Jim Amidon — The Wabash College football team’s exciting run through the NCAA Division III playoffs came to an abrupt end Saturday. With winds howling at 25 miles per hour and steady snow showers throughout the game at Whitewater, Wisconsin, the Little Giants could bask only in the warmth of their loud and appreciative fans.

Check out three photo albums by clicking here, here, and here.

The statistics sheet and scoreboard were lopsided in favor of the host Warhawks, but determination and pride favored the Little Giants.

A huge crowd of Wabash fans from Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York, and even Florida descended on Perkins Stadium hours before the start of the football game. Wabash flags on 30-foot poles whipped wildly in the wind, but staked out the Wabash tailgating spot next to the field.

There was warmth, fellowship, and good cheer — a celebration not of an impending victory, but of the Wabash spirit and the Little Giants’ successful 2007 season.

It’s a shame the outcome was as unbalanced as it was. While the Warkhaws are an elite team that I can easily see playing for the national championship in two weeks, a rash of Wabash injuries, illnesses, and mistakes kept the Little Giants from playing their best on Saturday. The wind, cold, and snow were factors, but Wabash simply didn’t play well enough to stay with mighty Whitewater.

I walked the field, then covered in six inches of snow and ice, after the game in search of the players who have meant so much to Wabash this season and over the last four years. Saturday the seniors were sad and disappointed, but hopefully they will begin to hold their heads high today and in the weeks to come. They have much to be proud of; they represented Wabash with courage and integrity.

As a class, the seniors won three straight North Coast Athletic Conference championships, qualified for the NCAA Division III playoffs twice, split the Monon Bell series, and shattered some of Wabash’s oldest football records.

Standing as a symbol of the team’s grit and determination is captain and All-American Adi Pynenberg (left). Quiet and soft-spoken, Pynenberg let his play do the talking — shouting is a better word to match his uncanny linebacking ability. Not even six feet tall and barely over 210 pounds, Pynenberg seems unlikely to be the player who would capture virtually every Wabash defensive record.

I bet you couldn’t even pull him out of a lineup of Wabash players if I asked you to identify the first Little Giant ever to be named a three-time All-American in the sport. Heck, by physical stature alone, you’d pick 20 guys before you’d select Adi.

If ever there was a football player who truly defined the school’s nickname – Little Giant — Adi Pynenberg is that player. He will be missed for sure, but my sincere hope is that his underclassman teammates remember not his records, but the way he conducted himself and the way he played the game. The records will probably be broken; his legacy of character and class, of playing the game with all his heart and might must endure.

I wish I had room to write about all of the seniors on this year’s Wabash football team. Each and every one of them is special in their own way, and each man’s contributions to the team are worthy of note.

But to list them one at a time would be to go against the fundamental nature of Coach Creighton’s approach to the game. For coach and this team, it’s never about the individual. It’s always about the collective product that is achieved when every member of the team contributes — sells out — not for himself, but for the players on either side of him.

So that’s how this team will be remembered. Not for its All-Conference and All-American individual players, of which there are many, but for the sum of its parts.

Coach Creighton has now been around Wabash a long time, but never before has his team-first philosophy rung so true. Never before in his Wabash tenure as the team lost as many valuable individual players to injury, yet every week, someone else — someone unpredictable — would step up for the benefit of the whole.

Indeed, it was a cold day in Wisconsin on Saturday. But the spirit of camaraderie among the Little Giants and their fans warmed our frozen digits and more importantly warmed our hearts.

(Tailgate and pre-game photos by Anthony Hart ’87)