It took five long years, hundreds of practices, thousands of workouts, dozens of interviews and 33 dispiriting losses before Adam Weber finally said something even vaguely negative about the University of Minnesota.
"I hate to say it, but I'm really tired of school," the Gophers quarterback admitted this week. "I'm ready to graduate and be done with college."
He was talking about classwork, not football, since he already possesses a business degree and has been taking grad-level courses this fall. But who could blame the 23-year-old senior if he was anxious to walk away from a football experience that didn't come within a season's worth of Hail Marys from what he hoped and expected?
Yet Weber approaches his 50th start in the Gophers backfield on Saturday, his final game in a remarkable college career, with sanguine emotions, an against-all-odds feeling that it was worth all the effort. Weber long ago came to terms with his team's naggingly persistent failure to live up to its ambitions, and said he can appreciate his career for the adventure, however frustrating, that it was.
The journey was supposed to take him somewhere, in other words, but he's discovered that the quest can be fulfilling by itself.
"I'm proud of many things we've accomplished. I know we're here to win games, and I wish we had done more of that," the senior from Shoreview said. "But we had some great moments, big wins. And there are a lot of great experiences that I'm grateful for because of football. We work with Hope Kids -- I can walk into a room at a children's hospital and make a sick kid smile, just because there's a Golden Gopher in his room. ... How can I say anything bad about [my career], when it allows me to do something that makes you feel so good?"
That's extraordinary maturity, those around the program say, from a player whose confidence and competitiveness make each loss -- and no quarterback in recent memory has suffered more of them -- a surprise and a heartache.
"You're measured by wins and losses, but you're also measured in how you respond to adversity. And nobody ever dreamed there would be this much adversity," athletic director Joel Maturi said. "Adam has been affected by a lot of factors outside his control, and he's never complained. I'm sure inside he's wondering, 'What if?' He's human, how can he not? But he's never said it, not to me or anyone I know of. And that's maturity far beyond his years."