Turn the clock back seven weeks.

Butler's varsity football team went to Shaler for its second game of the season and picked up a 38-27 victory.

The win marked the Golden Tornado's first section victory on the road in nine years. Three players — Lucas Dubyak, Matt Christy and Robert Burdine — rushed for 100 yards in that game.

Things looked a bit promising for Butler's football fortunes at that point.

Fast forward to now.

Butler closed the season by losing its final seven games and weren't close on the scoreboard in any of them.

Dubyak, Christy and Burdine all got injured during the season. Quarterback Tom Jendesky, who also enjoyed a 100-yard rushing effort this year, also got hurt.

The Tornado lost 15 players — a quarter of their roster — to concussions during a two-week period late in the year.

Butler faced the top two ranked teams in Pennsylania Quad-A football — Upper St. Clair and Central Catholic — during the season.

Seven of the Tornado's nine opponents this year posted winning records and are headed to the WPIAL playoffs.

The 2013 season could be labeled a disaster, right?

Wrong.

Disaster is when kids give up.

Disaster is when kids stop trying.

Disaster is when kids no longer believe in themselves.

That wasn't the case here.

Butler traveled to Fox Chapel last week for a game between two 1-6 teams. The Tornado believed they could win, but entered that game missing a bevy of starters to injuries and had a few more prominent players go down during the game.

Christy was drilled to the turf while leaping in an attempt to catch a pass. His body was fully exposed and he laid on the ground in pain.

Despite the score being out of hand, Christy returned to action after being medically cleared on the sidelines. He took another shot while returning a kickoff and was carried off the field on a stretcher.

He gave the crowd the thumbs-up regardless.

A Fox Chapel receiver was running free down the right sideline, toward the end zone, when Butler's Reid Werth ran him down from behind at the 5-yard line. Again, the game was well decided at this point.

Butler started three sophomore linebackers that night. The program had to cancel Saturday junior varsity games because too much of the JV squad was playing on Friday nights for the injured varsity.

Sounds bleak, doesn't it?

These kids played on, regardless. They practiced hard. They faced adversity and attacked it as best they could.

That's not disaster.

That's learning about life.

Maybe these kids didn't win on the football field now.

They'll win in more important endeavors later.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle