This is why they play the game.

This is why we watch the game.

This is why we sit through endless three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust, and it’s why we don’t turn our back on sports when Barry Bonds hits the all-time record home run and the commissioner of baseball keeps his hands in his pockets.

We wade through the tedium, sift through the garbage, suffer the injustices, and we continue to do it because in one instant in this sea full of comfortable mediocrity that is our daily lives, one of us is going to do something that makes our jaws drop open in wonder of all the great possibilities in the universe.

Ryan Aplin succeeded in doing that for a lot of people at Fleming Island High School’s football stadium Friday night when, during his team’s last-chance, do-or-die play, he scrambled to a height few of us will get to experience. No, he didn’t cure cancer. It was just a football game, and he is just a football player, and it was just a football play. And while school administrators might be pondering a golden, Rocky-like statue of him for the front of the school, Rudy Guilliani and Hillary Clinton can rest easy in the knowledge that, at least outside of Orange Park, Aplin is still a distant third in most presidential polls.

But for 15 seconds on Friday night in Fleming Island, neither Rudy nor Hill could have possibly held their audience any more spellbound.

Just as amazing as this athlete’s phenomenal dance around midfield were the cosmic tumblers that had to fall into place to make it happen. Forget that Aplin had to possess the grace, balance and elusiveness of the Cheshire cat to pull it off; forget that he had to have keen vision under intense pressure to see his receiver 30 yards down field; forget that his nerves and other internal bodily parts had to be forged of some metallic alloy to enable him not to overthrow his target despite the gallons of adrenaline that had to be flowing through his veins after his life-or-death scramble. To be “great” the play also had to be on fourth down and long, or at least semi-long (five yards). It had to be in the last two minutes. It had to be the Golden Eagles’ last and only hope to win the game. It had to be the playoffs. And those were just the tumblers to set the stage.

Had the play gone according to the Xs and Os, Aplin would have rolled right a few yards, receiver Austin Sweatt would have cut his pass route short -- just past the first-down marker -- and the Golden Eagles would have had a valuable, but entirely forgettable first down. But the cosmic tumblers fell into a different place, much to Aplin’s chagrin. Sweatt, a talented freshman, decided to go long, as was his rightful choice on a play called 70 Choice. And while it’s pretty certain his endangered quarterback probably didn’t appreciate that choice at the time, it was, nevertheless, a key ingredient in what forced Aplin into an alternate pursuit of a first down and his ultimate brush with greatness.

Still, even more cosmic tumblers needed to fall. Had lineman Cory White not turned and blocked a defender 15 yards behind the line of scrimmage, Aplin’s run would have gone down as simply a long, sad sack that ended the Golden Eagles’ season. Had that defender not gotten back up and given the quarterback second thoughts about reversing field for a second time, it could have been an even longer, sadder sack. And, of course, had receiver Hayes Towery not been well-coached enough in the scramble drill to come back to the aid of his quarterback ... sack.

Last, but not least, had Montory Bellamy not followed up his quarterback’s shining moment with one of his own -- a 26-yard touchdown run four plays later --Aplin’s heroics likely would have sunk into the anonymity of defeat.

The tumblers roll. Many times they fall into place and there’s three yards, a cloud of dust and maybe a win. And that’s nice. But when they roll into the wrong place, and the world goes crazy, and we get an unexpected glimpse into some of the great possibilities, well, that’s why we play. That’s why we watch.