Coincidence or fate? You decide

It was the 4th quarter of the last high school football game I would ever play.

My team — the Orchard Farm Eagles — was getting our ass kicked by some team that I can’t recall. They were better than us, much better, faster, more organized. The head coach, I can recall, eventually went on to coach some collegiate team. He was that good.

But none of that mattered.

What mattered was a peculiar little moment that happened during the 4th quarter of the last football game of my life.

Down by 20-something points, with the clock waning, their quarterback — who later would also go on to play at some college — dropped back, cocked his arm, and delivered the ball right into my chest, just as I predicted right before the play.

In the shock of the moment, I kneeled down, although just barely, and began to take off in the opposite direction, heading for a defensive touchdown, wide-eyed that what I had predicted had come true.

Unfortunately, the referee blew the play dead before I could score and ruled that my knee was down. He was correct and I didn’t give him any bother. Neither did my teammates. We knew we were about to lose.

But before I could get off the field, my buddy, the safety at the time, Danny Hopkins, jumped on my back in excitement, as if we had won the game.

But he didn’t care about the score. How could he?