This is the end'¦ my only friend, the end.
Jim Morrison might have had a more depressing tone in mind when he wrote The End"" for the Doors, but while writing the final column of one's collegiate career, it is hard not to feel the same way.
After doing something for so long - both school and writing for The Daily Cardinal - it is hard to imagine life without it. However, Jim was singing about an ex-girlfriend and I'm just lamenting over the end of a column.
So why do it? Why write a column? Is it to gain glory and fame by having your photo in the paper? For most writers the answer is ""no."" No one notices or really cares who wrote what and as long as the article they are reading before class is more entertaining than people watching, the masses are satisfied.
No, the real reason is to tell a story - in this case a sports story - and try to convey some level of intelligence while doing so. For me, most articles begin and end in a form of incoherent babble that can only be understood by translating it after two pitchers of Guinness and sending it to Ireland.
But this is a happy time, a joyous occasion. The future is bright as another ""well-rounded"" product hops off of the UW-Madison assembly line, and it is sports that make it so bright.
The time from spring of 2005 to 2006 is a perfect example. The Wisconsin football team cruised over a ""more talented"" and ""much faster"" Auburn team 24-10 in the Capital One Bowl. The men's basketball team almost made it to the Final Four, and the men's hockey team returned to national prominence and won the NCAA national championship in early 2006.
This was the highlight of an extremely successful time in Badger athletics, and it is great to have been a part of it.
But things are by no means perfect.
College athletics are a flawed system in which money reigns supreme, and the lack of interaction between athletes and the media has fallen to an all-time low - past articles of mine have been fully devoted to rants of this kind.
If anything, my time at The Daily Cardinal and on this campus has opened up my eyes to the real world. Skepticism and pessimism rank much higher now than they did arriving in 2004, and in the end that is really the point. To be labeled a ""Homer"" is the worst thing for a sports writer, and because of a UW-Madison education, hopefully I will never be awarded that disgrace. Although I may not be a well-rounded individual, this university has readied me for that dreadful outside world only seen in the old allergy commercials with the attacking flowers.
The end has finally come, and with the end of any journey or chapter in one's life, it always leads to reminiscing.
Coming to UW-Madison in the fall of 2004, a naive kid from Seymour, Wis., moved into the A-tower of Witte Hall and began his first semester, supposedly on his way to becoming a mechanical engineer. But thanks to an English class with a sports topic and a horrifying experience in math 221, things quickly changed.
Fast forward through joining the Cardinal sports staff in 2005, editing the second-to-last year of PowerPlay in 2006 and holding down the sports desk last year as editor'¦ suddenly the last four-and-a-half years have gone by extremely fast.
My tenure at The Cardinal has probably been one of the greatest experiences of my life'¦ so far. Meeting new people and making friendships that will undoubtedly last the test of time, the experiences at the DC alone were worth the endless nights spent at the office.
Looking back at it all, there is nothing worth changing.
There were the long road trips: going 90-100 mph through the mountains of Pennsylvania and the 22-straight hour drive back from this year's Outback Bowl. The Christopher Walken impressions, throwing the football around in the office - sometimes to a person who was actually ready for it - and of course the annual football and softball games, have all shaped and molded this soon-to-be-graduate.
I'd like to start off by thanking all the readers out there, however many or few there are, who've read my columns over the last year and a half. From the reader who only read it once to the few that read it consistently, thank you.
Secondly, I'd like to thank Sam Pepper and Jon McNamara, who gave someone who knew nothing about sports journalism a chance to write for a top collegiate newspaper. They laid the blueprint for my own rise through the Cardinal ranks, and their ability to have such a laid-back attitude while producing a great page every day inspired me to do the same.
Obviously, everyone hopes to go down in the history books or be remembered forever outside Camp Randall Stadium.
For this aspiring sports writer, hopefully at least one person has read my work and somehow been motivated. If so, my work here is done.
So to those of you who hated what I wrote, this is probably a very good day for you. For everyone else: with any luck you enjoyed my articles as much as I enjoyed writing them.
Thank you, and ""On, Wisconsin.""
Are you going to miss Nate? Tell him at ncarey@wisc.edu.
