Boston: the road trip to success

For me, the road to Boston was four years of twisting and turning, of winding roads and the most exciting of prospects. It was payback and it was redemption; the road to Boston most certainly went through Ann Arbor and unquestionably ended in success.

One friend, who braved my driving and the monotony of Interstate 90 this weekend, made the observation that they should offer a course at the University on "Practical Life" - that the University itself doesn't prepare us for what we really need to know. In the ensuing conversation, we discussed our four years here (something my father alluded to later as my great tendency to reminisce) and agreed that what we learned is not so much about the school as it is about those of us who attend it.

Josh White Jumping the Gun

As a group of us - both current students and recent graduates - sat in a small apartment on Tileston Street in Boston's historic North End just hours before the emotional hockey victory; the tension was extraordinary.

It was not so much nervousness about the game itself as it was the anticipation of sharing the experience with each other; it was about the bond that comes with going through so much.

The road trip, one that did in fact cover 750 miles each way and took about 12 hours in each direction, was less a journey to a hockey tournament than it was a journey toward discovery.

Much like the various crazy things each and every one of us has done while at school here, this road trip was a story in the making and a story that will doubtless be told thousands of times from now until forever. All of us agreed, hockey game or not, that this is what college is all about.

Sure, the argument that classes and grades are why we are here holds a lot of clout; there are courses here that are invaluable and help each student to grow and become ready for the "real world." But the real lessons are not learned in Angell Hall nor are they contained in any lecture that any professor has ever given. We were not put here to study alone, and our lives do not revolve around what we got in English 125 or how we performed on a midterm examination.

The hardest part about life, and consequently the hardest part about college, is how we learn from each other through experience. I could say that I have learned more on road trips than I ever could have in any classroom, and this past one was no different - the most important aspect of your college education is something that cannot be quantified on paper and something that has no yardstick for success. The interactions we have with our fellow students are in no way graded nor do they transfer well to a transcript or a graduate school application.

I am certain that singing "The Victors!" at the Cask and Flagon on Landsdowne Street is not something that I will offer as a positive attribute to future employers, but it was one the best moments of my college career, and that I could share it with friends made it a thousand times better. I can guarantee that 20 years down the line, I won't remember my Tuesday political science lecture, but that moment in Boston will live with me forever.

Sometimes we forget what is really important to all of us and we offer undue weight to things that don't really mean a hell of a lot. The hockey championship is wonderful and a great achievement by the best team in college hockey - something truly to be admired - but in the grand scheme of things it didn't really matter who won the game or that about 17,000 Boston College fans went home unhappy. Each and every one of them was witness to one of the greatest games ever, and so were we, and so we all have a story.

This trip to Boston, my hometown, was particularly redeeming because it was the trip that never happened from freshman year. That time around, I was in a car with two of my best friends as we heard Michigan lose to Maine in the longest game in NCAA history - and we were parked somewhere on the 403 in Ontario. While that trip was a series of losses (don't worry boys, I won't go there), it proved to be one of the greatest things I ever did.

It seems like these road trips take us a lot farther than anything else could, simply because we rely on each other for conversations that would never be had, for experiences we never would share and for the times of our lives we would be wasting away in books.

Here's to the National Champions, not for a great season or even a great game, but for a great road trip.

- Josh White can be reached over e-mail at jswhite@umich.edu.

04-07-98