On Losing, Coping, and the Meaning of This

On two consecutive weekends, Michigan saw an otherwise successful season come to an end with an almost existential abruptness. Seniors--Zack Novak, Stu Douglass, Shawn Hunwick--saw their time as Michigan athletes end on a sour note, an otherwise cheerful classical symphony ending in an out-of-place minor key.

The basketball team spent the time between November and March actualizing the entirety of its potential, doing everything that it could with what relatively little it had to spare. The ride was a nearly ceaseless crescendo, a buildup to something great. It fell apart in the end; the idealism of deserved Fate--of positive outcomes reserved for those who have traversed the darkest corners of the realm of athletic pursuit--was dealt a heavy blow. Is this how it was supposed to end? The curtain falls and you sit in your seat in the dark amphitheater waiting for more, and more never comes. That is all there is. You get up and leave.

The hockey team rolled into the sequestered vacuum that is the NCAA hockey tournament with a shiny #1 seed and a roster that had seemingly experienced the athletic equivalent of a renaissance. Whether by virtue of Jon Merrill's return or survivalist instinct, the latter mirroring the same sort of late-season push we saw last year and the year before, it was breathtakingly automatic, the quintessential example of the sports cliche "flipping the switch." The streak was not only intact, it was as if it had never been in danger. As others more qualified than I can probably corroborate, this wasn't a vintage Michigan team featuring electron virtuosos like T.J. Hensick or top-notch two-way stalwarts like Kevin Porter. And yet, the results speak for themselves.

After Lynch's late equalizer and the remaining time expiring without another goal, it was not difficult to harken back to last year's championship game, in which regulation time ended 2-2 after a late Michigan goal. UMD's first goal bounced just over Hunwick's outstretched pads, the second on a UMD power play, in which a shot in close rebounded almost miraculously onto the UMD attacker's tape for a second point blank opportunity. A Rohrkemper goal tied it late, like Lynch's late goal on Friday; overtime hockey once again. The land of dread. The land of affirmation. Overtime hockey is elaborate, fevered theater. It is a Shakespearean sword fight, each combatant slowing bleeding out his life slash by slash, until one or the other has no more blood to give and thus clutches, spins, and falls.

UMD's final goal came after Michigan had spent most of the early minutes of overtime in its own zone, frantically attempting to catch its breath, to stave off the final blow. A crashing UMD forward, essentially untouched, came through and potted the winning goal. It was over.

Again, Michigan entered the perilous domain of overtime hockey, looking to make its second wind count. Survival was the only instinct playing out at this juncture. At that point, everything else fades away, ancillary to the order of the moment. Overtime hockey is so Darwinian thought set upon the framework of sport.

A rebound and a weak backcheck later and the puck was in the back of the net only a few minutes into the overtime period. Again, it was over, as if someone was repeating a bad joke after it failed to elicit laughter after the first telling. There was nothing Hunwick could do, and the fact that he was mostly helpless makes a bitter end even more difficult to take. After a career filled with save after incomprehensible save, saves that defied the laws of physics and conventional wisdom, it would all naturally end with a sequence beyond his control, one of those moments in which agency is nowhere to be found. The puck didn't care what came before; it went in the wide open net, invited by its stark dimensional reality. The puck was oblivious to history. It always is.

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After these things, there must come some sort of response. Experience gives one the ability to skip certain steps in post-loss processing, insofar as watching sports can inspire feelings of personal "loss." You've got your denial, and it saves you and everybody around you a lot of time and broken household items if you just skip to acceptance.

Single-elimination hockey is Fate neutered, in which the thing that actually happens seems off, askew even, like a picture on the wall that has fallen to either side. A degree off-center. Bizarro. More so than anything else, the NCAA single-elimination format takes Fate, capitalized, and sends it through a grinder and a furnace, in the process revealing that Fate is not really a crystallized absolute but a collection of individual possibilities, flecks of charred, hardened reality. All it is is survival; the fleck that makes it through is the one that is. That's it. It's a little unappealing, isn't it?

