Success doesn’t come easy, but it sure feels good
Tony Mercado
Monday April 17, 2006
He was a wise man, that Teddy Roosevelt, who spoke those words as part of his 1899 "Strenuous Life" speech before the Hamilton Club in Chicago.
In it, he preached the doctrine of the life of toil and effort and of labor and strife. He said that the highest form of success comes not to the man who desires easy peace, but to the one who doesn’t shy away from hardship and bitter toil.
Yeah, it’s kinda deep. But it’s oh so appropriate when applied to San Jose’s arena football team.
Check the Western Division standings of the Arena Football League. It’s right there in black and white for all to see, especially all the naysayers who expressed doubt just a few short weeks ago about this team’s ability to put it all together.
Three days removed from their 69-59 victory over Las Vegas, the San Jose SaberCats are in second place with a 6-6 record behind the 7-5 Arizona Rattlers, a team they’ve beaten twice this season by scores of 58-50 and 61-49. In the American Conference, they’re in fourth place. Guess what? The third and fourth seeded teams host a first round playoff game.
How sweet it must feel for the team to look at how far they’ve come. This squad is made up of fighters and it’s slowly regaining the swagger possessed by past San Jose teams that steamrolled through the league en route to two AFL titles. It’s also got heart. Lots of it.
The SaberCats have fought back from losing many of its go-to players to crushing pre-season injuries to unveiling individuals who have morphed into legitimate and explosive threats in their own right. Ben Nelson, anyone?
They’ve pulled together after a draining five consecutive game road trip that, after only one home game in that stretch, left it with a potentially morale crushing 2-4 record to start the season. Now they’re making a run for the playoffs.
And speaking of running, let’s get back to Teddy’s quote about hitting the line hard.
Quietly impressing coaches and fans are members of the SaberCats line. Maligned early on, they have matured into a cohesive unit that doesn’t mind getting hit hard. And if there was any doubt, all you have to do is look at the performance of the squad on April 7 against Tampa Bay, when all of San Jose’s scores came on the ground.
That’s a testament to the power of the blockers and the confidence the coaches have in these men.
Often toiling in obscurity, I tip my pen to Dan Loney, Rex Richards, Chuck Reed, Frank Beede, Albrey Battle and Karl Bates.
During this year’s mini-camp, Head coach Darren Arbet emphasized that running the ball would be both a priority and a likely key to victory to many games this season.
"We didn’t do a good job of it last year," he said then. "So it’s an area we definitely want to focus on and improve on."
Thanks to those linemen, the running game is back, as is the protection for quarterback Mark Grieb, who as we all know, can give opposing teams absolute nightmares when he’s hot.
On the flip side, with three of the next four remaining games at home, San Jose has a chance to make its own dreams of a championship season come true.
Tony Mercado holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from San Jose State University and spent 10 years as a newspaper reporter in the Bay Area. He now works in the public relations field, but continues to enjoy writing about the local teams and the positive impact its players, coaches and dance squads have in their communities.
