PETERSEN: Timpview is about football again

Even as Timpview football players were celebrating one of the most dramatic state championships ever, social media cling-ons started to chime in with negativity.

The most common theme: Timpview, a group of cheaters full of questionable eligibility, shouldn’t have been allowed a shot at the title in the first place.

Please.

Say what you want about the UHSAA (as many already have), but in the case of Timpview they handed out the maximum punishment allowed. The Thunderbirds forfeited each and every game in which an ineligible player participated. Anything more would have crossed the line between justice and jaundice.

This wasn’t about Timpview “deserving” to win. It was about them needing to.

In 2012 the Thunderbirds football program had become the Watergate of high school football in Utah. Ineligibile players. Missing funds. Coaches with skeletons. The onslaught of non-football news hammered the former state powerhouse again and again. The reaction from opposing/neutral fan bases became a knowing nod accompanied by “Timpview again, huh?”

Thunderbird supporters vehemently rallied behind their team, even as the former infrastructure was crumbling. Former head coach Louis Wong was out. The state titles he had once produced on an annual basis had dried up. Aggressive detractors cried karma at Timpview’s fall from grace, with Thunderbird fans screaming “jealousy” right back.

In the end, both sides might have been right and wrong at the same time. Whichever way anyone looked at it, the result was the same: Timpview football was no longer about Timpview football.

Until quarterback Jake Lloyd and his teammates wrenched everyone’s attention back to where it needed to be: the gridiron.

The effect was purifying. The cheers Timpview faithful screamed after Friday’s win were less angry, less defiant. Instead they were joyful. No longer were they unofficial defendants, trying to make their testimonies heard before, during and after UHSAA hearings. They were fans again, showering their team with support.

Make no mistake, the team needed the game to be about the game again. First-year head coach Cary Whittingham had to be only too eager to talk about his team and his coaching job – instead of those that preceded him. Instead of averting his eyes during awkward questions about the ugly adult world, Lloyd and his teammates were allowed to be kids again, soaking in the moment.

Those who say Timpview football shouldn’t have been allowed to have its day are, in essence, saying that they haven’t suffered enough. That’s wrong. They suffered as much as they should have by the book, and much more than that after all the negative attention they received. They paid the price and moved on.

All the way to the state title.

Such a transition shouldn’t be met begrudgingly. It should be met with relief. The big story, finally, was back on the field.

Timpview is about football again.

Matt Petersen can be reached at mpetersen@heraldextra.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @TheMattPetersen.

**The original site for this article can be found here.**