This entry is written by Carl Ehrlich, a football student-athlete at Harvard. He wrote this entry before Saturday's 10-0 victory over rival Yale, which gave Harvard a share of the Ivy League title.

Check out Carl's previous blogs: Playing Under the Lights, Summer Dogs , R.I.C.E., A tale of two lives, Remembering recruiting, No holidays in football and No bulletin board material before Harvard-Yale game.

Whenever kids dream about sports, they dream about endings. They dream about being the hero.

They count down the game clock as they hoist rubber basketballs that are smoothed over by countless hours spent practicing in their driveway, lofting them towards slightly lopsided hoods as they imagine the echo of the buzzer drowning out the swish of the metal nets.

They ignore all previous baseball instruction, dipping their shoulders and pulling their heads out as they cream a 3-2 pitch in the bottom of the ninth out of their hometown baseball stadium, a pitch that just happened to be made with a water-logged tennis ball in a backyard.

And with a flick of the wrist, they tell their friends to run farther and farther back as they imagine themselves buying time in the pocket to hoist up a last second "Hail Mary" to win the game.

Our momentary fates in these fantasies depend upon the roll of the rim, the break of the curveball or the effectiveness of the twentieth head fake to buy space to make the game-winning catch. When they fall in our favor, we're winners, heroes, and everything is right with the world. When they don't, we lost, end of story. No morals, no "better for the experience," nothing.

In this regard, I think that our perception and appreciation of sport is flawed. Sports are not always about the fingertip catch, the homer that's still rising as it leaves the park or the three pointer that rolls around the rim three times before dropping. They're also about the two-yard run in the first quarter, the quirky warm-up routine the hitter has in the on deck circle and a good joke the point guard made in the locker room while he was tying his shoes.

In focusing on the ending, we lose sight of what really matters in sport - the journey. Sports are not beating Yale or Yale beating us - it's about playing The Game. It is about the process through which we arrived at this point in time, what it was that gave us the chance to play for all the marbles. Yes, the seniors got to end their Harvard careers on the highest possible note and would not be wrong to think that they were going to wake up from this dream any second. But even without such a storybook ending I would hold them in equally high regards.

Out of admiration and appreciation for all of the graduating seniors, I wanted to spend my last post of the 2008 season talking about who they were and what makes each of them so important.

Peter Ajayi was given the burden of being one of the most gifted athletes that anyone has ever laid eyes on. With that burden came constant attention and expectations, but Pete never let any of this faze him. Each day, whether he was the hero or the goat, Pete came to practice or lift ready to work to get better as well as step into a vocal leadership role in which he flourished despite his naturally quiet demeanor. Despite taking longer than any girl I have ever seen to get dressed and ready, he's been a great teammate and an even better friend.

Andrew Berry is one of the most incredible people I have met at Harvard and my experience wouldn't be what it has been without him (I've now rewritten this paragraph four times but this is only sentence I've kept). Berry is a guy whom I truly couldn't write enough about and I would be doing him a disservice by even trying to reduce him to a few sentences. He has not only worked hard to advance himself in all arenas, but taken an interest in the well-being and success of every person around him. It was only fitting that he won the Robert Kennedy award at the end of the season.

Alex Breaux is one of the most talented kids on the team. More impressive than his hands and agility is who he is as a person. I've had the privilege of seeing him perform on stage as well as sitting and picking the brain of this gifted wide receiver who spends much of his off time reading the newspaper cover-to-cover. Football is a sport often threatened by individuality, but Alex became very much his own person within the confines of the team-first structure and should be commended for never allowing one to threaten the other.

The first thing I learned about Harvard Football was about Desmond Bryant: The coaches told me about him when I was still a senior in high school and when we first met I understood why. He was immense. He looked like he had just eaten Muhammad Ali. Dez and I started off the season under inauspicious circumstances because we were both battling for the same spot, but never once did this take away from my appreciation for who he was as a player and a teammate. Dez has battled for everything he has gotten and I'm looking forward to watching him play on Sundays even more than I enjoyed playing with him on Saturdays

I don't want to write anything too nice about my roommates, because a) they know how I feel about them and b) our day-to-day dorm macho is not conducive to moments of extreme nostalgia, but I've got to give it up to Zach Copple. Copple is the wise man in the locker room and brings an entirely new perspective to everything. He didn't come to Harvard to land a job on Wall Street - he came to Harvard to push himself both mentally and physically and has done so admirably. Never once did he use an excuse to give up (and believe me, he had a thousand opportunities), and as a result he got to finish his career like the champ he is. He still swears that he is going "into the wild" after he graduates, but I don't want to call his bluff because I'll miss him too much if he does.

The problem with writing about football for a non-football player is that people too often take clichés to be just that. That aside, Michael Doerner has simply been a guy that has done everything that has ever been asked of him and never once expected anything in return. Jogging over to the weight room after the Columbia game, I noticed that he was wearing a boot on his ankle and a wrist brace. After I sarcastically asked him how he was feeling, he responded in dead seriousness, "good enough to win these next two games." This tough-guy mentality, however, should not take away from his easy-going personality off the field and his infectious chuckle.

