Growing up, everybody had this teacher they hated. You just knew from listening to the older kids that if you got said teacher, that year was going to be a nightmare.
But the further removed you got from that year, the more you realized that teacher was the best you ever had, pushed you to be better.
For me it was Mrs. Harter, an English teacher that made us memorize the Gettysburg Address and then recite it in front of the class, sans notes. To this day I still know most of it, but it takes some help.
One thing I haven't forgotten was this poem we had to learn that year. Right now, more than 15 years since I first heard it, I still know it. A photocopy of it sits next to my desk and always will.
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you is how Rudyard Kipling's "If" begins. Still love it, still one of the top five things I've ever read.
And every now and then I watch a sporting event and it takes me right back to that poem. There are moments in games, especially in big games, when things swing. It's the tipping point where whichever team stands up -- keeps its head -- will be victorious.
That brings us to last Saturday, to a drizzly football field in Schenectady, N.Y., where the Liberty League title hung in the balance.
On one side was Union, a thoroughbred in Division III football, with two NCAA playoff appearances in the last three years. On the other side was Susquehanna, a program trying to find its way back after a lengthy slump, with eight wins in the same three-year period.
Here they were, slugging it out for the league title -- something that had eluded Susquehanna for a decade -- like two prize fighters. Whatever one team did, the other had an answer.
Until the tipping point.
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you ...
The fourth quarter is when the cream rises. A team either has it or it doesn't, and Susquehanna coach Steve Briggs was pretty sure his team did.
"In the hotel the night before the game, you could see they were ready," he said. "There was just this calm about them. They were very focused and very confident."
They trusted themselves, and their teammates, that when the chips were down they were going to make plays. And they did.
Don't know if I've ever seen a team play a better fourth quarter when it mattered as much as it did last Saturday as the one SU played. It was nearly perfect.
Every phase, offense, defense and special teams, were stellar when the chips were down.
Senior tailback Dave Paveletz, who has carried the program on his back for four seasons, did it one more time. After carrying the ball 20 times for 68 yards in the first 45 minutes, Paveletz carried the ball eight times for 48 yards in the final 15. On his 25th carry, the 999th of his stellar career, Paveletz broke free for a 25-yard TD that iced the game.
Defensively, seniors Marc McDonough and Pete Johnson were unblockable. Classmate Justin Young came up with an interception in the end zone, and a defense that got shoved around for the first two quarters did the pushing.
The Crusaders were also tremendous in the kicking game, getting two decent punt returns to change field position while All-American punter Bobby Eppleman kept the Dutchmen pinned deep.
"We played a great, great fourth quarter," said Briggs. "We shut them down defensively, our kicking game was really good, and we chewed up the clock. That's how you script a game like that."
It's how you become a champion. Or in Kipling's words, a man.
If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run, yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, and -- which is more -- you'll be a man, my son.
n Sports editor Bill Bowman covers college sports for The Daily Item. E-mail comments to bbowman@dailyitem.com
