Patrick Andres was livid. Carly Schulman seemed ambivalent. Josh Hoffman appeared amused.

Our four-person road trip to the Northwestern-Wisconsin football game on Nov. 13, 2021 was nearing its end, but rather than continue on the route, I veered off the exit toward the IKEA location in Schaumburg, Ill. The detour flew under the radar until I pulled into the parking lot and turned off the ignition. Like a basketball coach calling a timeout at the end of a crucial basketball game, we needed to flip momentum after witnessing a 35-7 shellacking in bone-chilling Madison and I was certain IKEA was the reset we needed.

The audible worked. Patrick, one of the other Gameday writers, completely changed his opinion. Carly snapped photos of me, Josh and Patrick lounging on beds in our full dress attire and at fake poker tables. We didn’t purchase anything, but the camaraderie and content was as compelling and memorable as anything to come out of the game itself.

Naturally, when it came time to reflect on my time at the Daily, there could be no better exercise than to revisit IKEA with Patrick, a year and a half after his life-changing revelation. I’m about to move another time zone west over the summer, so I hardly fit the target customer for the famed furniture store, but as soon as we ascended up the escalator to the first displays, I could tell this trip would be worth it.

Our self-guided tour on the store’s top level took us through the bedroom displays. As a kid, these were my favorite — I always imagined myself in different cities and apartments on comfy beds and couches. As a football writer for two years with the Daily, those travel dreams came true, all while covering a sport I loved. From Big Ten road games and hotel stays in Lincoln, Minneapolis and Iowa City to my final football feature in Indianapolis for the NFL Scouting Combine, these trips and the meals and hotel room memories within them comprise the highlight reel of my time at the Daily. 

Next up came a less aesthetically glamorous but even more meaningful section to me, the office spaces and desks. 

During my sophomore year, I felt crushed that I never ran a desk or served on the Daily’s edit board, but the setbacks turned out to be a blessing. Running the sports desk in the fall of my junior year, the first quarter in a year-and-a-half that the Daily’s newsroom operated in person, feels like Camelot in retrospect. 

I joined forces with three sophomores I’d never met in person before, Charlotte, Lawrence and Skye, and somehow we covered five sports while balancing other editing roles and sports beats. Showing movies on the TV, meeting incoming writers, planning out stories, taking out targets in our word assassins game and welcoming alumni like Michael Wilbon and Christine Brennan — all while spending time with great friends and talented journalists — was a dream. And coming back the following fall as Gameday editor and getting the invaluable opportunity to team up with all three in covering the 1-11 Wildcats succeeded in recreating that magic. 

Our final stop before heading out brought the two of us to the picture frames section, the only IKEA section where I’ve actually bought a product. 

I’m obsessed with taking pictures and hanging them on my wall, and one glance around my senior year apartment reveals just how special my four years on the Daily have been. In one collage alone are pictures from my October meetup with my first sports editor, Andrew Golden, a football tailgate (research purposes, of course) and morning sunrise from the Daily’s last night of publication. Two frames above the radiator hold pictures from my first two years, including prints of women’s basketball’s Big Ten title win in 2020 and a press credential from the 2020-21 men’s basketball season. 

I can’t forget the 11- by 17-inch picture frame that hangs above my desk, featuring the national champion Northwestern field hockey team on the Daily’s front cover. That was my final night as sports editor and the best, as well as the coolest sports moment I’ve witnessed. Tucked into the corners of the frame are two Polaroid pictures, one of myself in a mask in the sports desk chair and another of the sports desk crew posing in a group costume on Halloween. 

Everything within that frame, from the emotion and spectacle of sports to the journalistic excellence of Skye, Charlotte and Gaby Carroll’s coverage of field hockey’s grandest stage to the teamwork required to make any news outlet run, represents why I feel so grateful and what my time at the Daily has meant to me.

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Twitter: @jhnriker