50 years ago today, on another brisk Friday morning, a gunman shot and killed our nation’s 35th president. In the following 50 years, the United States refused to let John F. Kennedy’s violent end define his legacy. Instead, we recognize him as the man who boldly led us into the New Frontier; the man who reformed education, Medicaid and welfare; the man who founded the Peace Corps and inspired a league of physicists to put a man on the moon. At the same time that we mourn his untimely demise, we also realize that his life was much greater than his death.

Now, it isn’t the usual role of the Trinitonian to get all philosophical. We mainly just like to complain about other people complaining about involvement. Despite our preferences, we feel like this moment’s potential for reflection is simply too great to pass up. Now, to our knowledge, no one has ever been assassinated at Trinity, and hopefully we will continue that streak far into the future. What we’re trying to say is that life is full of abrupt endings that have nothing to do with death.

We are thinking of our sports teams, specifically volleyball, cross country and the men’s and women’s soccer teams. All of these teams have had phenomenal seasons, due in large part to magnetic team chemistry and nearly flawless executions. Despite its prowess, the volleyball team fell last weekend to Cal Lutheran. It would be a crying shame to let one defeat define the volleyball team’s season. Should the soccer teams and the women’s cross country team face the same fate (we’re knocking on every wooden surface and tossing salt around the newsroom to ensure that we didn’t just jinx anything), we can only hope the players and coaches would focus on the terrific seasons they have played.

A national title would be awesome, but should the odds not be in our favor this year, we are completely prepared to write your legacy as one of record-breaking goals, assists and run times as well as continued selections for All-Regional and All-American teams. Wherever you may play this weekend, be it Indiana or Iowa, play confident that a school “” well, definitely a newsroom “” anxiously awaits news of your success. Good luck! Buena suerte! Bonne chance!