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FORD MADIGAN

Confetti fell around me, landing on my shoulders, my hair, sticking to the sweat on the back of my neck.

My entire body was spent, tired, aching.

But none of it compared to the pain in my chest.

Because while everyone celebrated around me, cheering the other team’s win at the biggest game in the world, I’d lost.

We’d lost.

My team had gotten close enough to taste the trophy.

To see the end zone.

To feel the win.

The win that my team worked our entire careers to get. That I dreamed of, my whole life, playing high school ball in secondhand cleats.

But we didn’t go all the way.

Because I threw an interception when we needed my best.

So I sat here, on the empty bench, a loser on football’s biggest stage.

And I promised myself: I would never feel this way again.