So close. So very, very close.
Chandler 20, Hamilton 24
For those of you who don't know much about my high school days (or if all you know about my alma mater is that one of its more well-known alums thinks that it's OK to be a prostitute if you "just own it") let me get you up to speed.
I'm a proud graduate of Chandler High School, home of the Wolves. And for roughly 80 years, CHS was the one and only public high school in my hometown of Chandler, Ariz.
But by the 1990s, Chandler High had gotten crazy overcrowded, so the Chandler school district built a new high school a couple miles down Arizona Avenue. And when Hamilton High School opened in 1998, many of Chandler High's best athletes ended up at the school, or at least so we Wolves told ourselves every year when we lost to the Hamilton Huskies on the gridiron.
We never beat Hamilton in football while I attended Chandler High, but I thought we had a chance a couple of seasons while I was in college. I remember going to the game down at Hamilton with my friend and fellow CHS alum Tina, which probably would have been during my sophomore year at ASU. Then, during my junior year of college, I went to see the game on our home turf — Austin Field in historic downtown Chandler — that was televised on ESPNU.
Every year, though, the final outcome was always the same: Hamilton won... again.
But this year, it was lookin' like the tables had turned.
Chandler scored the game's first touchdown and went into halftime with a 13-0 lead. In fact, they led the Huskies throughout most of the game — until Hamilton pulled ahead by scoring a touchdown with three seconds left in the fourth quarter. Lame.
So in the end, it was the same old outcome as every other year since 1998. But I'm not hanging my head in shame this year, and I won't attempt to justify our loss on the gridiron by changing the subject to how Chandler has always been academically superior — which I'm sure it still is, btw.
No sir. This year, I say, "Hamilton, you got lucky. And next year, it is on."
Some day, the Wolves will beat the Huskies in football, and hopefully when that day comes I'll be able to see history happen live — like it seemed like I was about to tonight.
Even though I'm pretty bummed about tonight's final score, I'm really glad I got the see (most of) the game without going to Hair of the Dog and begging them to put on Fox Sports Arizona.
Mad crazy props go out to azcentral.com for livestreaming the game tonight... and for sending expert live-tweeter (and State Presser) Gina Mizell to cover the game. Even though the live Web video was often choppy (which is to be expected), Gina's tweets were always popping up on my phone with the game's key details and no unnecessary fluff, so I was always clued into what was going on.