Getting up is the hardest part — can it actually be done?

In the 1996 movie "The Ghost and the Darkness," starring Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas, Douglas' character remarks to Kilmer's after a failed hunt for two man-eating lions, "We have an expression in prize fighting. 'Everyone has a plan until they've been hit.'" He then tells Kilmer's character, whose rifle had misfired when he had the opportunity to slay one of the lions, "Well, my friend, you've just been hit. The getting up is up to you."

In a movie that dealt with some fairly intriguing concepts and some fairly memorable dialogue, this exchange has always struck me as particularly salient, having failed at least once (often more than that) in everything I have ever attempted. But like the prizefighter I have always tried to get back up.

So how does this relate to football?

Simple.

The Princeton football team has been "hit."

When I first sat to write this column, I didn't want to talk about the Tigers. Having sat through most of Saturday's game, I found that I had ample material that I could discuss and ultimately criticize. It was funny, but I actually left Princeton Stadium on Saturday afternoon so depressed that I banished myself to my carrel in Firestone.

Criticism of the football team has dominated the sports pages of local newspapers. However, I have the privilege, by virtue of this column, of being able to look at things from different perspectives and angles.

Prior to Saturday's contest, the football team had not really been "hit." Sure, they had struggled all season, and they were 0-3 coming into the Colgate game. After a solid first drive in Saturday's game, however, you could tell that the team still had not been knocked down.

By the end of the game, the Tigers were on their backs. With the loss to the Raiders, Princeton set one of those ignominious records — the negative "first-time-evers" (as in 0-4 for the first time in the 134-year history of the program).

After the 30-3 drubbing, Princeton had been "hit." And I use the term "Princeton" because it wasn't just the football team, but the entire University community that felt the blow on Saturday.

In my first column of the year, I said that head coach Roger Hughes faces the first real challenge of his coaching career this season, due to the loss of several key players to sundry reasons. The gauntlet was thrown at the feet of the coach and his staff, and their response would mark the season's outlook. In this respect, however, I was right, and I was also mistaken.

Yes, Hughes is facing the biggest challenge of his career here at Princeton. He lost some key players on defense, and his starting quarterback was robbed of his throwing ability, leaving the key leadership position on the offensive side of the ball in the capable, yet sometimes tentative hands of another.

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But I was wrong to lay the gauntlet entirely at Hughes' feet. Regardless of his success as a coach, the team around him needs to be willing to answer the challenge as much, if not more, than the coaching staff.

In the end, they have to "get up."

I've played on teams where the coach did not garner much respect from the players, though the team still managed to pull through tough situations because it was willing to weather the storm united as a group. While there were always those players who wanted to place blame, fight amongst each other, or just flat out give up, the team managed to stand because in the end it wanted to get up.

The football team is 0-4. They've hit rock-bottom. Now there's only one direction to go — and that direction is up. I'm not going to predict some miracle that they will win the next six games, but the Tigers are now heading into the bulk of its Ivy League season — the one that really does matter. And they have a choice to make:

Stay on their backs, or get up.

It's that simple.