Learning a lesson from high school football

The more I listen to the flap being raised by the Clinton camp over the seating of Florida's and Michigan's delegates, which were originally stripped by the DNC for violating the party's scheduling rules, the more I am reminded of a painful memory from my childhood in suburban Texas. If you've never been to Texas, or never seen a movie or TV show about the state, you may not be able to appreciate how important football is to our population. It's the air we breathe, the water that quenches our thirst ... in short, it means the world to us.

Every year, my high school's football team engages in a battle with our cross-town rival, the winner able to claim, for the next year, the privilege of "The Axe", a sort of traveling trophy awarded to which ever team comes out on top in each year's match up. To put this rivalry in perspective, it wasn't just about football. We were the "old school", our rivals, the "new". Our town was populated mostly by the lower-middle-class. Their town was wall-to-wall wealthy. We were Democrats. They were Republicans. Our moms worked, theirs stayed at home. The disdain with which they treated us was palpable. They vandalized our school grounds, burning their big "M" in the middle of our football field. It wasn't just a clash on the football field, it was a clash between ways of life. We took it seriously.

When I was still in middle school, I began attending the high school football games, and one year, things went horribly, horribly wrong for my team. In those days (I sound old now, don't I), overtime was reserved for those games with playoff implications. If the playoff seeds were set, then the game would be allowed to end in a tie. But for the purposes of the coveted "Axe", a winner (and loser) had to be determined. In this particular game, overtime wasn't an option, so the coaches had to agree, before kickoff, on a plan to settle a tie, in the unlikely even such a thing would occur. The teams settled on a solution: if the game ended in a tie, which ever team has earned the most first downs would claim victory.

You can obviously tell how this story ends: the game was fought to a 21-21 tie. When the clock finally hit zero, our coach walked out onto the field, shook hands with the opposing coach, and handed him the Axe. They had earned 17 first downs to our team's 14. They had won. We couldn't know then it would be just the first of four consecutive wins for our hated rivals. As my dad and I were filing out of the stands, dejected and disappointed, I said to him, "This is crazy! The team with fewer first downs should win, since it means they took fewer plays to reach the same score! That's clearly the mark of the better team."

Apparently, some in the press agreed with me, because our coach took no end of grief from the local punditry, complaining loudly that he should have protested the decision to award the game to the other team. The coach said simply, "You can't protest when the rules you agreed to don't work out in your favor." I never forgot that.

It's the same principle I apply when eating at a restaurant. Sometimes I like to try new things, and once in a while, I order something and end up hating it. I'm often told by those with me, "Hey, send it back. Tell them you want something else." But I look at this way: I got what I ordered. It's not the cook's fault if it turns out I don't like it. The fact is, we rarely are afforded a glimpse of the consequences of our decisions, but that doesn't make the consequences any less real.

What's sad, though, is that sometimes we know exactly what the result of our decision will be, and even then, some among us feel it's okay to whine and cry about how unfair the whole world is for making us accept responsibility for our choices. This is where Clinton and her supporters fall. They knew the rules of the game when they suited up and stepped on the field, and now that they've lost, all you hear is "If the rules were different, she would've won. *sob* It's so unfair. *cry*" (By the way, have you noticed how Obama's supporters aren't crying that only 10 days ago, Puerto Rico decided to hold a primary instead of the originally-scheduled caucus just because they wanted to boost turnout for Clinton?) "If the Democratic primaries were winner take all ..." "If only big states counted ..." "If there weren't caucuses ..." "If the popular vote dictated the nominee ..."

Yeah. And if our coach hadn't agreed to the stupid "Whoever gets the most first downs" rule, who knows how things would've turned out? But he did agree to it, and at least he was mature enough to live with his decision.