To my freshman-year self:

We have a lot to go over about these next four years. Let’s get to it.

Understand how lucky you are to accidentally meet the assistant sports editor before school starts. Most of your best friends at The Daily Orange won’t start for months, or even next year.

When you finally land that first women’s soccer assignment, don’t believe the SID’s email about the 7:10 a.m. media opportunity at Hookway Field. Go back to bed. You don’t even know where South Campus is. Busses don’t start running until 7:20 a.m. The SID won’t even be there when you finally arrive, anyway. You will just get drenched by a small monsoon as you decide if it’s right to interrupt their practice for your first-ever interviews. Don’t try emailing the head coach and players afterward, either. They won’t respond.

You’re not too cool or too good to cover women’s soccer. Don’t act like it. All you’ve done is start a San Francisco Giants blog no one’s heard of. (They’ll hear about it eventually, and you’ll wish they hadn’t.)

Don’t get on the Nob Hill bus. It won’t take you to the women’s ice hockey game downtown.

Despite Paul showing up to his first softball game coverage with six pens, two notebooks and a clipboard, don’t resent him for it. You could use a lesson about preparation. Plus, you’re about to spend more time with him over the next four years than you thought you’d ever spend with one person.

Unfortunately your best lede is a single letter, and you didn’t even write it.

Speaking of softball, don’t write a feature about how many consecutive road games the team plays and get the number wrong. There are only more fact-checking nightmares to come.

Relish the baskets you make during Media Cup warmups. It’s the only scoring you’ll do in four years.

As you head into sophomore year — sorry the best year of college is already behind you — make more time to cover the field hockey team. Maybe attend more than a couple of games. But hell, they won’t win the national championship for another year anyway.

Still make time to go Derek Jeter’s last game in New York. That’ll be worth missing a field hockey game for.

Working on the national college football beat will instill the belief that you can actually do this thing. Enjoy it.

That phone number you’re ticked about not getting at Race? Things will work out with her.

Apply to work in-house as a copy editor. It’s one of the best choices you’ll make (and in some respects, one of the worst).

Props for taking a second try at that softball story about consecutive road games. But seriously, don’t get the number wrong again. Count the friggin’ doubleheaders.

Climbing The D.O. ranks is laborious and no position better personifies that than assistant sports editor. But the first semester of junior year will be your most formative as a journalist. Just don’t go MIA during the summer. Matt and Sam won’t appreciate that.

Interviewing Ian McIntyre, Quentin Hillsman and John Desko will be the most fun you’ll ever have dealing with Syracuse head coaches. Jim Boeheim’s version of fun, as you’ll learn next year, is not most people’s.

Always appreciate greatness. Simultaneously watching Connecticut win its fourth consecutive title and SU women’s basketball play in the national championship is the coolest journalistic experience you’ll have in college.

The prospects of a Mark Coyle profile sound great, but don’t get too worked up over it. His sights are already set on Minnesota.

Congratulations on getting the men’s basketball beat for senior year. Now spend a little more time preparing for it and a little less time watching the Giants lose in September and October.

Stay sharp around Boeheim. Don’t apologize for calling him Jim instead of coach, even when he belittles you for it. When Boeheim openly condemns the “intrepid Daily Orange” for incorrectly predicting three blowout losses against Duke, tell him he’s wrong.

Digest every corner of the country The D.O. affords you the opportunity to see. Take pictures, eat good food and take pictures of the good food. That Ford Escape is going to roam about 4,814 miles of highway (sorry, Mom and Dad) en route to New York City, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Louisville and elsewhere for men’s basketball games.

Lastly: Regret nothing, find humor wherever you can and have the time of your life.

Connor Grossman is a senior staff writer at The Daily Orange, where his column will no longer appear. He can be reached at cgrossma@syr.edu and on Twitter @connorgrossman.

– 30 –

Published on April 26, 2017 at 10:58 pm