
These tight, late-game circumstances that unnerve minds and stir stomachs, are awfully common over the course of a season. The buzzer beater, the stoppage time scramble–these are the frenzied clips we store deep in our brain’s cache, the ones we love to recount and relive, and thereby live on through our athletic culture. The mere act of sharing ideas forms the fabric of our social society, and serves as the entry key for conversations, fueling our senses of contribution and acceptance, and spiking our brains with dopamine every time a listener smiles or leans in. As people, we are creatures of story, passing tales down from generations, with fleeting memories being some of the purest moments we can latch onto and share. This human tendency to obsess over sensationally unlikely occurrences is hardly abnormal. These are frantic finales: last-attempt rolls of the sporting dice that hit the jackpot–but they’re not as glamorous as they might look.

Not the strong-willed efforts, nor the held-down forts, no–the attack-minded miracles that prevailed over all odds. When we think of tense, last-gasp minutes of soccer, the incredulous victories are always those that come to mind. The Last Throw, Charles Robert Leslie, Ca.
