By MONTE DUTTON

I walked the sidelines of a high-school football game on Friday night for the first time in two weeks. It was good to be back on the grind, right up to 5 a.m. on Saturday, when I put the website to bed, too. I didn’t sleep but till 9 and didn’t feel even a little tired until I took a shower, which immediately left me fatigued, which, in turn, made no sense at all.

Presbyterian played the University of San Diego at noon. I took photos. Arthritis flared. I hobbled back up the stadium steps, feeling 97 in knee years. Presbyterian led 13-7 at halftime and still after three quarters. The Toreros won 23-13, but by then I was following the virtual stats and watching Furman play Chattanooga on TV.

Writing about football has taught me much, but I learned a few truths half a century ago while playing it at a modest level of proficiency. Every season has at least one game in which practically everything goes wrong. In general, it feels as if the field slants forever the other way.

The quarterback gets knocked out. The star defender gets ejected for targeting because he is unable to defy gravity and other laws of physics by freezing in mid-flight. The homestanding foes score with under two minutes remaining on an accidental phenomenon.

Still, Furman finds a way. The Paladins play the way the post office used to deliver mail. Whatever it takes.

A team that can win that game goes beyond good and great and becomes a champion. Such a game did the Furman Paladins play on Saturday afternoon at a place called Finley Stadium.

I may not have been fully recovered from a solid week’s illiness. After a 17-14 victory at Chattanooga clinched the Southern Conference’s automatic bid in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs for the Paladins, I felt giddy. I felt lightheaded. I felt lighhearted. I felt like Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius, before the Roadrunner showed up.

I was oblivious to any of the vast array of games still available for television consumption. I didn’t care about LSU or Alabama, Missouri or Georgia, Oregon State or Colorado.

I was happy Clemson beat Notre Dame and South Carolina won the cockfight, but not overly concerned. Good for the Tigers. Good for the Gamecocks. With respect, I just didn’t care about anything except Paladins.

Fans don’t win sporting events. Players and coaches do.

But ex-players, alums, fans, students, cheerleaders, etc., sure appreciate a team such as the one playing at Furman this fall, not to mention the men’s basketball team that lined up last winter (and Monday night).

Back in the early spring, when acclaim rained down on Bob Richey’s team, conqueror of the Southern Conference, the University of Virginia, stage, screen and Hollywood, several times I thought about how I needed to check in on the football team because I had a strong feeling in my bones that it, too, was bound for glory.

Now football is 8-1 and another set of national playoffs is ahead, and it’s time to see what Richey’s got in store.

Success is fleeting. Nothing lasts forever. Enjoy it while it’s there.

Appreciate it. It’s hard to win the way the Purps are right now. The fall colors are ablaze on the ridge above campus. Feathery cirrus clouds drift by idly. Life is good. May it forever be so.

It won’t be, though. The world is changing, always rearranging. From birth to the end.

At the moment, Furman exceptionalism runs free. But they set a standard others will emulate. They raise those standards. Others redouble their efforts.

It’s giddy yet. Giddy’s good.

Reckon I can find 20 people who like this independent site enough to chip in $20 to keep it going?

Support the advertisers, and help keep the site – the game stories, the blogs, the photos – alive by making a donation to DHK Sports, P.O. Box 768, Clinton, S.C. 29325 or making a small monthly donation via Patreon. The Laurens County site is here. The Furman site is here.

Another way I can derive some revenue is if you purchase my books at MonteDutton.net. They’re quite entertaining in spite of the fellow who wrote them. Two of my novels, Cowboys Come Home and Lightning in a Bottle, are available in audio versions. The latest, The Latter Days, is about baseball.

Photo galleries are posted on Instagram @furmanatt and @laurenscountysports.

The next Fiesta Grande open mic is Wednesday, Nov. 8, at 8 p.m.