It’s an oddball tradition in Daily Sports that all the old fogies on their way out the door are supposed to write some sort of farewell address, a final word before moving on to … well, write more words somewhere else.
I, however, have the wonderful pleasure of gloating a bit before slipping back into the masses. As the victor of this little Fearless Forecasters game, I’m supposed to get my chance to tell you how awful my competitors are and how great I am.
But since this is all — ahem — common knowledge, I’ll spare the ragtag bunch to my right.
Instead, I’d like to wax poetic about my favorite event in sports, if it can be called that. Most people remember wins, losses, touchdowns and goals. And they’re all nice, in their own unique way. I suppose I recall them as well as most people. But I’ve always held something a little bit different near and dear.
It doesn’t happen too often. But given the right time, place and situation, voices — male, female, old and young — join forces to create one, unintelligible roar.
At some point on the decibel scale, it’s as if all the hollers and screams and thousands of people disappear. All that’s left is just noise. The person right next to you can be yelling as loud as humanly possible, and yet you still can’t hear him or her. You can’t hear the person behind you, either. All you hear is a solid, sustained din.
I suppose one can get this effect by driving to the nearest airport and sitting on the hood of a car. At sporting events, though, it’s a different animal entirely. Such a sound is almost impossible to manufacture; it’s the result of sport seizing the emotions and manifesting itself in a stunning wall of noise.
Simple, perhaps, but it captures what is truly great about sport — the unexpected, that which is impossible to foretell. With all the fake versions of “reality” being thrown about, sport remains, for the most part, all the more real just because of its wonderful unpredictability. So the next time you happen to be in the right building watching the right game — and I hope that everyone gets the opportunity at some point — remember the feeling. It’s something special and embodies everything that is right about competition.
That said, I’d also like to take the chance to thank all those who helped me out when I was a wide-eyed freshman, when I was a grumpy old senior, and all the days in between. There are too many to tick off, but rest assured that I’m truly grateful for all of the help and the kindness.
Friends like to poke fun at me every now and then for some unusual and excessive eating habits, and I’ve sometimes replied by saying, “to gorge is to grow.” After three-plus years and countless hours, it’s nice to realize that truer words are tough to find.
