Overtime. The score is tied at four and the players are beyond exhaustion as steam rises off the field, off their bodies and off their helmets. They now draw their strength from the smell of victory, the lust of the win and the desire to continue. As the opponent brings the ball down, each of the Yeomen defensemen lock their man off and expend the last of their energy in a final effort to reclaim possession of the ball. The enemy runs down the sideline carrying the ball, but is forced back inside, a stick flashes in from the side and the ball hits the ground. Loose ball! Quickly and with deft speed an Oberlin defenseman scoops up the ball and gets it up the field. And just that quickly his moment of glory is over…

This is the life of a defensive player. No matter what sport you’re talking about, the defense trains and lives for that one short moment of fame which, although the crowd may forget it in the next 20 seconds when the game-winning goal is scored, he will remember for the rest of his life and say that he was “just doing his job.”

Take football, for instance. For those of you who have been to a game, what are you more likely to remember — the dirty, barely-dragged-down-by-the-jersey tackle behind the line of scrimmage forcing the other team into third and long, which consequently results in a punt? Or will you remember the 60-yard reception that went over the heads of the secondary all the way to the end zone for the game-winning touchdown? Chances are, most people are going to remember the wide receiver and his 60-yard catch, which is a pity if you think about it.

Look at it this way. You have this big defensive end who made a dirty tackle. It wasn’t a big hit. It wasn’t a fumble or an interception leading to points, but I guarantee you that he not only had to beat his man on the offensive line, but then had to expend as much energy and heart as possible to catch up and then drag the opposition running back down by his fingertips. His fingertips! (Which are now bleeding or broken since he had to bring a 230-pound running back down with merely the tips of his fingers.) Compare that to running 60 yards, jumping and catching the ball and you might begin to see the superior play, despite its lack of beauty. By the way, you should also remember that the wide receiver wouldn’t even be on the field to make said catch if it hadn’t been for the defensive end making the ugly tackle for a loss.

That’s just one example of our unsung heroes, but there are many more. Take a gander at the stories in the newspaper for sporting events. In lacrosse, how many defensemen do you see being interviewed about how they stepped in front of an 85 mph shot for the sake of the opponent not scoring one goal? How many defensemen do you see being interviewed because they simply did their job and passed the ball up the field so that the offense could score? I can answer that for you — none. And why? Because people would rather read a play-by-play about how we scored the goal than about how we got into a position to score the goal.

Then there are statistics. Goals, assists, power-play goals, short-handed goals, etc. I often find myself wondering, “What the hell is a statistic? The only ones I’ve ever had are penalties.” Ask yourself, how many pop-ups did Cecil Fielder have in 1998? How many times did Mike Piazza catch some sneaky base-runner trying to steal second in 2003? Even I don’t know the answers to these questions and I’m a defenseman through and through. But ask how many homeruns Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire hit in the great home run race a few years ago and most people can tell you on the spot.

Speaking of baseball, checking the Oberlin College athletics website right now, the first thing you see is a report on baseball’s victory over Lake Erie College. Now then, that’s great and all, but what does the first paragraph include? Offensive statistics. Nothing about the guys playing in the field. This is why MLB should get rid of the DH — pitchers should be allowed to get batting averages, too, at least that way if their ERA is in a slump they can make up for it. Keep in mind that Oberlin pitcher Troy DeWitt is leading the team in batting average. Perhaps MLB should follow suit.

How about pressure? There is much more pressure on a defenseman than on an attackman. Think about it, what happens if a defenseman messes up? The opponent scores and everyone knows that it was all your fault. But when Michael Jordan goes 15-30 from the field, you’ll say “Well, he still scored 30 points.” When we mess up, everyone knows and everyone likes to remind us about it. I would love to run up to an attackman one day after he misses a shot and tell him six times that he missed and what he should have done not to miss. After all, when I have three coaches and at least three players reminding me how I got smoked one-on-one and they scored, it’s the same thing, right? Better yet, just once — just once, I think that when an attackman or a forward, or a batter, or whatever, when he misses the goal or pitch, he should have to go chase his own ball. I mean, Hell, when they miss, that means we did something right; why should we have to chase it? Right, right, team unity — please remember this is satire.

These are the things that plague many defenders’ minds. We don’t have statistics, I couldn’t even tell you what the shorthand notations for the statistics are. PIMS is apparently penalty minutes, although I don’t really know where the “I” fits into that. But what we do have, and have more of than any other part of our respective game, is heart and unity.

I say “heart” because whether we’re winning or losing, the defense still has a job to do. If we’re up by 10 at halftime and the offense doesn’t score again for the entire game, we can still win, providing that the defense does its job. I say “heart” because when we’re tired and bleeding, sweaty and concussed, we don’t look for a substitution, we suck it up and we tell tales about how hard we are later.

And unity — okay, so I suppose I lied when I said that there weren’t any statistics for defense because there is one statistic which brings them together in a fashion that a home run or a career goal record couldn’t do. And that is the statistic for sports that have power plays –—the almighty penalty killing percentage. What does penalty-killing have to do with unity? Well, for starters, there is only one way to kill a penalty and that is to trust the man on your right, on your left, behind you and in the goal. When you’re a man down, you don’t have time to look around and make sure they’re in the right place, you just have to trust that they’ll do their job. And when it’s all over and done with, no single player owns that statistic, but it feels pretty damned good to know that your unit owns the stat and that you accomplished it, not on your own but with the rest of the persons on your unit alongside you.

This is the life of the defenseman, the unsung hero of sports who plays for the love of the game, for the big hit or catch and for that single moment of accomplishment which no one will remember, but he will forever call “just doing his job.” Big slam dunks, grand slams and game-winning goals are a great and exciting thing to see without a doubt, but the next time you go to a game, take a look at the defensemen, lest you miss their single moment of glory.

By the way, if you ever wondered why defensemen don’t run up the field and try to score more often, would you be motivated to score if you knew that the consequence would be an entire team of sweaty, dirty, smelly, bloody players jumping all over you in celebration? I don’t think so. They can have that part of the glory. We’ll settle for a head butt.