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CARY— The wounds are still fresh for Michael Gomez.
The soreness in his muscles is beginning to fade. The two-inch gash that traces his right, middle knuckle is just starting to scab over.
But just over two weeks after Cary-Grove’s loss in the Class 7A state championship game to Providence, the scars you don’t see are the ones that sting the most.
At 6-foot-1 and 270 pounds, Gomez is arguably the most fearsome player on the Trojans’ football team, yet the senior lineman is not afraid to show emotion. After beating Libertyville in the semifinals, the rest of the team celebrated while Gomez wept, telling them “This is not our goal. Our goal is to freaking win it. Take it all.”
But after the championship loss, when tears ran down most of his teammates’ cheeks, Gomez stood stone-faced on the stage, refusing to touch the second place trophy.
“Honestly, I was so angry I couldn’t cry,” he said. “I was just so mad that I couldn’t cry.”
At the moment, state championship games feel like they mean everything for an athlete. But later in life, the impact of winning or losing a title game can diminish.
For Gomez, the tears came later, when he was watching it again with some teammates the day after the game.
Gomez stayed home from school on the Monday after the game. He watched the game film about a dozen times, studying it like a coach preparing for a rematch — a rematch that will never come.
“We all go through the what ifs,” he said. “You can’t change it, but…”
Gomez trailed off, leaving his sentence unfinished.
What if the Trojans had scored on their first possession of the second half, he wonders? What if he had pulled Providence running back Richie Warfield down in the end zone for a safety? What if he had stopped Warfield on third and 9 before his 44-yard touchdown run seal the game?
During the first 13 dominant games, the Trojans outscored opponents by an average of 32 points per game to earn their fourth trip to the state championship in 11 seasons. Wins came easily. Now the hard part: dealing with the lone blemish in an otherwise perfect season.
***
The seniors on the 2012 state runner-up team know the feeling.
They remember watching the final seconds ticking off the clock and realizing it was not just counting down to the end of the game, but also to the end of their time as Cary-Grove football players. Thoughts of all four years of high school, lifting, speed and agilities, two-a-days flooded back.
“It was probably the worst I had ever felt in my entire life,” 2012 wing back Ryan Mahoney said. “I felt like I let down the community, myself, my teammates, my coaches. It was an awful feeling.
“All you ever wanted was to win a state championship. And then it’s over.”
Those memories have stuck with the team, even two years later. Every time they’re together during breaks from college, they see old teammates and relive it all.
Quinn Baker, the quarterback of the 2012 team, thinks about the bad parts of the 33-26 Class 6A title game loss to Crete-Monee more than the good — the fumbles, the interceptions, the missed opportunities.
And he still thinks about the final possession, getting the ball back with one last shot to tie the game. A running play got stuffed. Then, he chucked two long pass attempts.
He imagines himself completing one of those passes and engineering a comeback.
“In my experience,” Baker said. “I think the loss lingers with you more than the win would.”
The “what ifs” remain. But, in time, the sting of the loss fades. The players begin to appreciate their accomplishments.
“Not everybody had the chance to go down and play for a state championship,” 2012 safety-wide receiver Zach Marszal said. “There have been plenty of Cary-Grove teams that wish they could have gotten to that point. It’s just about recognizing the type of year you had and they type of fan support you had from the community.”
In a weird way, the loss has helped Quinn to value his entire football experience. He remembers everything — even the weather— from all of the games leading up to the championship.
His advice to this year’s team is to do the same.
"Come to terms with it and find the time to realize that it was such a good experience," he said. "Don't linger exactly on the loss, but remember every part leading up to it. And even the game.”
Nostalgia will sink in.
“It’s the worst and best thing that ever happened to you,” Mahoney said. “Honestly.”
***
A quiet bus ride home has accompanied each of Cary-Grove’s trips to the state tournament. The lone exception was 2009.
The 2014 seniors remember watching each game that season and dreaming about their chance. Now, five years later, the roles were reversed. The younger athletes walked two-by-two onto the field, while Eric Chandler, the fullback of the 2009 team, cheered from the stands.
When the sea of white screamed out the “I believe” chant before the game, Chandler bellowed out every word, certain history would repeat itself, that Cary-Grove would again beat Providence, the same school he had in 2009.
When Cary-Grove went to the half with a 17-14 lead, the same exactly halftime score as the 2009 game, he was sure of it. The players on the field would get a ring, just like the one he wore in the stands on his pinky finger. The same diamonds that glistened from the Trojan head. The same “14-0” on the side to denote a perfect season.
When the rings were made, the state champion team got out of class to pick them up. Chandler wore it each Sunday to church and then to graduation parties that summer.
But as the years passed, Chandler wore it infrequently. Then, almost never. It found a home on his bedside table.
When he slipped it onto his right ring finger before this year’s title game, it got stuck around his knuckle, like a middle-aged man trying to slip into an old pair of jeans. It didn’t fit.
“It kind of shows what a couple years will do to you,” Chandler laughed.
“That’s pretty much a symbol of what it is,” said Alex Hembry, one of Chandler’s closest friends from the 2009 team. “You kind of grow out of it .... It’s a great accomplishment at the time and it still is looking back on it. We’re proud of ourselves. But we’re more proud to be Cary-Grove Trojans than anything.”
Just as the players who fell short think about the plays that went wrong, the ones from the 2009 team think about the few plays that won them the game. They look back at a critical fourth down and realize how slim the margin of victory is.
“(Before the game), I would have said if we would have lost, it would have changed my life. It would have been detrimental to the season and the season would have been a complete loss,” Chandler said. “But being out five years now, I would say that the difference between winning and losing that game is pretty minimal.”
***
Gomez might not feel that way just yet. When he finally went to turn in his pads the Monday after the state title game, he said reality hit him hardest. He broke down on the ride home and throughout he was going to wreck his car. Now, every time he sees his teammates in the hall, his mind races back to the title game.
It’s a process, but he’s getting there.
“Even though it is second and it is not what we wanted, I wouldn’t trade it for anything else because it’s the best season and the best experience of my entire life,” he said. “I made so many friends. I would never trade it for anything.”
So while Gomez stood in the locker room at halftime and told his teammate “24 minutes for the rest of our lives,” the former players — the ones who won and the ones who lost — will tell you the pride of a victory wanes. The pain of losing subsides.
The scars heal.