Am I the world’s worst sports editor?

As I started writing this column, I didn’t actually know what it would be about. Some of the paragraphs in this column were written with no intention. 

How am I literally in charge of the sports department, and I’m finding myself with zero thoughts about sports? I gave myself well over a month to conceptualize something, but to no avail. 

You would think I could form a strong opinion on the Timberwolves’ season or the NIL problem in the NCAA. But as you’ll see in the proceeding paragraphs, my general focus of life has shifted significantly. 

So feast your eyes on the mind of the world’s worst sports editor. Congratulations, you’ve essentially made it into my journal. I’m confident it’s not what you think it will be. Unless you know me really well, which maybe five people reading this do. 

The point is, you get to peek inside my brain as I try to think of what to write. Here goes nothing. 

My passion for columns began this fall. You remember it well, don’t you? It was nerve-racking outing myself as a minority voter at a somewhat conservative Christian college. But I spoke the truth, or at least my truth. Am I allowed to even say that? 

The response to that column was not discouraging. As much as I appreciated the supportive comments on Instagram, it was the negative, pushback comments that excited me most. My words were causing people to think. Even if they only had things like “L take. Stick to sports writing,” to say, it forced them to think about why they held their own beliefs. 

Then, I wrote another column. Similar to my political article, the McRib column came from intense passion. But obviously, it bore much less weight in the grand scheme of the world. I was on a roll, still. I had fun writing both articles, and I cared deeply about each.

So of course, I had to complete my sophomore year trifecta. Except I was at a loss. I still am at a loss, in a way. 

I wanted so badly to repeat the controversy of Article One. It felt good to get so many clicks. I thought about telling everyone why I sometimes feel ashamed to be an American. I thought about telling people that worship is not meant to be worshiped. But something wasn’t quite clicking in me to fully form those thoughts. 

If I couldn’t replicate the controversy, I thought about recreating the silliness of Article Two. Many people thought I would write a love letter to the Shamrock Shake, which I could absolutely do, but I feared it would essentially be the same thing as the McRib article.

But maybe replication is not what completes a trifecta. This third one has to be its own thing. Should it be about sports? Neither of the other two were focused on sports, yet it’s my job title. But maybe my shift in thinking is evident in those first two articles. 

Two years ago, about 90% of my brain capacity at any given time was occupied with sports. 

During morning announcements in high school: 

Who are the Vikings going to draft? Are our offensive line woes behind us? 

Sitting around a bonfire with my friends discussing girls:

When will the Cubs’ bullpen get it together? I want to go back to Wrigley Field so bad. 

While my dad was reading morning devotions before school: 

*Imagining draining a game-winning three-pointer against Southwest Minnesota Christian or hurling a 90 mile-per-hour fastball up and in for a strikeout to beat Red Rock Central-Westbrook Walnut Grove in the conference championship.* 

That’s why I went into sports journalism. If it’s all I could think about, why not think about it for a job? 

Back then I thought about sports while bored in my high school economics class. Now I’m sitting in the Lissner fourth floor conference room by myself looking out the windows facing southeast. Something happened as I looked out these windows which I’ve looked out countless times to avoid my homework. I discovered my mind didn’t drift to sports. And when I thought about thinking about sports, I tried to make my mind wander there. But I couldn’t even force it to do that. 

What has college done to me? Have I matured that much in less than two years? It’s not as if I no longer care about sports. Seeing the 16-0 final score of the Cubs-Dodgers game Saturday night still filled me with joy. I became just as irritable as ever when Sam Darnold fell apart in the last two weeks of the season. 

Maybe it’s what falling in love has done to me. (Gross, Aiden.) Maybe it’s the widening of my perspective through a liberal arts education. Maybe my younger-than-25 mind is beginning to finalize its development, and I’m becoming way too intellectual to focus on sports all the time. 

Whatever it is, something has changed. 

Rather than analyze the issues with this year’s March Madness tournament, I questioned whether my presence in Poland during the spring break mission trip benefited those I met. 

Instead of reminiscing about 2019 Christian McCaffrey’s impact on my fantasy football team, I pondered the value of gratitude in the Christian faith. 

When I could have been deep-diving the statistics in preparation for the next episode of Double Coverage, I was reading a Bible Project article on a biblical definition of romantic love. 

The only issue is that these thoughts are much more cumbersome and require much more effort to fully explore than sports did. As a result, I’m journaling fairly consistently for the first time in my life. 

Is this a bad thing? Sometimes I think yes, particularly for my planned career. I scroll X (formerly Twitter) and see many amateur journalists with much more sports knowledge than me. I sat at basketball games over J-term and was not nearly as invested in the team as I once would’ve been. (Don’t worry, I was still plenty invested in the women’s team versus Gustavus.)

But other times I think no. As I’ve gone through the stereotypical college experience and seen more of the world, I’ve realized how much more life exists outside of something as trivial as sports. 

College is such a unique time in my life, and I’m not shy about acknowledging that. In order to make the most of it, I want to do everything I can. I want to be with my amazing friends. I want to read all the best books. I want to answer all the important questions. 

I suffer from a severe form of FOMO. So while I loved covering football games this fall, I dreaded going to my desk to write my story while my friends were going out to Chick-fil-A. 

I want to learn interesting things. So I get frustrated at myself for committing myself to the weird hours of sports journalism which give me little free time to sit down and read Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship. 

I want to answer all of life’s questions. So when I’m sitting at a high table near Royal Grounds discussing whether the Gospel is meant to be shared across international cultures, I get frustrated that I have to leave to prepare Double Coverage. 

Wow, that was a lot scarier to admit than I realized. Again, this is not my confession of a switch to a new major. I still can’t think of a better job than hanging out with NFL players and getting paid to watch games. But it was high time for me to put the world into perspective. 

I think I found the point of my article in all that. I’m not really sure how to summarize it, but if this sentence is still in the final draft, my editors didn’t know either. 

Otherwise, I guess it’s up to you to find the point. Learn whatever you want from me. Written words have power because, when put into order, they require much more thought. So that must be my job, then, as a self-proclaimed writer. To think.