bury the pain, to stand proud even in defeat. But in many cases, the lessons of the tough getting tougher will seem hollow, and tears will flow, sobs will stick in throats, and massive legs will suddenly grow weak.
It’s the end of the line, the final cut, and no amount of coaching or commiserating or repeated platitudes will help. In silence they will suffer, and though the world and its raucous mayhem will continue to spin around them, only a vacuum of silence remains in their broken hearts.
Each year, during the last week of July, ten to fifteen very good athletes are shattered with the news that they are not good enough, not needed, not invited back. In some cases, these are players who have vied for starting jobs, who have endured surgeries and painful rehabilitations but may not have come back to full form. In some cases they will look around and see scholarship athletes who are not as good as they are but who are protected by a precious piece of paper. In each case, the former player will suddenly learn a lesson no coach could teach on the field—that football, for all its pomp and glory, can be just as painful and unjust as the meanest tyrant. Football, it turns out, can be just like life.
To those cut this week, I say: "Well done, and thank you for the blood and service you gave. Thank you for the grief you now bear. Thank you for reaching for that unreachable star. And welcome back to our sides in the stands. When we cheer for the team, we mean you too."
6 comments:
This article is beautifully written. It gives us a perspective on an aspect of the game that few of us (or any I would guess) have ever thought about.
Thanks!
I agree; nice writing. However I think it should be very, very uncommon that someone gets cut from the team who is better than a scholarship player. We have a great walk-on program and I would think such a player wouldn't get cut. Under Bronco's rules they will get playing time and could even earn a scholarship in the future.
Ouch! Cruiser, you brought me off my fall camp high. I empathize with the guys who bleed blue and give all they have for a shot to don the oval Y. Sometimes we lose sight of how elite the athletes are at this level. For every Ben Criddle, there's got to be a dozen guys that fall short.
Even though Mendenhall is big on walk-ons, there's only a certain number of players allowed by the NCAA in fall camp. Sometimes the number of skilled walk-ons exceeds the number that the team can keep by rule.
I think you need a cooler header.
Looks like some cuts have been made. Some time between June 8 and today, the roster on the BYU website went from 101 to 81 players (making room for the incoming freshmen). Some that no longer appear include: Jeff Sorensen, Parker Mangum, Shane Monson, Jace Bramwell, Ryan Folsom, Matt Winn, David Foote, Evan Kleinhenz, Jeff Fisher, Jamison Fitt, Zed Mendenhall, Franco Improta, Ryan Freeman, Jordan Richardson, Andrew Beck, Sarat Rimal, Brock Hansen, Ben Poole, Kalama Kaluhiokalani, and Romney Fuga. We'll see if these were indeed those who were cut. We feel for you, men! Join us on the sidelines! Go Cougars!
I know for a fact about half of those are on missions. The rest... Best of luck!
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