The magic of the postseason

The playoffs are always an exciting time in sports, and high school athletics are no different.

Unlike the pros, though, these careers are done after four years. There’s no coming back and no free agent market to test, which can really bring out seniors’ emotions after those painful season-ending losses.

It doesn’t matter if that final contest is a blowout or a heartbreaker. They’re all heartbreakers when they’re the last ones.

Students won’t ever play that sport again as a high school athlete with those exact teammates who often become extended family members. Those final minutes and the instant recognition of the finality of the moment can be difficult to take.

And that’s OK.

The sadness actually represents joy and passion. Those visibly upset that their prep careers are over must have loved playing those sports like crazy.

They cared about their teammates’ success and got mentored by their coaches.

They made friends that may last a lifetime. They made memories they will tell their grandchildren — and perhaps embellish a detail or two — and they may very well have learned as many life and other lessons through playing sports as they did inside a classroom.

There’s that cliche, “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”

In the case of high school athletics, feel free to do both.

ν Kudos to the Port Washington volleyball, football and cross country teams for keeping their heads on straight and performing at a high level last weekend after that fake threat of an active shooter in the high school on Thursday.

I can’t describe many of my thoughts on the matter because this is a family paper, nor can I say what should happen to the guilty party for the same reason.

ν I’m hearing some odd, guarded reactions from across the state to the seeding for the high school playoffs, which was done by a computer. It seems head-to-head match-ups weren’t taken into account, and I heard strength of schedule was and was not a factor.

I find this rather alarming since we are living in a society in which we are having computers drive cars.

In examining the seeds, I have a few inquiries of my own, namely how artificial intelligence evidently obtained access to cocaine.

ν Here’s a poll of some of our prep athletes’ favorite Halloween characters.

Grafton’s Ben Birch: Michael Myers

Port Washington’s Kaiden Schumacher: Definitely Jason

Grafton’s Josh Lee-O’Bryant: Freddy Krueger

Ozaukee’s Skyler Mills: the clown from “It” (Pennywise)

Grafton’s Leah Maciejewski: Edward Scissorhands

Cedar Grove-Belgium’s Payton Dodson: the three witches from “Hocus Pocus”

Grafton’s Kaitlin Muecke: Jack Skellington in the “Nightmare before Christmas.”

About Halloween, if you’re planning to hand out circus peanuts to trick or treaters this year, tell you what — take the holiday off. Save them a couple of months for that other holiday and put them in your homemade fruitcake. Spoiler alert: Nobody likes those, either.