The Light at the End of the Tunnel

It has been four years since the first In Your Fayce filled this spot on the back page of Spectator. Since then, I've written about everything from Dale Earnhardt's death to inventing a game using fixtures of a River Hall kitchen. Back in January 2000, I wrote that "A first column, like a first kiss, only comes once in a lifetime." So does a last column, but after penning 30 such works of varying quality, my perspective has changed.

To those of you readers whom I have never met, I apologize, but I was probably at the Spectator office while you were playing flip-cup in Ruggles or sweet-talking a free pitcher from Imax at the West End. I have traveled the Northeast covering Columbia men's basketball through comparably good times and more bad times than I would like to think about, I've served as sports editor--twice--and I've spent more hours arguing about staff editorials and front-page layouts than I care to remember. You might think I would be bitter about everything that I missed, but I'm not.

After all of that, it's one of the first articles I ever wrote that sticks with me the most. As a first-semester writer at Spectator, I wrote a lot of very boring articles. I wrote more about scoreboards at Baker Field and vending machines in Dodge Fitness Center than I did about real athletes. The first athlete I ever talked to was a graduate student in the Masters Swim Club, a long-distance swimming club for former competitive swimmers at Columbia. The article was likely read only by my editor, my dad, and the members of the team, but it taught me a great lesson that I have carried with me since then. When I asked the swimmer what the best thing about the team was, he told me that they always had picnics together and had parties at a restaurant at the end of the semester (that is, until the restaurant in question burned down). At the time I laughed at this manifestation of nostalgia and wondered why ex-swimmers insisted on remaining semi-swimmers.

Now that I am about to be an ex-journalist, I think I understand why those picnics and restaurant parties were so important to the Masters Swimmers. In my first column, I also wrote that "Sports are about the games being played, but more importantly about the people who play them. Sports provide a forum for fans to draw parallels with their lives and evaluate what is important."

While I can't run fast enough to join the track team and am not strong enough or flexible enough to join the wrestling team, sports journalism for me has been about the games played, but more importantly about the people I have covered them with.

In January of 2001, Columbia lost to Cornell in Ithaca in a game during which neither team scored over 50 points. Unfortunately, I can't say this was the worst Columbia basketball game I ever saw, nor was it the worst spectacle I witnessed as a Spec writer at Cornell's Newman Arena. That distinction goes to an incident the following year, when former head basketball coach Armond Hill left the bench during a game to accost a member of the Cornell marching band.

The events after the game in 2001, however, were remarkable. Recounted soon thereafter in a column by my co-beat writer Charlie Katz-Leavy, the Spec contingent got stuck in a blizzard in a rental car with windows that didn't roll up all the way. Words cannot describe the relief I felt when Charlie agreed to get out of the car and go into a roadside bar that we found in rural Pennsylvania and ask if there was a hotel nearby. For those of you who have seen Deliverance, you can relate to the fear associated with following a man named Hank on winding roads toward a motel that he said he owned but we were not sure existed. I still have a matchbook from the Mountain View Restaurant and Motel of Clifford, Pa. Hank turned out to be a good man who owned a satisfactory lodging establishment. Charlie and I shared a bed that night, but more importantly, he and I spent every weekend for two years together covering Columbia basketball and forged a friendship based upon overactive appreciation of Ivy League basketball and a lot of laughs shared along the way.

One of the laughs we shared was at the first basketball game I ever covered, between Columbia and Central Connecticut State University. Unfortunately, it was at the expense of another of my friends made at Spectator. As Charlie, myself, and Mike Mirer walked into the arena, Mike led the way with his laptop casually slung over his shoulder. He talked a big game but came down fast as he missed a step leading to the arena and fell flat on his face, crashing into the entrance in front of a group of about 15 high school cheerleaders who found the event quite amusing. So did I, so did Charlie, and most importantly, so did Mike. I worked under Mike while he was first sports editor and then editor-in-chief, and learned more from him about professionalism, reporting, and enjoying your job than I have learned from any professor.

As a sports writer, but not an athlete, I've been asked how I can ever relate to jocks as an admitted hall-monitor type. The truth is that I never saw those barriers and luckily, I found a conduit to the other side in Nick Fisher. He is the reason why I had to serve a second term as sports editor, but he is also the reason why I enjoyed it so much. The only stories that we ever collaborated on were for the April Fools spoof issue in 2002. Though we had a lot of explaining to do the next day for stories about ZBT victimized by organ-numbing prophylactics and the NFL draft prospects of Columbia football players, producing that newspaper remains my fondest single memory of Spectator. Although he may not believe it, it was my honor to share the sports department with him for a semester, and even more of an honor to share a friendship with him that will last far beyond our days at Columbia.

When you apply for journalism jobs, prospective employers ask to see clips to represent your best work and most meaningful experiences. Mine, however, weren't represented on paper until today. From Charlie, Mike, and Nick, to Spec dinosaurs like Jon Lemire and Ravi Rajendra and promising up-and-comers like Nick Summers and Ben Goldstein, my good times at Spectator have been defined by the good friends I have shared them with.

As a cocky first-year writing a column that I wanted to take the campus by storm, I wrote about Derek Redmond, a British sprinter who injured himself in the final straightaway of an event at the 1992 summer games. His father, Jim, ran onto the track and carried Derek across the finish line. Four years later, I would like my first words as a columnist to also be my last words:

"We should surround ourselves with people for whom we would make great sacrifices and who we believe would make similar sacrifices for us. Jim was there to support Derek, and that is precious. That's what makes a great father, and a great friend."

This is the 30th and final edition of In Your Fayce. Send any comments to sports@columbiaspectator.com