I needed to write this at some point. I tried avoiding it, like the required science course you delay until the final semester.

The farewell column was supposed to appear a year ago when I finished as sports editor, but I was able to convince the editors I’d stay on for a semester to write a weekly column.

I was supposed to write this farewell column in December, but the editors were able to convince me to stay and write a weekly column for another semester.

Now I have no semesters left – and more disheartening, no column left.

This leaves me here, writing this. And it all feels so, for a lack of a better word, awkward.

I joke with management that we sell more papers when my face appears on the back page. The joke, of course, is this paper is free – which is another way of implying my opinion is worth exactly what we charge for it. But the reason this feels so awkward is I’ve already used ‘I’ more times in this column than all my previous columns combined.

I wish there was some clever reason that alluded to word choice or something definitively poetic, but what was written here was never about me. Instead, this column has been about the personalities included in these pages on a daily basis and the people reading about those personalities on a daily basis.

In a media landscape where writers get their face on television or voice on the radio for the mere qualification of having an opinion and being able to articulate it – and some don’t even qualify for the latter – The Daily Orange provides all its writers a humbling reality.

It’s called the crossword puzzle. Or recently, Sudoku.

And if ever I wanted a pat on the back and feel perhaps students picked up the paper on Wednesday to read this column, I just had to peer around class and see the outside pages on the floor and the crossword folded in front of the ‘readers.’

From sitting in the crowded Bird Library first floor on a Thursday night with Gustavo Kertzscher, a swimmer from Sweden, to standing by Demetris Nichols’ locker in a crowded NBA locker room, the intent was the same. As much as the athletes are glorified or scrutinized – and The Daily Orange is guilty of extending both boundaries at times – it’s important to realize these are college students. This is not meant in a Mike Gundy-sort-of-way, but instead in a practical manner. They are simply gifted at a skill set that commands attention and a college scholarship, but they’re normal people with an exceptional skill – the same way the business students who won the Panasci Competition are at entrepreneurship or the dance team members are at dancing.

This sports section has a unique role on this campus, going where the students who patiently camp out by the Carrier Dome’s entrance for a Georgetown game cannot go. The same events that unfold for the fan unfolds for the reporters – except the implications are different.

On the field, as special as it is to see Delone Carter break through for his fourth touchdown against Wyoming or Gerry McNamara hit an improbable season-saving game-winner against Cincinnati, there is Carter fumbling on the goalline against Louisville or McNamara, nowhere to be found in the NCAA Tournament against Texas A&M.

Sometimes it becomes even more complicated – like watching Pat Perritt score a game winner against Cornell to watching Syracuse lacrosse get eliminated from the potseason to seeing Perritt in front of the media apologizing for an Armory Square arrest.

The sports section survives through all of them, reporting on the stories as a service to the readers. Nowhere in there is it about us, nor should it be.

Yet there is something prestigious about covering these teams, about sitting with a shirt and tie in a press box full of sports information interns, drinking watered-down Pepsi and writing a story for Monday about a game on Saturday.

There are students envious of the fact we go to these basketball games, sit behind the basket and ask Jim Boeheim what he was thinking afterward, often with a returned glance of ‘what are [ITALICS]you[/ITALICS] thinking asking that question?’

The reason is readers care. Whatever happens with Syracuse, there are readers from Maxwell to Manlius to Massachusetts who take an interest in what is written.

On multiple occasions, a column drew reaction from fans that thought it was too harsh, too light or simply illogical. This could mean I did my job well or couldn’t please anyone, depending upon how you look at it. But what it also means is people are reading. And for someone who writes what he thinks, there is no better compliment.

So this column comes with no grandiose lesson. It won’t have the ‘Best of’ nor a homage to anyone who worked within the decrepit building on Ostrom Avenue.

This column, as all the columns before, is for the readers.

The only difference is the subject in this case is me, which is still difficult to grasp. Mind you, I’ve tried to avoid the farewell column altogether, yet my editors insist readers want it.

Well here it is. You get your money’s worth.

Zach Berman wrote for The Daily Orange for four years. He served as sports editor, assistant sports editor, assistant copy editor and was a member of the board of directors. He covered men’s basketball for two seasons, as well as football and men’s lacrosse. This was his final column after two semesters as featured sports columnist. You can now reach him at zacharyberman@gmail.com.

 

Published on April 21, 2008 at 12:00 pm