OK, people do get carried away by emotions when it comes to high school sports. The best part, however, is that it is not life and death.

    Unfortunately, 10 years ago this month, it was a matter of life and death here in Section 2.

   In late November 1996, coach Dan Reinfurt led the upstart Watervliet football team to a stunning victory over defending champion LeRoy in the state Class C championship game. Just over eight months later, Reinfurt was dead -- by his own hand.

   While I knew Dan somewhat, I certainly couldn't compare our friendship to those he had with the people of Watervliet. But, what I knew of Dan was that he was interesting guy, an intense guy, a caring guy, and one heckuva of a football coach, making a program of overachieving blue-collar kids rise far beyond their abilities.

   After all, he was one of them, a Watervliet graduate, and he knew just how important sports were in the community made up largely of kids whose parents who worked in the mammoth federal arsenal (hence, the school nickname of "Cannoneers") or had toiled in the factories along the Hudson, long since replaced by the ever-present interstate. He posted a 117-34-4 varsity record (a gaudy .768 winning percentage) and his teams won 70 of the final 77 he coached.

   I had a chance to spend several hours chatting with Dan on Amtrak several years before his death, as I was going to New York on business and he was en route to Washington, D.C., on vacation. Our conversation covered a broad spectrum of topics, from the rapidly changing nature of coaching ("I never thought I'd be going to see kids'

probation officers") to the pride he felt when his team -- hours after seeing their 36-game winning streak, the longest in Section 2 history, come to end -- followed through on a commitment to attend a neighboring school's fundraiser.

   There was much more to Dan Reinfurt than just wins and losses on the football field.

   Unfortunately, among the "much more" was long-term mental illness. His death taught me that mental illness can be as fatal as any physical illness. It taught me that, in the long run, Dan really had little more power to prevent his own death than someone with terminal cancer.

   It taught me about the heartbreak mental illness brings to a family (his sister, who lived next door to Watervliet High School, made it a point every morning to look out the window to see if Dan's car was there), and the heartbreak it can bring to an entire community.

   In 1987, after Watervliet posted a 9-1 record and scored an amazing 28-27 win over a much larger and more ballyhooed Glens Falls team in the sectional finals, Dan took a year's leave of absence; whispers around Section 2 were that he had suffered some kind of breakdown. After his death 10 years later, on the heels of an even more astounding victory in the state finals, I wondered how much the triumph might have played into his action; he had reached the pinnacle of his career and he may have felt the only future path was downward. Lord, I hope it didn't have an effect, but who knows?

   After all, high school sports should not be a matter of life and death.

   Unfortunately, some times it is.

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