It’s s the fourth quarter, your team is hanging on to a narrow lead and you’re dreading the familiar outcome: squandering it all in the last five minutes. Are you dreading Michigan vs. Ohio State game, the Patriots vs the Titans or ” the last of life for which the first was made”? Yes, all of them.            http://www.whatshouldIreadnext.com/quotes/robert-browning-grow-old-with-me-the

Both the Wolverines and the Patriots held tentative leads entering the fourth quarter (Saturday and Sunday respectively)–the moment when the home team has been known to leak gumption. Yet both Michigan and New England stopped their opponents at midfield just as momentum seemed to be swinging.  Both teams took possession, surging energy, opening holes for Haskins and Harris (respectively) to charge through. In Michigan it sounded like this:

[Hassan] Haskins* can’t stop, and he won’t stop. He takes the next carry for a gain of 27 all the way to the Ohio State 4, and then scores on the next play, his fifth of the game.  Michigan 42, Ohio State 27 (2:17 4th)

In Foxboro, MA, the dormant New England running game suddenly revived, and Damien Harris wriggled left for a first down, then slashed right for a fourteen-yard touchdown with 4:38 to go. New England 36, Tennessee 13.

Both the Blue and Gold and the Red, White, and Blue stunned their opponents with two-touchdown victories. Fatalism succumbed to the thrill of victory twice in one weekend.  It was so unexpected, the best I could muster was deep satisfaction for the overturning of my expectations or was it the dread of failure?

Why am I not storming the field like the crazed swarm of Blue and Gold in Michigan?  I walked away less than exuberant, but cheerfully stunned. Was it my shaky confidence in my own fourth quarter, the expectation that no lead is safe with me?

Michigan’s reversal of fortune was less than guaranteed after a decade of thrashings by Ohio State. It was hard to believe, even with 2:17 left in the game, that the lead was secure.  Michigan showed the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory when they played Michigan State only two weeks ago.  Ohio State was a bigger threat to overturn a lead than Michigan State.  So it was hardly expected that Michigan’s final drive would assault the gut of the OSU line to score the coup d’grace.

In the other case the New England Patriots had a five-game winning streak and were demonstrating a flashy passing game going into the fourth quarter.  However, their defensive line was porous. They had yielded 100+ yard games to two Titans’ running backs. Who would guess they would finally force two passing situations which forced two turnovers?  They proved their mettle in the fourth quarter, like the Patriot teams of old.

I like to think I have mettle, too.  When my team shows its resolve in the fourth quarter, I imagine a mettle transplant. Two teams out-played my expectations, giving me hope for similar feats on my own playing field.  I’m playing the fourth quarter of my life calling on all the mettle I can imagine. “The last of life for which the first was made.”

*Hassan Haskins is a graduate of Eureka High School, Missouri