For those of you who don’t know—and probably don’t care, but I’ll tell you anyway—The Daily Cardinal and The Badger Herald held their annual spring softball game Saturday on the fields of Vilas Park.
It should go without saying The Daily Cardinal won in with a dominating performance, 12-1. This game is part of a great rivalry between two competing college newspapers; to my knowledge, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is the only school to have two competing independent newspapers.
And when it comes to making a newspaper, the Cardinal kicks ass five days a week—seven days a week, let’s be real.
I would not go back and take away any moment from the last three years I’ve experienced as a sports writer and editor (and science editor and copy chief, but this is a sports column, so let’s keep the unrelated stuff out). It’s been a joy to work with everyone at The Daily Cardinal, to win awards together, and my experience tells me the paper I love is in great and capable hands next year.
After writing two years’ worth of soccer sport(s) columns, there have been times I’ve been completely wrong, there have been times when I was off by just a hair and there have been times when I nailed it right on the head—I’d like to think I was right more than I was wrong.
Two weeks ago, I argued Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund were poised to face each other in the Union of European Football Associations Champions League final. Despite the fact only the first leg of the semifinals has been played and each team has to travel to finish up the round, it looks now as though I nailed that one directly on the head.
Bayern Munich jumped on a not-so-deep-despite-having-Lionel-Messi Barcelona team early in its first-leg matchup. German international star and my not-so-secret man crush Thomas Müller (sorry, Dietram Scheufele) opened the scoring in the 25th minute and closed it in the 82nd minute, leading Bayern to a 4-0 victory.
Dortmund, not to be out-shown by Bundesliga mate Bayern, grabbed a convincing 4-1 win against Real Madrid. Actually, it’s not right to say Dortmund beat Madrid—Robert Lewandowski beat Madrid, scoring all four of Dortmund’s goals, so there’s that.
You can never go to sleep against Barcelona or Madrid, but having a four- and three-goal cushion is looking real nice if I’m Bayern and Dortmund, respectively.
It has been proven before my columns can be wrong, and who am I to make these claims; what credentials do I have?
That’s a fucking fantastic question—I’m not going to answer that.
But if you are still reading this right now, and I know you are glad you are, it’s probably because you put some value in things I have to say. And for that, I thank you.
If I’m being completely honest here, I would be thrilled if I had 10 regular readers (and my family doesn’t count, sorry mom)… So consider yourself lucky, you are one of 10 people on this campus who believes my opinion actually [kind of] matters.
I am going to miss this paper, my colleagues, my readers and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But I will never forget the time spent working for one of the best student newspapers in the country—we have awards to prove it [insert picture here].
Now it’s time to crack open a beer, push off all the projects I have to finish in three weeks in order to graduate and wait for the job offers to start rolling in—I’m 99.9 percent sure that’s how the world works.
With that, I would like to leave you with eine letzte Deutsche Mark für ihre meinung:
“It’s all about getting that W. And the bitches. Mostly the bitches.”
This is Matt’s final sports column for The Daily Cardinal. Have any parting words, predictions on the Champions League Final or “ins” on journalism-related job openings? Send Too Kleist for Comfort any or all of the above in an email to sports@dailycardinal.com.
