By By Chandler Myers
Perfection is a word that is thrown around a lot in our society today.
A lot of times that word is thrown around in sports with things like perfect games, a perfect win-loss record or a perfect team.
Perfection is an art desired by all athletes, but only a few select ones are able to achieve that goal.
The 1972 Miami Dolphins are still the only team in the history of the NFL to navigate through the regular season and postseason without losing.
The Patriots made a run at that record by going 16-0 in the regular season, but lost in the Super Bowl to finish the season 18-1.
When the final team falls from that chase of the perfect record, the ‘72 Dolphins and their coach, Don Shula always get together and celebrate that they are still the only ones to pull of that magnificent feat.
Thirty five quarterbacks in the NFL have thrown a perfect game in terms of passer rating, but not one of them has completed every pass while completing that feat. Does their passer rating still deserve to be perfect?
It all comes down to your perception of perfect, I guess. The quarterbacks in those games did not throw any interceptions, so that has to count for something.
When the word perfect gets thrown around, people every get excited.
They see their team heading down that road towards a national championship and a perfect record, and it throws a lot of what Nick Saban likes to call “clutter” in the air.
That’s where the word perfection bothers me because it fuels the fire and makes eveyone think about other things than the game in front of you.
Until that game is over and your team wins then you cannot let the idea of perfect enter your head.
Until perfect is right there in the moment you witness it, then it is all just outside of the real world to be dreamt about.
Monday night, I witnessed two of the best basketball games that I could ever possibly have been at.
The boys and girls basketball teams traveled to Monroe Academy and picked up monster wins against their rivals.
The only difference in the games was that the Monroe boys put up more competition than their girls did.
The boys were trailing for most of the game and needed something special to pick up that win.
They had an amazing fourth quarter that allowed them to march past Monroe and win 65-53.
The Lady Cougars performed excellent on defense and only allowed the Lady Vols to score 19 points. The Lady Cougars scored 74.
Were either of these team’s performances perfect? That is really for you to decide. The EA fans in the stands might think so, and they have good reason to think so.
It’s not every game that a team wins by 55 or is able to overcome the slightest deficit, both these teams did just that.
Their records might not be perfect, but I think their peformances last night were.
Chandler Myers is sports editor of the Atmore Advance. He can be reached at 368-2123 or by e-mail at sports@atmoreadvance.com.