I've stewed for a few days or weeks or months on what to write in an exsquisitely written post to go up on the day I graduate from the school you guys read my dumb sports blog about. It didn't really work out. But I wrote this anyway, to say good night to all y'all.
College sports is dumb. We all know this. There's no reason young people should be banging their heads into each other at high speeds for the purpose of moving a small ball across a line, there's even less reason they shouldn't be paid for that, there's even less reason that their achievements should be associated with institutions of higher learning. But it's awesome, so we do it.
College, too, is pretty dumb. I don't feel significantly smarter than I was four years ago. I'm better at a lot of things: I'm funnier, better at socializing, better at drinking and many of the games associated with it, better at dressing, and better at screwing. I'm better at journalism, too, but I've gotten way better at all those things, relative to how good I was when I got here, than I have gotten at journalism.
I wouldn't know from experience, but I get the sense Northwestern isn't notably different than all the other places where thousands of smart young people get together to spend four years - yes, even the ones you make fun of for being dumb before our school plays sports against theirs. But we love it because it's ours. For some people, this means we like watching the sports. For others, we went here and graduated from here. Either way, this random stretch of ground nestled above Chicago holds some sort of meaning for us that none of those other places ever could, because it's ours, and holy shit, I'm going to miss it.
So, a toast! To the other 2,000 dumb jerks sitting in warm weather wearing funny clothes with me today, and to each of you reading this, and more importantly, to Northwestern. Go Cats, and go us.