15 seasons

The hard-working Dolphins (Coop on the far left)

The Dolphins played their final game today, after 15 seasons together. That's about 150 games -- most of them outdoor, about 10 of them during a blissful indoor season.

They started when they were 4 and in preschool. I've written often before about how much this team and all the families mean to our family. And, honestly, today I'm a little too sad to write much more.

A couple of links:
Final season begins
Bad calls
From 2006

I cried as the game was ending -- and not because the other team scored in the final seconds to tie the game 2-2. (How poetic would it have been for this Bad News Bears kind of team to win their final game?)

I cried because I remember the first day we met as a team, in an upstairs meeting room at the Lakes Tennis Academy. Because we've known some of these families since Katie was 3 months old. Because some of these families knew Steve in our innocent pre-cancer days. Because they supported us every moment while Steve was being diagnosed and treated for cancer. And when he was dying. And in the days after he died. And in the two and a half years since.

These boys are good boys. They are polite and generous and funny and smart. They take care of one another. As Coach Phil famously says, they are a team of future CEOs.

Dylan, Reilly, Alex, Tate, Asher, Caleb, Cooper and Jake

I cried because I so vividly remember the afternoon the above photo was taken, when the young, preschool Dolphins celebrated their first season.

And because those tiny, chubby-cheeked boys are now tall and lanky fifth-graders, on the way to middle school and only growing bigger.

Cooper, Tate, Reilly, Jake and Dylan