My childhood is over.
Not in the “Oh-no, I-just-understood-a-dirty-joke-in-my-favorite-childhood-movie” sense. It’s legitimately over.
In fewer than two weeks from the time this is printed, I will cross the stage at the O’Connell Center and officially end my tenure at the University of Florida. After that, I have to make my way in this scary “real world” that I’ve heard so much about.
A few months after that, Derek Jeter — my favorite baseball player from my favorite baseball team — will do something similar, receiving his last ovation from fans at Yankee Stadium as an active player.
Jeter is the last on-field link I have to my childhood as a baseball fan.
When I started watching baseball as an 8-year-old kid in 2000, Jeter was the be-all, end-all for me. When I had to a do a project about myself for my fifth-grade class, I pasted a Jeter baseball card to the “heroes” section.
So watching my one-time hero leave the playing field is strange for me.
I got a chance to see Jeter play for the last time on Sunday in Tampa. He looked mostly the same. His inside-out swing still laced balls into right field.
But something was different. Something was off. He looked slow in the field, and he left an extra-inning game — against a division rival, no less — early.
And like Jeter, it’s time for me to move on to the next part of my life.
As an aspiring sports writer, I don’t want to be watching games as a fan anymore. I want to be in the press box, watching them, analyzing them and sharing my insights with people.
My goal is to one day cover Major League Baseball for a living. I’m going to get a small taste of that this summer when I follow in the footsteps of several alligatorSports writers before me and make the 30-hour drive out to Phoenix to cover the Arizona Diamondbacks for MLB.com as part of its annual internship.
But to do that and continue toward my dream job, I need to make certain sacrifices — namely, my fandom.
That will have to do.
I have 299 bylines or other various entries in the Alligator archives. This is No. 300. I’m thankful for the chance to write every one of them. Each one, hopefully, moved me just a little bit closer to my dream.
The Alligator provided me with a chance to develop my reporting and writing abilities. I think I’ve gotten OK at them, and there are some people who helped me get where I am now. Here comes the cliché thank yous so you can tune out if you’re not interested.
First, I want to thank Nina, who has seen me through all the stress related to the Alligator and listened to more rants about deadlines, writers, SIDs and the like than I would care to admit. She always has my back, and I can’t thank her enough for that.
Obviously, I need to thank my parents and family. Without them, I quite literally wouldn’t be here.
I need to give a shoutout to Joe Morgan, who decided to take a chance on a writer fresh out of his first real writing class and put me on a beat. Thank you for being a great editor and friend. In addition, I’d like to thank Greg, Corey, Phillip, Katie, Landon, Pincus, Zoop, Jordan, Julia, Kelcee, Matt and everyone else who helped make my time with alligatorSports memorable.
Finally — and probably most cliché-y — I want to thank everyone who took the time to read my articles and columns.
I love when people tell me what they think of what I wrote, good or bad, praise or — my personal favorite — an email telling me that if ignorance is bliss, I must be very happy.
Last summer, I was standing in line at the Reitz Union Starbucks, and I heard a man reading my column to a woman he was sitting with. He was reading the words that I wrote down the night before.
That was an indescribable moment for me, and I try to take that into consideration whenever I write anything to be published.
Someone might be reading this to their friend or child or spouse, so I better make every word count.
Thanks for reading.
Follow Adam Lichtenstein on Twitter @alichtenstein24
