Foreword by Chandler Wilson
Clutch moments are the moments that sports fans and athletes alike live for. The only better feeling than watching your favorite team win in crunch time, is being the person to hit the buzzer beater, walk off homer, or game winning touchdown. Likely thing is, if you've played sports enough, you have been in a clutch moment, whether it be pickup basketball or T-ball or whatever.
So to celebrate these clutch moments, we're going to each talk about our most clutch moment in our organized sport careers. Emphasis on the organized part. Because we've all played enough pickup basketball to hit a game winner. And while me hitting the game winning shot over Ben Shifflett on Uncle Greg's hoop, in a game of one-on-one to 11 that wound up being 38-36 (cause you have to win by two because we're not monsters) while we were in middle school is the most impressive and important clutch moment of my sports career, nobody cares.
So we're talking organized sports careers, anything from T-Ball to high school sports to intramural athletics is fair game, which should keep this interesting.
Chandler: The year was 2007. Fall was in the air. It was a windy Sunday afternoon at Memorial Field in Fairfax, Missouri. Storm clouds were brewing off in the Northeast.
My 4th grade coed flag football team had been struggling to score. We were down 12-8 against the hometown Bulldogs who held the homefield and crowd advantage. It was not your typical 8 man football game, as it had been very low scoring. We only had 9 players on our team, so you do the math.
I had been playing tight end and middle linebacker. We were all gassed, especially our starting quarterback. He needed to come out, and coach asked me if I could play quarterback. I calmly said, "yes I can." (I'm sure in reality I absolutely screamed this with no composure whatsoever).
We had been driving and I came in under center, time winding down in the 4th quarter, down 4 points... this was my moment.
After a few plays of positive yardage, we faced a 3rd down, with less than a minute to play. We were about twenty (but honestly probably more like five) yards out from scoring. The play call came in, a 16 sweep. That's a designed quarterback run. And I was the quarterback... this was my moment.
With thunder rolling in the distance, and the crowd on its feet (probably sitting down and not paying attention), I made the playcall and broke the huddle. As we trotted to the line, I surveyed the defense. I barked out my cadence, took the snap and made two brilliant fakes to the running backs. I turned the corner, and there was no one in sight.
I raced for the pylon, with defenders in pursuit. I dove and reached the ball out for the goal line... this was my moment. The whistle blew, the referee signaled touchdown, 14-12 Panther lead, less than a minute to play.
I got up, with thunder rolling in the distance, and looked behind me to a roaring crowd and a defeated defense. I knew this was the start of a long and prosperous QB career*. There was no way I, or anyone else at that game, would ever forget that moment. It was easily the most clutch moment of my organized sports career in a game that they will make movies about some day.
*I only took two more in-game snaps at quarterback for the remainder of my football days. It was in the first junior high game of the season when I was in 8th grade. The starting and backup quarterback got hurt in a game that we lost 70-6 at halftime. I called it a career for signal-calling after that.
John: Every kid that plays basketball in their driveway plays the same situation over and over again: down 1 with 10 seconds to go. You have the ball at the top of the key. You yell to your teammates “ISO!” and they all get out of the way. It’s you versus the defender, nobody else can determine the outcome of the game except you two. You count down, 5-4-3-2-1 and depending on how old you are, you make a shot somewhere from a bunny, to a step-back 3 as your internal buzzer goes off. It might take 5 or 50 tries to make that shot, but as soon as you make it, you are elated, despite the fact that you are actually alone on a driveway basketball hoop that’s an inch and a half too low waiting on your mom to call you in for dinner. It doesn’t matter. You hear the sold out arena chanting your name. You just won the game.
My clutch moment set up a little differently. It was my senior year of high school, and we were playing a heated match up against St. Joe Christian. I was an unskilled class 1 forward mostly known for long arms and hustle. So with the game winding down, and the good guys down by one with just a few seconds to go, I didn’t find myself at the top of the key with the ball. I found myself on the right block posting up. Why? It’s all I knew.
As my teammate drove and kicked it out to the opposite corner, I watch a shot go up, hit rim and carom my way. I jump, grab the rebound and come down with it. A power dribble to gather myself, and I explode toward the rim, and release the ball from about 2 feet away. As soon as the ball leaves my hand, I know that I blew it. The ball hits the opposite rim and bounces away as the buzzer sounds. I couldn’t believe it. But the story isn’t over.
