My junior year of High School, our football team lost the season opener and went on a ridiculous winning streak. We didn't lose for the rest of the regular season, we didn't lose in the playoffs, and we made it all the way to the championship game- We were dominant to the point where we could play our second and third-stringers for pretty much the entire second half and still come up big.
We were feeling cocky, and we were, in some cases, very literally sizing ourselves for rings before the game had even been played. We were playing a team that was smaller than us, slower than us, and who we'd already beaten once. Badly.
They went out there and beat us, on our home field, by a field goal, with a minute left in the game, in front of hundreds of our parents and classmates and neighbors.
I was fucking crushed. I don't think I've ever felt more hollow, being that close to what could have been the best day of my life and losing it at the last minute. Reporters kept taking pictures, and coming up to talk to me, and none of it registered because we lost.
We lost the biggest game of our lives, in front of what felt like God and everyone. I remember I got changed and just went to the car, and sat there, staring at the silver medal around my neck.
That was a high school football game, that maybe a thousand people went to. I can only image the gut punch it would be to tank a game that huge in front of hundreds of thousand fans, plus millions watching at home.
Then I think about the game itself, and the fact that Cam seemed to have been the only guy (well, Kony Ealy too, I guess) on the Panthers who showed up to play. He took the beating of his life for two hours. Whatever presents he bought his offensive line for protecting him after the season, they'd better have given back after the Super Bowl. The running game couldn't get a push, the receivers couldn't catch. He put that team on his back, and came up short.
Cam's reaction was absolutely immature. In an ideal world, he composes himself at his locker, goes to the post-game press conference, and handles the loss with grace. But the fact of the matter is, I honestly don't think I would've handled myself any better than he did in the same situation. In fact, I'd probably have handled myself worse.