| By Dan Rasmussen, Deseret News Published: Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2010 12:35 a.m. MST | Hurricane coach Chris Homer has never watched the film of the final play of his team's 3A state championship game against Juan Diego last year.
"But," he says, "in my mind, I see it all the time."
Homer, whose team will meet Juan Diego for this year's 3A title at 11 a.m. Friday at Rice-Eccles Stadium, sees that fateful final play at all hours of the day — every day.
Sometimes, he wakes up at 3 in the morning with images of what happened racing through his head. The play that Homer can't watch — yet always watches — ripped out his heart, the hearts of his players and the hearts of an entire community.
With 2.9 seconds left in last year's championship game, the Hurricane Tigers stood on the cusp of securing their school's first 11-man football state title. But on the final play — a play that will go down in state history — Juan Diego QB Cody Stevenson threw a 31-yard Hail Mary pass between a pair of Hurricane defenders and into the hands of receiver Bruce Nix, who hauled it in and left Homer and Co. absolutely devastated.
"I can't even tell you where I was at mentally or physically," says Homer of the two days afterward. "It was bad."
A year has since elapsed, but Homer says he'll never be over it.
"No, I never will be," he says. "I think about it every day. I say that to people, and they're like, 'Yeah, whatever.' But for right now at this point in my life, this is what I do. This is what I've been doing since 5 o'clock this morning. When you invest that much in the kids and they invest that much back and to be so close, I will never be over that loss. I'm convinced of that.
"It will always be a part of who I am. I think it will help me be a better person in some ways, but I'll never understand it, either, in a lot of ways."
Twelve months removed from last year's heart-breaker, Homer's team is back.
Back to Rice-Eccles Stadium. Back to face Juan Diego.Back to try and win a first 3A state title for Hurricane.
It's the third year in a row all three of those things happened.
But that's where the similarities end, according to Homer.
This week, he's been pointing out to his players that this year's Hurricane team has never played this year's Juan Diego team, and that the scoreboard will be "0-0" when the Tigers take the field come Friday morning.
"I've kind of compartmentalized this, and I think the other coaches have done the same thing," says Homer. "Me and the other seniors (from last year), that loss is ours together. But it's ours together from last year. I don't think it's affected me in any way as a coach this year. I really don't.
"I think that's the beauty of being a coach. That loss is so separate from what happened last year, and I think that's why I find myself getting so excited to be back."
So are his players.
To their immense credit, this year's Hurricane seniors have worked incredibly hard from last November to this November, doing everything they can to try and have a different outcome.
"My junior class last year, as soon as we got back on Monday, we were hitting the weights as hard as can be," said senior running back Jarom Healey. "We were focused already, waiting for football, even though it was many months away.
"That," Healey added, "was the fuel to our success this year — that play."
And now they hope it can help lead them to something their school has never done before — win a state championship in football.
"For us," said offensive linemen Daniel Nielsen, "it's 'Let's make history; let's not dwell on history.' "
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