But, I think, that's how it is. Whether we're talking about the Big Dance or NCAA hockey, Destiny and Fate--capitalized--are not self-aware. They don't know what the basketball team has been through throughout the span of Zack and Stu's careers, or the fact that the Michigan hockey team was fighting to continue one streak while also trying to vanquish another (i.e., no national titles since 1998). This sort of literal, rationalist thought sort of guts the entire enterprise of collegiate athletics of some of its most idealistic aspects--that things are or aren't meant to be, that people deserve certain things, that outcomes affirm or erase the journey--but I think that's mostly okay. Is that a loser's attitude? I honestly don't know. It may just be white noise in the end.

When I think back on the career of a player like, say, Mike Hart, what comes to me immediately is not the fact that he never beat the Buckeyes or won a national championship. If that's what comes to you then I think our respective worldviews are doomed to never meet at any point.

The way that these two seasons ended was bitter, unfortunate, and for a brief period of time after these games ended, seemingly unfair. The basketball team had its chances; hit even a couple of the many missed layups/bunnies and trade one of those late Burke threes for a possession of actual offense and Michigan probably wins despite being outplayed. The hockey team had its chances. The Wolverines outshot Cornell and had over double the PP opportunities, including 5 in the excruciating second period. Any grievances about the ostensible "randomness" of the whole thing seem to be directed at the game of hockey itself rather than the format of the tournament. The simple fact that Michigan has come away with only two titles throughout this over two decade long stretch of tournament appearances is irrelevant.  These things happen for a reason, and as much as we like to write these losses off as either instances of grand cosmic misfortune or the absurdity that is the single-elimination format, it's all about cold, hard probabilities and inglorious toil. Even with probability and work ethic on one's side, it may not work out, and not for lack of luck. Hockey is often beyond explanation in this way, and by explanation I mean an explanation that is all-inclusive/comprehensive or one that we want to hear, that assuages the pangs of frustration that follow such a loss. Sometimes it bounces this way or that way. Why? It just does, and it does often, so that patterns seem to appear to us even though they do not exist.

Hockey is "close but no cigar" taken to its logical extreme. It is a sport that, in a way, mirrors life: work really hard and you might get you want. Tight defense, shots, PP opportunities...these don't guarantee success. Despite the attempts to distill the essence of sports into verifiable statistics and formulas, it is often just a game of hamfisted probability. Ascribing vague notions of luck or fate to the outcomes of sport or life seems a bit pointless, but the process of coping is, in a way, inherently pointless.

Then again, maybe this is my own way of coping. Maybe looking at the outcome of the Cornell and Ohio games in the way that I am is just my way of distancing myself from the proceedings. I know that I didn't always look at things this way, as if these losses suggest anything more than the fact that, on these days, my team lost because of X, Y, and Z. In light of the Sugar Bowl and all the breathless talk of redemption that accompanied it--from many, including myself--this all might seem a little hypocritical. Maybe. Then again, as sports fans, we often say what benefits us at the time, even when we may claim otherwise in other situations.

What is clear to me is that Shawn Hunwick and all of the other seniors wanted this more than you or I. The same of course applies to Zack and Stu. The level to which they wanted this eclipses yours, rendering your frustration inconsequential by comparison. After the layers of personal frustration and other somewhat selfish (but understandable) reactions are cast away to the ether, all that remains is memory. I've said this many times before and I'll say it again: championships may come or they may not, but the memories that these players give us while representing Michigan are what matter most because they are what endure. While I would have hoped for a better end for Hunwick, Novak, and Douglass, or a victory in The Game for Henne, Hart, and Long, it becomes increasingly immaterial as the years go on.

One day, a young child will be taken to Yost for the first time. A mother or father will be able to tell this child, their child, this tabula rasa of a being, the story of Shawn Hunwick. This story could quite possibly plant the very first inkling of the beauty of sport in this child's head. True to hockey form, it also might not, but there will be another day when another child is told the same story. This will happen again and again until one day, the child finally understands. I truly do not know if being able to tell the tale of a championship once won is worth more or less than that. Let the details come later.

