In My Words | Drew Wolitarsky

TEMPUS FUGIT

It starts with the final whistle blowing and then watching the clock hit zeros, short one point.

After that, everything was a blur. Plane ride back to Winnipeg… packing up our lives… hitting the road… fighting the flu… watching the numbers tick by on the odometer – hundreds of kilometres away from the people that I fought alongside for six months.

This is the first time I’m really thinking back on it all, and still, only time can decipher the emotions that I feel from the season. The locker room after wins, the warm-ups before practice, the evident sacrifice all season long.

The people.

What we did on the field had been done before. What we did in the Grey Cup had been done before. A great team lost a game they shouldn’t have. That has been done before.

What hasn’t been done before, is HOW we did things – with intention, with trust. Our Bomber ship sailed because everyone held each other accountable. From the top, down. The pride in us bled like we were a country fighting for our colours, which in a way, is what we did week after week.

This game is not for the faint of heart, not in Winnipeg. I couldn’t have finished this season if not for the support of this team, my family, and my friends. This team taught me how to approach life. How love does not always feel happy or fulfilling.

Sometimes it is painful and slow and frustrating, but it will summon up such incredible strength. I think that strength was evident to anyone who watched us take the field.

Knowing all that, I must admit, I was angry after the game. I was angry at losing, at having placed so much of myself into that team and that season. I was so mad in the moment that I made the mistake of forgetting the importance of it all. And I’m really feeling that truth as I sit here writing this.

I already miss my teammates and the purpose we shared every day. Since the Grey Cup, things have slowed down a lot. At times the game creeps into my mind and I have pushed it away because I didn’t want to accept it. But it’s time for me to admit it. We lost.

We played every team’s best for years and every week we fought. We won a lot of games. We did hard things the right way. We stuck to the process, and we believed in what we were doing. None of it was for the bragging rights. You won’t hear much bragging happening in our locker room. It’s not why we played the way we played.

We did so out of respect for each and every person.

We practiced with the intention of making each other better, of bringing that kind of present participation every day. We all accepted the truth: that we all rely on each other and if we are going to win games, we have to prepare each other at the highest level possible.

This is not a clock in-clock out organization. This is a family where your phone call will be answered at 3 a.m. It’s where your children can play with one another and where you are going to get the best out of everyone, no matter the battles they are fighting.

This only happens when you are surrounded with genuine love, and commit to something more than yourself.

As long as I play football, I will give it what I gave it this year. Any less would be a disservice to myself and the sport. Once I got pushed to this level, to this type of professionalism, I realize I can never go back to what I thought was enough. I won’t look at things as ‘work’ anymore, instead as extensions of my life.

This team taught me how to do that. It changed the way I look at the whole picture.

Football is not a game that leaves you when you step off the field. Nor do the people on the field. These moments, wins or losses, it’s part of the dharma, the river that guides us to where we’re supposed to be. To defend or attack, rejoice or re-evaluate.

To honour the memories.

Yesterday we were champions. Today we are not.

What does tomorrow hold?

Yours Truly,

Drew Woli-guitarsky