Glen Dorris cares so much about football that I'm not sure I would let him coach my kids. For someone who comes across as laidback as he does, I'm not sure anyone on the team cared more about football than Glen did. Before every practice, he would stop himself and make sure that he was completely mentally focused on the task ahead. He refused to set foot on the field unless he was entirely committed and ready to play. As much as we bonded by having lockers next to each other, the one thing I'll take away from Glen is the look in his eyes every time he took the field in a game. It's hard not to have confidence when you turn around and see a linebacker so ready to play.

Elliot Lauzen for president. Elliot is a dedicated worker, a loyal friend, a diligent student, a selfless teammate and a pentathlon national champion. I couldn't be more sincere in each of these assessments. He is one of the most highly respected kids on the entire team and despite being a kid that has had everything going for him, has had no qualms in taking on any role that could help the team. He spoke with us about having the opportunity to have competed in the 2012 Olympics in the pentathlon but passing it up to be part of a team. I couldn't be happier he did.

The turning point in my relationship with Sonny McCracken was going out to live with him in Santa Monica for a summer. While we never failed to get along, there remained an air of confusion regarding who the other person was when the summer started. Sonny took me under his wing for the summer and welcomed me into his family, giving me the opportunity to see what a good older brother and son he was and in the process we formulated a great friendship. Plus he taught me to surf! He took a similar role on the team this year and emerged not only as a playmaker, but as a positive influence on all the underclassmen.

Austin McLeod is an unsung hero on this team. While he never got the chance to make his full impact as a linebacker felt on Saturdays, he made sure that he got every ounce he could out of his opportunity at Harvard and led the team the best way he knew how. No one took more pride in what they did than Austin, who made a conscious decision everyday to max out the chance he was given. Because of this attitude, he became a crucial special teams player for us and, more importantly, a perfect example for how football should be approached.

Inherent in being a jokester is the desire for people to find you funny, but never should this be confused with not being taken seriously. Everyone that knows him knows that Jason Miller is a joker, but what I'll remember the most about him is a conversation I overheard him have with our head trainer about getting back to practice. Jason had a terrible rib injury all year that allowed him to play in the games but limited his practice reps. This wasn't good enough for him, and I've never held him in higher regard than I did after listening to him badger the trainers about allowing him to take every single snap he could in practice during the week. No joke.

Most every person on the team would write about how selfless B.J. Merriweather was this year and how no one could've matched the team-first attitude he brought everyday. What I'll always remember about BJ is freshman year when he pulled me aside, told me how much he appreciated my filming practice all year and asked how I was doing. Being injured, cold, overworked and homesick, his appreciation and general interest in my well-being did more than he probably knew.

There are few people I would rather sit around and shoot the breeze with in the locker room than Justin Morgan. Conversely, he is the last person I wanted to go against in practice. A true football player through and through, Justin never let any of his injuries hold him back from knocking my brains out every time I lined up across from him. We've traded some serious blows on the line in practices but the one thing that we do share, beyond a heavy mutual respect, is a combined loss of too many brain cells because of our hard-headedness (or lack thereof). One of the toughest players I've ever lined up against, there was many a time when I begged him to sit out of practice because I could see that he was hurting. But he's old school tough, abiding by the belief that whatever didn't kill him made him stronger and really pushed the envelope in this regard.

In one of my summer blogs I wrote about my summer roommate Liam O'Hagan's habits. I joked about how boring his dietary and sleep habits were, but in all seriousness, to look at him over the last two years was to know that he was a man on a mission. It would have been easy for Liam to become complacent after experiencing the success he did so early in his career, but he only became more and more focused on making himself the player and teammate he is today.

JUICE! Last year when I was putting a resume together , I asked Randy Ojukwu to send his over so I could get a couple examples of what they should look like. I wish I hadn't. Opening up the document, I was reminded what a driven and talented kid he is (and consequently how short my resume would be next to his). But, on top of all of his extracurricular activities, he has always come down to the field house energetic, focused, and ready to offer whatever ridiculous and unfounded sports opinion he has that day.

MOOSE! Ryan Pilconis is a quiet guy, but what he has done in this program speaks volumes. Coming in freshman year, he was undersized and had a rough go of it (granted he was going up against some killers), but all he ever did in response was everything he could. In addition to developing into the player that he was this year, he simultaneously developed into a Harvard Football institution. Through wing nights, lobster roll expertise, or locker room impressions, all in addition to what he brought as a dominant offensive tackle, Big Pilc will not soon be forgotten.

Chris Pizzotti is the exact same person today that he was when he walked in the door to Harvard. Yes, he has obviously become a much better football player, but so much of him has remained completely unchanged. No matter his position on the depth chart or his game performance, he has always worked as hard as he could and always has been one of the most standup guys I've known. From the moment I walked into Harvard, he has made a point to look out for me and take an interest in my life and because of that I feel especially close to him. The thing is, most every person on the team probably feels this way because he treats every person equally and would never allow himself to be placed on a pedestal.

