Nov. 28, 2005
SAN DIEGO - By Head Coach Dr. Mike Giuliano
It's been three weeks, so I feel like I can talk about it now without going completely bonkers.
Three weeks ago, I took my very talented but very young SDSU women's soccer team to the Mountain West Conference Tournament in Las Vegas. At stake was an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. After shocking the No. 12 team in the nation (BYU) in the quarterfinals, my team prepared to take on the host Rebels of UNLV. It would turn out to be a game, and a night, that I will never forget.
With 1 minute and 47 seconds left in the game, the score was SDSU 1, UNLV 0.
After one minute of overtime, the score was UNLV 2, SDSU 1. It was the most heartbreaking three minutes of my coaching career. Just like that, our season was over.
I didn't sleep that night. I kept replaying each and every coaching decision in my mind. I kept thinking how we dominated the game with a 13 to 6 shot advantage. I kept trying to convince myself that this was all a "too much late night food" induced nightmare, and I would wake up and it would still be the night of the BYU victory.
It was a nightmare, but not one of the illusionary type. But now it's three weeks later, and somewhere deep down in the pit of my being, I know that such a defeat is one of the great gifts that athletic competition offers us.
When I left my former college to take the SDSU soccer job, I also left 23 years as a classroom teacher. The question I heard the most was "how can you leave the teaching profession?" And my standard answer was "I'm not leaving the teaching profession. I'm simply trading the classroom for an even more dynamic educational environment."
I really do believe that. As many others have pointed out, "athletic competition allows you to practice dealing with life's most difficult situations, in an environment where the stakes are relatively small." We didn't lose a loved one on that field in Vegas. We didn't fight a war. But we did have to deal with a loss that came at us from behind, knocked us over, and laughed as it left us bloodied and bruised. We had worked for a year to get to this point, and now it was over in less than three minutes. We had to learn how to deal with that.
At times, teams that I have coached have known what it feels like to stand on the mountaintop. Four times in five years, my team won the Collegiate National Championship in their division. I truly believe that one day, my Aztec team will stand alone on top of the Division I soccer world. But for now, we must be content with the fact that we were thrust into the dark side of competition, and in that darkness, we learned something about ourselves. We learned something about life - it goes on, even after tough times. And even in those tough times, there is plenty to cherish and plenty to embrace.
That's the true value of sport, how it enriches our dance with real life. It won't be the last shocking loss in my players' lives. But maybe, just maybe, they learned just a little more about how to handle pain and heartbreak, and how to just keep going until time does its magic and life returns to a bit of normalcy.
Soon, I hope they will have to learn the challenge of displaying humility and class while standing on top of the soccer world. But that moment will have to wait, at least for another year. For now, we had a mandatory appearance in the classroom of defeat. And if we learned our lessons well, it will make that future mountaintop experience just that much sweeter!