As I took that ill-fated attempt, another Lion defender came to try and block my shot. His hand got caught up in the net and snapped the rim. According to Rule 4 Section 6 Article 1 that constitutes basket interference and according to Rule 5 Section 2 Article 4 that gives two points to the offensive team (that’s my team!). The crowd was confused, and I don’t blame them. In the end though, nobody will remember the way that game ended, except for the fact that I’m immortalizing the story in this blog. They will remember that clutch moment, though. They will remember the best daggum rebound since the NBA-ABA merger.
Hayston: My most clutch moment in sports has more to do with the respect I earned than the moment itself. Here’s what happened:
So, we’re playing 7 on 7 intramural flag football at Northwest Missouri State. It’s big time. Out of the 8 people on our team, I think maybe 4 of them had actually played high school football. Needless to say, we’re not very good. And, we’re playing on behalf of our campus ministry, so we let a kid be quarterback who really shouldn’t have been quarterback because we were trying to be nice to him so he would come to our campus ministry (he never came). I think our record stood at 0-4, and here we are in the last game of the season desperately looking for any kind of positive momentum we can carry over into our intramural off-season training program (jk, that’s not a thing).
As the game wound down, our opponent scored a go ahead TD, but left us enough time to try and go on a game-winning drive in an attempt to force overtime (In this rendition of 7 on 7 flag football you played on an 80 yard field, and to get a first down you had 4 plays to go 20 yards). We ran a few plays, only to find ourselves with a 4th and 25. I remember saying before the play in the huddle to our QB who shouldn’t have been QB, “I’m going to run a deep crossing route, and their d-back is about 5 inches shorter than me (although he was way more athletic), so if you get into trouble (which I knew he inevitably would) try and throw it up and I’ll see if I can go get it.
Now, I need to take a long time to describe something that happened in about 4 total seconds:
I ran my route and angled toward the left side of the field, the pocket collapsed as I crossed the field I looked back and couldn’t see our QB as the pass rushers were much taller than him, so I’m guessing he just knew about where I was and heaved the ball when he was about to be sacked. The ball shot way up in the air. It was basically a jump ball.
The other team had a linebacker who was playing back in the middle of the field at the first down marker for this play. He was about 6' 4" and athletic. So, there I was, sandwiched between this smaller D-back behind me, and this 6' 4" linebacker type closing in on my front left side. We all three jump. As we jumped, the linebacker, now almost in front of me, jumped high enough, but was a fraction of a second too late getting there to deflect the ball. It just missed his finger-tips. The guy behind me basically shoved me in the back to try and get to the ball (who can blame him, it’s intramurals, the refs aren’t going to call anything). Mind you, we’re still in the air, so as he pushed me, I started to spin to my right. The ball dropped right over the opposing linebacker’s outstretched arm and into my right arm. I hauled in the catch with just my right arm as I completed my 360 spin that resulted from getting pushed.
What I’m sayin’ is: I freakin’ caught a one armed, 360, must have jump ball in between two defenders who were heavily committing pass interference with my team’s season on the line (again, just intramurals for a winless team, but still)!
After the play, the three guys who were in on this jump ball scrum got up together, and the guy who shoved me in the back said, “I can’t believe you just caught that f***ing ball.” And I just laughed and ran back to the huddle like it was something I do all the time. I believe we did score but wound up losing the game in overtime, but I don’t care, you know why? Remember how I said this moment is more about the residual respect it earned me than the actual moment itself? Well, here’s what happened after that:
The man who was the defensive back, you know, the one who pushed me? I’m telling you, this guy may have been shorter, about 5' 8-9", but he was one bad hombre. This man looked like Lil’ Wayne. He was black and had dreadlocks and face and neck tats. He was way more athletic than me. And to boot, he drove one of those crotch-rocket motorcycles around Maryville, and every time I saw him it seemed like he was going 90 mph basically daring death to try and catch him. And what’s more, I think he was smarter than me too. I think we started school at the same time, and I graduated a semester early, but he graduated even before I did. The point is, this guy had an intimidating vibe and seemed like he was better than me at a lot of things. He was certainly cooler (which isn’t hard).
One day about 9 months after this game, I saw him in the student union with a couple friends who I think may have also been on his team the previous year. I went up to him and asked if he was going to play flag football again, and I could tell he recognized me but couldn’t quite figure out where he knew me from. After talking for about 10 seconds, he just blurted out, “Oh I know you! You’re that dude who caught that f***ing ball last year! Respect.”
We hope you enjoyed this, we'd love to hear about your most clutch sports moment in the comments below.