Here Comes the Story of the Hurricane

( HT: Mike Desimone)

It's interesting how such a high profile guy from a "high profile" family has sort of slipped under the radar amidst the winds of change in Schembechler Hall. Tate Forcier was not without his flaws, but he was a Wolverine (often times a great one), and he has chosen, like his brothers before him, to take his talents elsewhere. While I do not wish to imply that this is a debilitating loss in any way other than the quarterback depth perspective for next season, Tate was perhaps the most controversial, and, dare I say it, definitive figure of the RR era and it's collapse. No offense to Steven Threet, but this transfer is an entirely different beast. At least the weather will be nice.

And so we sit in the doldrums of the dreaded offseason with too much time to think about things. Why was Kenny Demens consistently lined up so close to the line? Why did the coaching staff pretend that Craig Roh could be anything but an end? Why did Tate Forcier ultimately decide that Ann Arbor was not for him anymore (and, let's be honest, thoughts of leaving were likely in his head even before the academic troubles)?


What went wrong?


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Put him in a prison cell but one time he coulda been
The champion of the world 




You might posit that the answers to that question are fairly obvious. His dubious commitment to academics, Denard's Great Leap Forward, and even his cursed 2009 shoulder all did him in in a series of blows coming from outside and within. These are all true, and yet, I still see a Michigan offense being effectively led by Tate Forcier. In any case, that will not happen. All we have available to us is the tragic rise and fall of a young man who reached the top likely far sooner that he would have wanted, only to begin a long, slow decline reminiscent of the former Ottoman Empire, the so called Sick Man of Europe.


The Rise


We all remember it fondly. Emerging from the destruction and sorrow that was the 2008 season was one Tate Forcier, whose talents and aura has been hyped up for many months, on the heels of his recruitment and early enrollment. By the Western Michigan game, he wasn't the typical freshman who comes in in August, thrown to the fire and asked to enter games here and there against teams with players several years older and many pounds heavier. He was still small and physically underdeveloped, but he was full of GRIT and MOXIE, like a quarterbacking doppleganger of Zack Novak. After a season of superior talent losing to vastly inferior or comparable teams, and a season of unmentionable anarchy, this was a welcome change. Sadly, when I think of these aforementioned traits, I think of Troy Smith in 2005 driving down the field, avoiding the rush to find Anthony Gonzalez down the field, delivering the penultimate blow and completing the comeback. The rise of Tate was all of that...for a while.

Any discussion of Tate Forcier begins and ends with the 2009 Notre Dame game. While Notre Dame was certainly not an elite squad, the importance of the game at the time holds fast. It was a game that Michigan needed, much like Michigan needed the 2010 Notre Dame game in South Bend. Then again, it is historically accurate that Michigan "needs" to win every Notre Dame game to have a good season. It is the first step, the gateway to greater things. Upon reaching this gate, Tate Forcier juked the Cover 0 and kick flipped over and beyond it like Bart Simpson in his most mischievous state.

And the rest is history. I still remember seeing images of Tate and Coach Rod after the game, and it seemed that everything was alright for the first time in a while. They were, to use a hackneyed expression, on the same page, and the brilliant offensive mind that Rich Rodriguez had brought to Ann Arbor has seemingly been infused in the skull of this young man from California. Whereas pat White executed methodically and quickly, each read option like a blitzkrieg of moving parts, Tate Forcier did it in his own way. Sometimes he scrambled for too long, taking sacks and causing a general pulling of hair and gnashing of teeth. Then, on the very next play, with no intention of changing his overall raison d'etre, he'd scramble and hit the open man. He'd often take the most unorthodox path, zig-zagging, going bckwards, almost falling and taking another sack like a drunken bumblebee. Then it would all come together, as if to say "Hey guys, this was my plan all along. I've got this."

For a second it reminded me of Johnny's bittersweet musings on Michael Hart:

A few seconds after Minor fumbled they showed Mike walking up the sideline with his helmet in his hand, and this “I’ll handle it,” look on his face. Like he’d done it before and he almost wanted to laugh because he was about to do it again. Maybe he was hurt, maybe he wasn’t. But he ran for 115 yards in the fourth quarter and had the guts to talk to us after it was all over.

