14TH May 2021

Choate - Friends - Good Story - Legends and tales - Timeless - Uncategorized

Choate Football ’80 Hall of Fame Benediction

Welcome Judges. 

Forty years ago, we played for a warrior, poet, and coach. So with apologies to Kipling, Shelly, & Keat, here’s a verse, while you lace your cleats.

Halftime had been all despair.

24 minutes left to bear.

Down 14 at the break 

A perfect record still at stake

We had not come this far

For close again, but miss the bar

So Forte’s tiptoes made a play

Plus three more from the foot of Bray.

As time ticked down the defense held

We’d get the ball for one last spell

11 Young men, most in their prime

Seventy yards before the final chime

Long shadows revealed shortness of breath

As we chewed up time, chalk and grass

Until three yards and ten ticks remained

Of the year of our years, and record unstained

Slot left.

Veer dive right.

On one. Break.

Broadie fell untouched by green

Upon verdant elysium, a jersey clean.

We are not immortal, that’s fair to say

But at that moment, we felt that way.

Now Judges yield to a feral pig

Our sacred cow’s graves we dig

While lifetimes come, and lifetimes go

Our team endures, more than you know.

~~

And it’s true what they say…a man never forgets where he ran, as a boy.

Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your team in 1980 and many of your lives since then.