I'd Be a Sports Writer...

It was only a month into classes. And that day I had the lecture portion of my class at The Missourian. I didn't have cable in my bedroom, so as I pulled on my (probably pink) clothes, I listened to the pop radio station. In between songs, they had vague announcements of some airplane accidents in New York. It wasn't until I was just about ready to leave for class that things became clear to the DJs. The planes hitting buildings in New York was no accident. Someone meant to do it.

After watching replay after replay of the incident in Alicia's room, I sped off to class. The teacher took random attendance, so even though there was a major terrorist event, I knew I'd better get to Lee Hills Hall. But there was a note on the door...for us idiot "journalism" students who hadn't thought of reporting to the newsroom the second we heard of the attacks, we were all to report there immediately.

As my magazine friends and I made our way into the frenzy of MU news ed students, we were informed of where the school's "poster children" were. BJ was already at the Columbia airport -- and I can't remember if Nina and I actually found out that he was on his way there before calling the newsroom to see what they needed, or if we just made it up. But actually, it didn't matter. He was there, and I wasn't. Thus, that was the day I realized I would never win a Pulitzer. That was the day that I realized that there are some people who live for telling the amazing story. But that wasn't me. I needed the time to talk to people. To mull things over. To call my one New York friend (who was actually still in Australia) and see if her family was OK. I was not on my way to CoMo's tarmac. I was sitting in a cushioned spinning seat with my eyes glued to the TV.

And as the rest of my classmates/reporters buzzed around trying to do the story they'd been assigned, me and the rest of my beat sat around lifeless. We were the sports geeks, and we had nothing to do that day. Or for the rest of the week. Games were cancelled. Sports were put on hold. And as I clawed my brain for some story that I could do that would relate sports to the attacks, I began to see that it was a little fruitless. Sports was a game. It simply didn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

Sure, I went on to get an internship in sports, and I still write sports stories today. But since that day, I've never thought it mattered.