If Tom Rodger rubs you the wrong way, he doesn't care. Every workout and every practice, Tom came to get better and wouldn't let anyone stand in his way. Like a character out of "The Outsiders," Tom is old school "tuff" and has definitely left a valuable impression on the young offensive linemen that are going to have to step up in his place next year. Although I still resent his self proclamation of being the "Tug Champ," all Tom did was make me better this summer and fall.

To say that Chris Sanders has been through a lot is an understatement. No one has gone through more in their four years here than Chris Sanders has, both on and off the field, and yet no one has kept a better attitude throughout it all. We talk about handling adversity all the time in our program, but Sanders has put on a tutorial in doing so. Given countless opportunities to feel bad for himself, he has never done anything but what was best for the team. With this selfless attitude, he would've been more than happy to have his actions go completely unnoticed, but everyone that was a part of this team knows and appreciates what he has done for this program.

Heading over to dinner after a long day of meetings at the beginning of preseason this year, I had a long talk with Eric Schultz about football and how he saw his career ending. He told me that he had worked his entire life to play football and play it well for as long as he could. What he really wanted out of this season was an ending that did the entirety of his dedication justice. He got it. Whether it was forcing the fumble on the goal line of the Holy Cross game to lead us to our first win, forcing the fumble on the goal line of the Yale game to give us our last, or any play in between, Schultzy gave his career the ending it deserved, as well as many remarkable moments along the way.

Two freak injuries have limited Steve Sheehan - The Shark's - action the last two years, but the very second he was allowed to get back in the mix he was 100 MPH. His first game back against Dartmouth, he reminded us what we had been missing as he broke up a pass with a highlight reel hit. If there is one knock on him, it's that he plays too hard; Corey Mazza still has nightmares about coming across the middle in practice and seeing Steve coming. I will sincerely miss having him around, but I'm not sure all of our receivers will.

There is a term on the team, "moxie," that is used in reference to some indescribable quality that is roughly equivalent to getting "pumped up." From the start I was outspokenly opposed to the term, for reasons I now forget, but Sam Silverlieb kept pushing it and now it is in the team's every day vocabulary. At a certain point this year I stopped my campaign against it, not because of its futility, but rather because it had come to be associated with Sam and what he has done in this program. If this is the case, and its usage encourages people to work as hard and care for the team as much as Sam did, then I couldn't support it more.

Sophomore year, Bryan Sweeney left the defensive line to play tight end on the "Dark Side" of the ball. We couldn't have been happier to get him back his senior year. He's one of the few players to ever win "Most Improved" his junior spring, and that serves as a testament to how focused and driven he has been regardless of circumstances. This year he was sidelined because of a shoulder injury and never stopped trying to do everything he could to get back. Because they tested his hurt shoulder against the healthy one to see if it was getting better, I once suggested that he fake weakness in the healthy arm to make the injured one look cured. He looked up at me and exasperatedly replied, "you think I haven't tried that?!" It should also be noted that the "Shwan" also helped keep Sean Hayes in line when he got too big for his britches.

Matt Thomas may be the most pure football player on the entire team. He truly is a student of the game and every time he stepped on the field you could tell that a) he was working his tail off and b) he was having a great time doing it. There are a lot of early mornings and tough periods that a Harvard Football player comes across during his time here and its guys like Matt that keep everybody up. He'll be the first kid to give up his body to win (whether it be a conditioning drill or a third-down stop) and the first kid to make a joke and lighten the mood when things get tense.

In his speech to the team during Yale week, Riki Yoshinaga talked about how futile it was to try to explain what it was to be on a football team to his friends back home. Similarly, only after being on the team with Riki could a person understand what he has meant to everyone. Riki went about his business as diligently as he did quietly (very), and never looked for praise, because he understood the value of a cohesive unit and that no individual part is every greater than the whole.

When I signed up to live with Matt Curtis my freshman year, I got more than I bargained for. I got a roommate, a friend, a competitor, a role model and a brother. Thinking back on my career, everything has been very easy up to this point because I've always had Matt there to compete with and look up to. It's easy for the "wolf at the bottom of the mountain" to be hungry, but even when Matt got to the top he never stopped fighting. I couldn't have asked for more out of Matt; there couldn't have been a better person to play with and study under.

Growing up, we imagine ourselves to be the one hoisted above the crowd, pumping our fists in the air, showered in confetti and waves of admiration, too encapsulated by the moment to notice the flashbulbs popping off around our heads. But along the way, and as we grew, we realized that there was something more to the game. It was never about being the one hoisted above the rest of the team, but standing next to them as an equal. The thing that made this team so great is that no person every imagined themselves on someone else's shoulders - they imagined themselves doing the lifting. And in the end, every one of them got to be the hero.