Guest opinion
Musketeer fans’ cheers send their team the most important message
By Kyle Jorrey kjorrey@theacorn.com

The scoreboard at the Home Depot Center in Carson told one story: Canyon 24, Moorpark 22. The reaction in the stands told a completely different one.

As the last seconds ticked off the clock in the Musketeers’ heartbreaking defeat in the Southern Section’s Northern Division finals, the sound that rose up from the massive crowd of green and gold was not one of disappointment or disgust; it was one of pride and appreciation.

For more than 20 minutes after the final tackle had been made, Moorpark fans—many of whom have known these young men since they were more helmet than body—kept their hands together and their voices raised, trying as hard as they might to soften the blow of defeat. Because they knew, as I’m sure many fans on the other side of the field did, that their kids had played hard enough and well enough to be champions.

But football, like all sports, can be a cruel game, in which one missed tackle or one flub of the feet can be the difference between winning and losing, between the party and the pain.

Such was clearly the case on this night, and awareness of that fact could have made the hometown fans angry and spiteful—but it didn’t.

Or it at least it didn’t show when it mattered most.

Instead, the hometown fans displayed their character by giving thanks for what had been, and would prove to be, the best cham

pionship football game played that night––maybe anywhere in the state.

Through their cheers and chants, they sent a message to the battleworn players that their courageous performance that night would not be forgotten simply because they wound up on the losing end of the scoreboard. And they weren’t lying.

Instead, those performances would live on, in stories told throughout the week in coffee shops, dining halls and office lunchrooms across Moorpark.

So while the Musketeers players and coaches might have lost the game in the headlines, the hearts and minds of fans in the community told a completely different story.

And it’s a story those of us who watched won’t soon forget.