Victors Were Driven to Play

Not only did Colorado College play at Pomona-Pitzer Saturday in a matchup of Division III football independents, Colorado went out of its way to play. Unable to make plane arrangements because of this week’s shutdown of U.S. airports, Colorado players and coaches bused to the game.

The trip took 19 hours. The Tigers left Colorado Springs Thursday, spent the night in Gallup, N.M., then left at dawn Friday for Southern California. Colorado College got what it came for, a 17-12 victory against Pomona-Pitzer before about 200 spectators at Merritt Field.

The victory broke Colorado’s six-game losing streak to Pomona (1-1). While most of the nation’s weekend sporting events were canceled or postponed in light of Tuesday’s terrorists attacks in New York and Washington, a number of Division III schools played on.

“I’m not 100% sure it was the right thing to do,” senior Pomona defensive back Shea Joachim said. Don’t Division III players feel the same pain as Division I players? Aren’t these the non-scholarship kids that play for all the right reasons, except for, perhaps, on this Saturday?

These are the sons of proud parents who wear T-shirts: “Harvard: The Pomona College of the East.”

Colorado players said they wanted to move on with their lives, although Pomona players suspected Colorado (2-1) also sensed an opportunity.

“They saw the film of our game last week against Oberlin,” Joachim said of Pomona’s sloppy victory. “If I saw our film against Oberlin [Ohio] College, I’d want to play us too.”

Pomona-Pitzer, of course, also elected to play. Athletic Director Charlie Katsiaficas said it was an institutional decision.

“They have issues we don’t have,” Katsiaficas said of other teams and leagues that chose not to play. “Their motivations are different than what we believe in.” Katsiaficas said that at Pomona-Pitzer, the combined athletic forces of Pomona and Pitzer colleges, sports are treated no differently than academics. All sporting events went on as scheduled this week, with the exception of a women’s volleyball game Friday.

Why didn’t Pomona call off the game?

“For the same reason we didn’t cancel classes,” Katsiaficas said. “Why would we cancel this? Don’t misunderstand. We had a great deal of respect for the tragedy that occurred this week.”

Due respect was paid. The flag at Merritt Field flew at half-staff. There was a moment of silence before kickoff. You could see gulps in throats during the playing of the national anthem. Then, the teams strapped on chinstraps and tried to knock each other jelly-legged.

You sensed uneasiness in the air.

Jose Flores, father of Pomona-Pitzer receiver Alan Flores, said he had mixed feelings about being in attendance. “Is this about security or mourning?” Flores said. “If it’s about mourning, well, we are all mourning. The mourning is there. How is stopping a kids’ football game going to stop that?”

Across the field, Claremont-Mudd freshman fullback D.A. Weick watched the game from the visitors’ stands. Claremont’s game at Puget Sound [in Tacoma, Wash.] was scrapped this week because Puget Sound refused to play.

Weick said he was in favor of playing, but said “both sides of the argument have valid points.” Weick said Division III football is different.

“We feel like football is a way of expressing ourselves,” he said. “The day the buildings exploded, we were a team really on the edge. There were a lot of angry guys. It was really one of our best practices of the season.”

Behind the home stands, two Pomona College freshmen wrestled intellectually with the issue.

Valerie Stout said her school, an independent, coeducational liberal arts college, where the student-teacher ratio is 9 to 1, would not have made the decision without considerable thought. “I’m glad it was not my decision to make,” she said. “I can’t believe Pomona would act out of selfishness. It’s not that kind of school.”

Pomona-Pitzer was one of many Division III programs that became isolated as more schools and leagues decided not to play. By week’s end, the small colleges were the only games in town--and were having to answer for it.

“I think this will become more of an issue after the fact,” Jenny Jaskiewicz, a Pomona freshman said. “That we played and everyone else didn’t.”

Jaskiewicz also wanted to make clear: “I don’t think it’s disrespectful to attempt to go with your life. But it would have been a nice gesture to cancel everything.”

Players and coaches interviewed afterward said, once the whistle blew, it was just another game. It wasn’t, of course, given the context.

Saturday, the man in the Pomona stands calling an official “a moron” probably had less appeal than he might have last week. It also seemed inappropriate when a Colorado player screamed in the postgame huddle “We beat [expletive] Pomona on their home field!!”

By all accounts, it was a good game. The professors seemed to enjoy it. Pomona took an early 6-0 lead, fell behind, 17-6, then rallied in the fourth quarter and had a chance to win on a Hail Mary pass that fell incomplete in the end zone as time expired.

As Colorado players gathered in victory, senior Mike Bruson led teammates in prayer. “Lord, it’s been a tough week,” he said. “Thank you for this opportunity to do the greatest thing known to man.”

Football?

Colorado Coach Greg Polnasek stood at midfield afterward and said he had no misgivings about busing 19 hours to win a Division III football game. “No, no, no,” he said. “We thought long and hard about the decision and felt it was the right thing to do. We prayed before the game, we had a moment of silence, we prayed for the victims at our pregame breakfast.”

It wasn’t the first time Colorado receiver Andy Cornell prayed this week. His aunt, Nancy Higgins, works in Manhattan. She’s in the magazine business.

For several hours Tuesday, Cornell said he didn’t know whether his aunt was safe. “We were very anxious,” Cornell said. “From the first time I heard about it, I started thinking of her. I was pretty worried.” His aunt was fine.

Initially, Cornell said he didn’t want to play, but then sided with the majority and got on board ... the bus. Cornell said the 19-hour ride to California was cathartic.

“We talked about it a lot,” he said of Tuesday’s attacks. “There were a lot of different opinions. We got a lot off our chests.”

Was it worth it, playing when others weren’t?

In retrospect, Pomona tight end Benjamin La Coss wishes Colorado had stayed home. “I thought that was a little unnecessary,” he said of the Tigers’ decision to bus in from Colorado Springs. “If they could get here by plane, I could understand. But to make those kinds of arrangements, it makes you think they thought this was more important.”

Shea Joachim knows one thing: Losing never felt better: “It’s still a loss. We still have to improve. But given the circumstances of the world right now, I don’t think this ranks too high on my list.”