Thought of losing hard-earned titles frightens many athletes

"They" are out there, you know.

Fiends, ghouls and joy-sucking zombies haunting our fields of play, agitating to rob from athletes and teams the glorious spoils they have rightfully earned.

"They" are elusive devils for sure, nebulous in their identity but oh-so dastardly in their intent. And believe me, championship athletes know all about these dirty thieves, these marauding victory pirates.

Stories are passed down through winning locker rooms, from which first-strike quotes are launched as declaration but also as warning: "They cannot take this from us!"

Because as strong-minded as are our elite champions, almost to a person they are consumed by the evil they know lurks - clawing for the whole of their just deserts.

Dominic Rhodes, he's been around. So while still in his Virginia Destroyers uniform last Friday night, the veteran running back sat at a table on which rested the United Football League's championship trophy he'd just helped win and issued the fighting words.

"The thing about a championship is, nobody can ever take this away from you," said Rhodes, who holds firm to his Indianapolis Colts Super Bowl victory. "We are the 2011 champions of the UFL, and they can't ever take that away from us."

Hear that, would-be UFL championship stealers? Be gone! Off with you to haunt someone else's success.

Michigan State, for instance, should be vigilant. "They" came, those savages, and did make off with Ohio State's portion of the Big Ten football title the Buckeyes shared with the Spartans last year.

Who's to say they won't return to East Lansing to add to their pilfered-trophy case? The one that already includes the Heisman Trophy they took from Reggie Bush. The 2004 BCS title they took from Southern Cal. The '05 NCAA track championship they took from Arkansas.

Heck, the shameless scoundrels even took the '92 Division III women's lacrosse championship from then-Trenton State.

"They" definitely strike, and at random. Still, to get Michigan State's championship cred, they'll have to pry it from quarterback Kirk Cousins' cold, dead hands.

"We're Big Ten champions, no one can ever take that away from us," Cousins announced, twice for good measure, when that achievement was secured. "We have a championship on our resume, and no one can ever take it away from us."

Think you're coming, then, after that below-par first round golfer Alex Rocha carded at his first U.S. Open last June? Think again, swine.

"Nobody is ever going to take that away from me," Rocha said.

And let's be clear here, kill-joys. Don't dream of lowering your sights at the thought of easy pickings at a happy place like Minnesota State-Mankato.

"We are part of the first team to make it to the Elite Eight," basketball player Cameron Hodges said after his squad was bounced from the Division II NCAA tournament last season, "and that is something no one can ever take away from us."

So come after big boys like the NHL champion Boston Bruins if you dare. But bring your lunch, because it's not going to be easy.

"Every time you look up there you're going to be thinking about it," the Bruins' Milan Lucic said when Boston's championship banner was raised above its home ice. "It's something that nobody's ever going to be able to take away from us."

But take away this, champions. They will try. Oh, how they'll try.

Tom Robinson, 757-446-2518,tom.robinson@pilotonline.com