Goren: Parting Shots

Hello friends,

This will be the last article I write for this here website. Well unless Bill Carmody goes and makes a Sweet 16 or something. Then I'll be back. But barring some earth shaking event of that level, I am hanging up the blogging cleats for good. Being an editor here has been an awesome experience and I owe Kevin Trahan, Henry Bushnell, Josh Rosenblat, and Zach Pereles a great debt for bringing me on following the retirement of Lake The Posts (/pours some out), keeping me around, and letting me write ridiculous nonsense. I have some final thoughts about Northwestern sports and stuff I'd like to lay out on the table before I leave, and for some reason, Zach let me write this. So bear with me. Or don't. It's your life.

• When I was a fan back in high school and earlier, I assumed that Pat Fitzgerald kept everything really close to his vest to his detriment. And while to some extent that's true (what up BINGO sheets), he does let his guard down not-too-infrequently and when he does, he is phenomenal to talk to. The Pound The Talk Henry Bushnell and I did was a really cool experience. 40 minutes of two-on-one interviewing with another 20 minutes of really cool, off the record stuff afterwards. He's a very cool guy, and no coach sounds more genuine when talking about how much graduation day for his players means and how important it is to develop kids on and off the field.
• More generally, Northwestern's athletic staff is filled with some of the nicest people I've ever been around, at every level. From coaches to players to SIDs, everyone who I dealt with with any regularity has been phenomenal.
• Northwestern men's basketball should unblock me on Twitter. And they should unblock a bunch of other people too. Unless someone is being pretty consistently aggressive on Twitter, there's no reason for an athletic team to pull out the ban hammer. It makes it a lot harder to follow the team that you root for which seems like a bad practice. Also I know folks in the commentariat have been blocked despite never interacting with certain accounts, which seems a little ridiculous.
• Next year will go down as one of the more boring years in Wildcat athletics history. Football will be fine, probably hovering around seven wins. Men's basketball's combination of a boring home schedule and impending struggle to make the NIT won't be super exciting. Women's basketball could challenge to make the NCAA tournament, which will be cool but not as cool as when they did it two years ago. Lacrosse will be lacrosse and probably come just shy of a Final Four. The most exciting team will be the women's golf team, which will win a national championship. Don't @ me.
• Northwestern fans are going to regret ever saying they won't miss Tre Demps.
• Rutger remains a black mark on the Big Ten. Also they have the worst fans in the conference, somehow claiming that victory over the hordes of Iowa and fellow newcomers to the conference Maryland.
• Tristan Jung's article on the postmodernity of Rutger's season was the best thing I've read on this site.
• Just kidding it was Henry Bushnell's oral history of the 1995 team.
• Here's my only significant value add to this site.
• No, I don't know the full story on Johnnie Vassar, no one really does, and some of the rhetoric that gets thrown around when people talk about that situation is fairly reprehensible and bad. Also, my favorite thing that has happened to me here is when someone confused me for a serious journalist who seems "more daring to challenge the institution." You must have me confused.
• Never forget the horror of those Adidas grape jerseys. 

  Photo via LTP

• I think Northwestern fans are incredibly lucky to have the options they do when it comes to coverage of Northwestern athletics. The big outlets are always going to look over Northwestern in favor of sexier stories at bigger schools. But Northwestern students, who most of the time are pretty good at what they do, are at every single event for just about every single sport. The breadth and depth of Northwestern coverage is way better at places run by students. I happen to enjoy the content of this site, but The Daily Northwestern is unmatched in its breadth of non-revenue coverage and WNUR Sports is a cool and unique place too. If you want consistent coverage of Northwestern sports, start with students and go out from there.
• Yo, anyone remember Patrick Houlihan from the basketball team like a decade ago? GOAT shooting form.
• Just FYI, Northwestern women's basketball is going to start 3 All-B1G players next year and have at least one member on the All-Freshman team. So go to a game or something.
• I never really learned to end articles.