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John Russell

John Russell's sports column appears Sundays in Steamboat Today. Contact him at 871-4209 or e-mail jrussell@SteamboatToday.com.

Steamboat Springs — He could have ignored the message I left with his mother or pushed the button that turned his phone off when it rang Tuesday.

But Steamboat Springs’ golfer Erik Sobeck picked up his phone.

After more than four frustrating hours on the fairways and greens of the Pelican Lakes Golf Club in Windsor, it probably was the last thing the Steamboat Springs High School sophomore wanted to do.

I’m sure the only thing on his mind was jumping in the car with his parents to begin the long drive back home to Steamboat Springs.

But Erik returned the call before heading home and politely answered several questions about a round of golf he would rather have put behind him.

He would have loved to talk about the great season he had just finished, which included a career-best round of 76 in Rifle a few weeks ago, or the invitation to the state golf tournament.

But on this day, the subject was Erik ’s final round at the state golf tournament and his struggles to find the swing that got him there.

It’s the hard part of high school athletics where success is measured in the results, not the journey.

Sooner or later, it seems that all high school athletes know they will be faced with the dreaded moment when a reporter approaches them after a loss or a bad performance. How they handle it says as much as any score.

On this day, Erik picked up his phone and returned my call.

He returned the call knowing that story was going to focus on his final round, a round that didn’t represent his season.

He knew that some readers might look at the story and focus on the fact he didn’t win a state title that day, the fact he fell off pace and finished well behind the leaders.

No one would care that Erik was one of a few prep golfers who qualified for the chance to play or that many more were sitting at home.

No one would care that he didn’t buckle under the pressure of playing at state or that he had handled the frustration that came from several tough holes in a way that should make us all proud.

The only thing that would matter was his score and his finish in the biggest tournament of the season, something he didn’t really want to talk about. But he did.

This time around there were no titles for Erik, no bold headlines proclaiming his dominance. There were only tough questions from a reporter on the other end of the phone.

Throughout the years, I’ve learned that it’s easy to be polite and return the phone calls when you are on top of the game, but the true test of an athlete’s character comes from returning the calls they would rather ignore.

By picking up the phone, Erik proved that he has what it takes to be a champion — with or without the title.