Only this time it was different. While Mike's drive to put the team on his back was relentless and full of angst and rage and desperation, Tate's was free-wheeling and weightless, as if all this didn't matter but hey we might as we'll win while we're here. We had the golden boy, the one that the media would fawn over and talk about in a Favre-esque sense (whether you think that is a good or bad thing is obviously up for debate). It seemed that  the good will of the universe was on our side for the first time in a while. I don't think that, even after the Notre Dame win, anybody expected to go undefeated (or even win the Big Ten), but we all thought we'd have a chance if things kept going the way that they were up to that point.

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The Fall





It all happened so suddenly. In one triumphant moment, the seeds of the end were sown.

It was a Pyhrric victory. We got the win, but at a cost. He was never the same for the rest of the season, like a prized horse trying to go on a gimpy leg. It is probably convenient to cite this as one of the reasons for the fall and not, for example, the upswing in the level of competition as the season went on, but, as I said, there are many reasons for how the Tate Forcier era came and went in a flash and a cloud of smoke.


The season went on and we all know what happened. The Iowa game engendered the beginnings of the Legend of Denard, and Tate's struggles in the OSU game opened the door for legitimate competition for the position in 2010.

From that point until the news of his academic issues, it is unclear what really transpired. The offseason came and went, and Devin Gardner took the field when Denard took his standard snap or two off each game due to injury. He didn't work as hard as Denard in the offseason, his attitude had gone sour...who knows. All we have is what goes into the box and what comes out, and what came out was a bitter, immature shell of what we saw the year before when he was on top of the world.

Illinois came to town and we were returned to familiar feelings. With Denard out, Tate was asked to lead the team once again, having regained the good will of Coach Rod after a tumultous offseason. And, like the 2009 ND game, he did not disappoint.

Even then, it was clear that Denard was the man. Even the above interaction between RR and Tate is a shadowy outline of their embrace following the 2009 ND game. Like Napoleon's Hundred Days, Tate was once again exiled to second string shortly thereafter. There was still hope for Tate as a Wolverine, but as a leader of the team?

Now we have our answer. His immaturity, repressed by praise and adulation circa 2009, emerged. He was no longer a Wolverine, and then he definitively distanced himself from Ann Arbor by taking his talents to Coral Gables. Despite it all, I see a Michigan team led by Tate Forcier--a new, mature, better Tate--in some alternate universe that exists only in the minds of the optimistic (or the delusional), a world where Crable takes the inside guy and Demar Dorsey enforces a No Fly Zone with aplomb over the Ann Arbor skies. Like the RR era, it was not meant to be, and like the RR era, it was a case of what could've been.

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What is there to say other than "good luck, Tate?" If the career arc of Tate Forcier tells us anything, it is that the great can rise and fall in the span of a blink of an eye, that greatness and longevity are not given let alone assured. He was bred to be a quarterback from the beginning, from when he was a bright-eyed tyke to a cocky free-styling high schooler. Yet, as we all know, college football, the game we all love, doesn't care about what you did before. It takes all your accomplishments and shreds them, pointing to the Big House as if to say you're not the first to come through this place.

As fans, we can only say that to take things for granted is foolish. Very few players ever achieve the brief success that Tate did in his short reign as the leader of the Michigan offense. His penchant for the miraculous and unplanned maneuvering will not soon be forgotten. Even the selflessness he displayed in 2010, trying his best to cage the inner drive to be the man despite the existence of Denard (and even Devin), while also winning us the Illinois game, will always be something that I'll remember. While his nature (i.e., being a 20 year-old kid) did him in in the end, he could've left a while ago, like many often do when put in his situation. The rise and fall of Tate Forcier was swift and not necessarily unwritten for quite some time, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating. Despite the way he went out, I hope that he will be remembered for what he did and not for what he didn't do.

That's the story of the Hurricane
But it won't be over till they clear his name
And give him back the time he's done