Half a good afternoon

As Macalester embarks on its new experiment in building competitive football, we bring you a weekly look inside the program from one of the 37 student-athletes in uniform.

By Adam Johnson 
(posted Nov. 4, 2002)

It was a beautiful November afternoon in Newport, R.I., when my Middlesex School football team won the New England "Class C" Championship game in 1998. Our quarterback Joe Lang and I connected on a number of passes as we sliced up their defense through the air and our all-league offensive lineman Tom Martignetti opened huge holes for our running game. The victory capped off a 7-1 season — the best record in Middlesex School history at that point.

Fast forward to 2002 and it's a different team, a higher level of competition and a new scenario. This season we're 4-5 and fighting to finish the season at .500 with a win against rival Carleton. We will not play in a championship game this year or set the best record in school history. On Friday, though, one thing was very similar to 1998 — Joe and Tom were back.

We played together for three years at Middlesex and turned that program from a 2-5 cellar dweller to a 7-1 champion. I wish we could have all gone to the same college and continued our careers together but we chose separate paths after Middlesex. Joe went to the University of Connecticut to play tennis, Tom went overseas to St. Andrew's in Scotland and I played a year at Lake Forest before settling in at Macalester. Over the years we've always been in touch and tried hard to visit each other if we could find cheap airline tickets. About two weeks ago we found a great price on tickets and on Thursday evening Joe and Tom arrived in Minnesota. It was sure to be a great weekend of hanging out and having fun but the highlight for me was that they would get to see me play football at the Metrodome.

Our game this week was on Friday as part of the UMAC Dome Classic. Guys on the team were joking about how empty the place was going to look with only about 200 of the 60,000-plus seats filled but for me it was more about who was there and not how many people were there.

The game started and the 10-quarter scoreless streak that our offense brought into the game quickly ended. We put up 14 points in 35 seconds in the first quarter and held a 17-7 lead at the end of the quarter. Quarterback Adam Denny completed four passes for more than 30 yards each in that quarter on his way to a record-breaking afternoon.

We took a 17-13 lead to the half and were hoping to finish them off quickly in the second half. Denny found me for more than 100 yards in the first half and things were rolling. Joe was probably reminiscing in the stands about the good old days when he'd spot me streaking across the middle and put it right on my numbers. It was ironic because the first half felt like high school when we'd score easily on our opponents, only this time Joe and Tom were in the stands and not on the field with me.

Unfortunately, the second half was full of "almosts," "should haves," and "didn'ts." We almost scored on a number of plays that would have sealed the game for us. I should have held on to a first down catch that popped out when I hit the ground — the refs ruled it incomplete but I thought the ground caused the fumble. These added up in the second half and the bottom line was we didn't win. Rockford was able to score in each of the four quarters and shut us out in the second and fourth. Our last efforts were dashed when Denny's fourth-and-18 pass to Jared Hillman fell incomplete. The offense was forced to watch the last minute and a half tick away trailing by a single point. It felt like the one loss we had in 1998 when we were so close to winning we could taste it but just couldn't get it done

The last thing I wanted was for Joe and Tom to come all the way from Massachusetts to watch my team lose. I hoped they'd see us stop our three-game slide and that I would have a good individual performance. I wanted them to be proud that I was still playing and representing Middlesex on the football field.

The loss was disappointing but it didn't stop us from reminiscing back at my mother's house over dinner. We talked about our high school years, the big games, the guys we played with and how sweet it would be to still be playing together.

Joe and Tom were impressed with how we played. I think Macalester football gained two more fans and after hanging out this weekend with my current teammates, I think Joe and Tom made a bunch of new friends.

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