Since January, when it really hit me that this was my last semester, I have stewed over what I wanted to say with my final column for the Alligator. Without a doubt, it has been the hardest assignment in five years of college.
For the last week I’ve stared at a blank document on my laptop, the cursor mockingly flashing at me, daring me to get this over with. Then Friday night at McKethan Stadium, inspiration struck when I least expected, during what I thought would be a pedestrian series opener for the Gators.
Florida beat Georgia 3-2 in a 16-inning marathon that started early Friday evening and lasted until just after midnight Saturday. It ended on, of all things, a walkoff strikeout.
I’m still trying to fully grasp what happened as the clock ticked past midnight at The Mac. I’ve witnessed plenty of walkoffs, even a few walkoff walks, but I never thought I’d see a walkoff strikeout, let alone cover one.
As Florida rushed the field and mobbed Nolan Fontana on the infield dirt, basking in the glory of a physically and mentally taxing, 16-inning epic, my attention drifted from the celebration on the field to the agony just off it, near Georgia’s dugout, where catcher Brandon Stephens collapsed to his knees, his teammates picking him back up, trying to console him after he threw away what was probably the most memorable game he has ever been a part of.
That’s when I realized what Friday’s game really was. It was emotional. It was unpredictable. It was awesome, and it was absurd. It was everything that’s great about sports, and it’s why I’m glad I chose this as my career path.
As trivial as sports are, they represent everything that’s great about human nature. Friday’s game illustrated that to me more than ever.
I’ve witnessed the highs, like watching as a team rallies for a Southeastern Conference title. The lows, like listening intently as a Major Leaguer openly contemplates retirement while toiling away in the minors at age 25. And plenty in between, like the spectrum of Friday’s game showed.
As my two and a half years at the Alligator end this week and I move on to hopefully bigger (though I can’t imagine they will be better) things, I look back on all of that in-between — those games, those interviews, those stories — and realize this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.
In two weeks that life will take me away from Gainesville, where I’ve spent the last five years, and away from the Alligator, where I’ve poured in countless hours and created even more memories during the latter half of my college career.
The people I met while working here are some of my closest friends and they made these last two and a half years worth it.
Bobby and Mike: Thanks for believing in me and giving me my first opportunity.
Chiang, Adam, Holt, Greg, Joe, Tyler, Corey, Watts and Boothe: Thanks for making this job seem like anything but that.
Thanks to my parents for their unrelenting support, especially my mom, who never hesitated to look over one of my stories before I filed it.
And to you, the readers, thanks for picking up and reading the paper that I tried to put so much of myself into. I hope that at some point during the last two and a half years I made you think. And I hope you go to a game like Friday’s and stick it out, even in the 16th inning.
Because with sports, you never know.
Contact Tom Green at tgreen@alligator.org.
