November in the Big Ten - A Time for Heroes

[N Sker]

What the furk did I just read?

[Redux]

What the furk did I just read?

 

The start of the revolution.

[The Dude]

Damn, it's depressing reading around the interwebs these days. Sure, everyone is abuzz with the slavering worship the college football world typically pays to Hail Mary game-winning TDs (See: Boston College vs. Miami, Colorado vs. Michigan, etc). Nebraska once again caught the attention of the nation with one fluke play.

 

But we've been placed on the pedestal now only because it serves to accentuate our expected fall. A bit higher before the crash - serving only to create a greater spectacle in the end. You can almost see the glee with which the football glitterati anticipate the impending wretchedness of Husker Fan.

 

 

 

 

Well, to hell with them.

 

 

 

Fall always reminds me of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. There's a glory and a bleakness to his stories much like the glory of golden Autumn leaves destined to die, beauty serving as a harbinger of a bitter winter to come.

 

Oddly enough, there's a little-traveled intersection right here in Lincoln that, as I drive up under the melancholy clouds, calls to mind a story in one of Tolkien's works, The Silmarillion. It's the tale of The Fall of Gondolin, the great Elven city, strong and beautiful and proud in its age of glory, wracked by war and ruin at the end. Perhaps that will be the fate of this season, begun so promisingly with the hopes of a return of the "Scoring Explosion" thirty years ago this season. But just as the 1983 Husker team, one of the greatest of all time, failed and came to ruin at the end, so too did Gondolin fall.

 

And as we brace ourselves to face the toughest test of this season, we are, like Gondolin, undermanned. We've lost our starting quarterback. We've lost 40% of our starting O Line. Our receiver corps is a revolving M*A*S*H* unit of weekly injuries to critical stars. And our defense-- God help our defense. Eight weeks into the season and we're still trying to figure out who'll start at Mike.

 

In the end, Gondolin fell. Betrayed from within (Meaglin as The Leaker is apt, if a bit contrived), weak at the time of its greatest need, still Gondolin found itself helped by heroes - often unlooked-for.

 

Anyone who has read the tale of the Fall of Gondolin cannot help but recall the great deeds of the city's greatest warriors: Tuor and Glorfindel and Ecthelion of the Fountain. But among the wrack and ruin of the falling city, even the ordinary, the second-string, if you will, rose to the test.

 

One such was Rog, leader of the Folk of the Hammer, smiths who wrought beautiful things, but who daily toiled with unlovely hands. Common folk.

 

Looking out upon the destruction of his beloved city, seeing before him a host of orcs, dragons and Balrogs whose whips and swords of flame so terrorized his people, Rog knew in his heart that his city was lost.

 

But Rog did not shrink under the terror of the enemy before him:

 

Now was the battle at that gate very evil indeed, and Duilin of the Swallow as he shot from the walls was smitten by a fiery bolt of the Balrogs who leapt about the base of Amon Gwareth; and he fell from the battlements and perished. Then the Balrogs continued to shoot darts of fire and flaming arrows like small snakes into the sky, and these fell upon the roofs and gardens of Gondolin till all the trees were scorched, and the flowers and grass burned up, and the whiteness of those walls and colonnades was blackened and seared: yet a worse matter was it that a company of those demons climbed upon the coils of the serpents of iron and thence loosed unceasingly from their bows and slings till a fire began to burn in the city to the back of the main army of the defenders.

 

Then said Rog in a great voice: "

Who now shall fear the Balrogs for all their terror? See before us the accursed ones who for ages have tormented the children of the Noldoli, and who now set a fire at our backs with their shooting. Come ye of the Hammer of Wrath and we will smite them for their evil

." Thereupon he lifted his mace, and its handle was long; and he made a way before him by the wrath of his onset even unto the fallen gate: but all the people of the Stricken Anvil ran behind like a wedge, and sparks came from their eyes for the fury of their rage. A great deed was that sally, as the Noldoli sing yet, and many of the Orcs were borne backward into the fires below; but the men of Rog leapt even upon the coils of the serpents and came at those Balrogs and smote them grievously, for all they had whips of flame and claws of steel, and were in stature very great. They battered them into nought, or catching at their whips wielded these against them, that they tore them even as they had aforetime torn the Gnomes; and the number of Balrogs that perished was a marvel and dread to the hosts of Melko, for ere that day never had any of the Balrogs been slain by the hand of Elves or Men. Then Gothmog Lord of Balrogs gathered all his demons that were about the city and ordered them thus: a number made for the folk of the Hammer and gave before them, but the greater com- pany rushing upon the flank contrived to get to their backs, higher upon the coils of the drakes and nearer to the gates, so that Rog might not win back save with great slaughter among his folk.

 

But Rog seeing this essayed not to win back, as was hoped, but with all his folk fell on those whose part was to give before him; and they fled before him now of dire need rather than of craft. Down into the plain were they harried, and their shrieks rent the airs of Tumladin. Then that house of the Hammer fared about smiting and hewing the astonied bands of Melko till they were hemmed at the last by an overwhelming force of the Orcs and the Balrogs, and a fire-drake was loosed upon them. There did they perish about Rog hewing to the last till iron and flame overcame them, and it is yet sung that each man of the Hammer of Wrath took the lives of seven foemen to pay for his own.

 

 

 

 

That is the mindset this team needs. The schedule-makers gave us a stacked deck. At the time of our greatest weakness we have the best of our division in front of us. They are healthier, they are playing better football, they are a gauntlet which even the great teams would find daunting. But who will shrink before the challenge facing this team? And why should they, great though the odds may be?

 

This schedule is our lot and it cannot be changed. We can either shrink and wither, falling to embarrassment and ruin at the last, or we can, like Rog and his Folk of the Hammer, see before them a host of great foes, and give to them a fight more than they wished for.

 

Because even though we fall in the end, this team more than most should know the greater triumph lies not in the victory but in the action.

 

Having the will to rise up against adversity is what will make this season memorable. Not because we can win a national championship, but because within the deed itself lies the greater glory.

 

 

 

It's November. It's Fall in the Big Ten. Under steel-grey skies, on hostile fields, still we will be the masters of our fate.

 

 

And though we may leave the field defeated at the last, those Huskers left standing must give their all, so that those teams we face will by God know that they played a team that fought until the bitter end.

 

 

 

Those who stand tall at the last, win or lose, will be heroes.

I disagree.

[gobiggergoredder]

Is there a Cliff Notes version of this Moby Dick OP?