I’m not sure how all of you spent your short Thanksgiving break, but mine was spent covering the quickly rising, top-ranked college football team in the nation, followed by a brief stay at the Rose Garden covering one of the richest and most celebrated programs in NCAA basketball history in the Duke Blue Devils.
Yes, thank you for asking.
But this weekend was certainly an eye opener to all the opportunities this job has exposed me to. I can’t imagine too many other employers out there willing to pay me to watch some of the best competition college sports has to offer, and for that I am definitely grateful.
As we drove back from Portland on Saturday afternoon, I felt like I needed to pinch myself to see if all of this was still real. We on the Emerald sports desk have covered the No. 1 football team in the country for some time now, but this past weekend got me thinking about all the things I’ve gotten to be a part of since joining the sports desk.
First and foremost, the trip to and week spent in Los Angeles for the Rose Bowl last season.
It was a tough loss by most measures, but a week I’ll never forget, regardless. Among the memories that stand out most are seeing ESPN’s Lisa Salters interviewing Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor in the Marriott Ballroom with at least 30 other reporters surrounding the pair. You could barely see the two amongst the crowd, but you knew only one player could command that sort of attention. Imagine that, he was later named Rose Bowl MVP.
Then a couple days later in another Salters interview, this time with head coach Jim Tressell, Ohio State was fresh off a Rose Bowl victory, and me being the somewhat ambitious young reporter I am, I attempted to stick my voice recorder in the mix of the post-game interview.
We were down on the field, things were pretty crazy, and I assumed this would not be frowned upon.
I was mistaken.
Tressell completely stopped speaking, turned his head and used his hand to remove my microphone from anywhere near his mouth. I suppose I could have stuck it back in there, but I too was caught up in the aftermath.
Seven days spent in Southern California, including a trip to the Staples Center to see my beloved Lakers, and now nearly a year later it’s Jim Tressel batting away my mic that stands out.
The trip to Palo Alto earlier in the year was another sour taste left in the Emerald sports desk’s mouth, but we made the trip wholeheartedly. A seven-hour trip one way, followed by a short night of sleep on the ground at the local Best Western, chased that with 51-42 Oregon loss, and we were back on the road.
I can’t say many things stick out about this trip, mainly because the loss was extra hard to swallow given Toby Gerhart’s demolishing of everything green and yellow within a square mile. The experience was good, and it will probably be some time before I see a campus like Stanford’s again.
This next memory actually surprises me as I write this, but rallying through the Pac-10 softball slate last spring was nothing short of impressive. Another No. 1 team in the country was the Washington Huskies, and even the eventual NCAA champion UCLA was on tap, and a young Oregon squad didn’t disappoint by any means.
And now that softball’s gotten enough love for one setting, back to football.
Having another trip to Pasadena strictly as a backup plan at this point in the week, I’m hopeful to add a trip to Glendale, Ariz., to my resume. If you’re not familiar with the University of Phoenix Stadium, you ought to familiarize yourself; it’ll be worth it.
I’m not sure how long it would take for a national championship trip to set in. Some people wait their entire careers to cover a game like this, and here I am, 20 years old and already approaching my second BCS bowl game. I suppose it’s just luck of the draw really, for I’m sure Emerald sports editors of old — I’m looking at you Ben and Andrew — would have loved to be on staff during the peak of Oregon football.
I know I certainly am.
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