Good and bad memories make the 'U' strong

Josh White Jumping the Gun

Today is the end. While it has been long coming and there has been ample time to prepare, there was nothing that could have gotten me ready for today. I have had a full four years of work, fun and experiences I will never forget, but why is it that I feel too young to be graduating yet too old for college? Perhaps all the seniors are right there, at a place none of us can describe.

While I feel that my arrival at the University of Michigan was nothing more than a mistake (it was the only school that would have me), it was nothing short of the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. If someone had sat me down four years ago and told me that I would have so much fun, meet so many wonderful people and that I would be at a Rose Bowl/National Championship game, I certainly would have laughed. It was my initial desire to transfer out of Ann Arbor, and quickly.

But this place grows on you, and it grows fast.

And I wouldn't trade a moment of my college career for anything, not one thing. Sure, I have done stupid things (I am doing another really stupid thing tonight, when I run the Naked Mile - hint: If you never wanted to see me naked, avoid South University around midnight) but each one of those things has added up to the best experience I could imagine.

What has been difficult for me is that I have lived a very atypical college life - working at the Daily can do that to you. The Daily stole me from my fraternity, stole me from close friends, and stole me from the normal day-to-day of college life. Until February of this year, I did not have a single weekend free, did not know what it was like to party on a Thursday, and could not relate to all of those people who said they had too much work to do. By my junior year, I was putting in more than 80 hours per week, and I all but ignored several of my classes.

But it isn't the time committment that made working at the Daily a hard task. Being a collegiate journalist is one of the most frustrating things that I can imagine - put yourself in our shoes for just one day. Think about what it is like to criticize your friends publicly, to bring out the bad aspects of groups you really like, and to point out the shortcomings and malfeasons of the sports teams and players you revere.

Take all of that and combine it with all of the mistakes that you are inevitably going to make, the misspellings, the bad quotes, the terrible layouts. Then, just when you think it is getting to a point of excruciating pain, put all of those mistakes around campus for 40,000 people to read on a daily basis, and ask them to ridicule you on your own pages. It's like putting out a term paper every day for an entire year and asking the University community to critique not only your coverage but your writing and editing abilities. Imagine a professor giving you a 'D' and telling the whole world about it - and that's just what several of you did.

It is a hard position to be in, especially when people think they have to walk on eggshells around you, simply because you work at the college newspaper. The conversations seem a bit hedged, people either pretend to love you or they really hate you, and there is the ever-present fear that maybe something in your own personal life is newsworthy, so even the reporters and editors watch their own steps.

But all of that is something that was exciting, that was offered only within the confines of 420 Maynard St. To know things about campus that no one else knows, to be on top of the events that occur here and to be behind the scenes at the biggest and most spectacular events of our time is unparralleled. To work with the best up-and-coming journalists this nation knows was a priviledge and an honor for me that is ultimately quite humbling. To write about the best college in the world is a feeling that nothing else can provide.

Most of my best memories are of the arguments and the discussions and the solutions we encountered in the daily grind. It wasn't publishing our book, it wasn't winning a Gold Crown - it was seeing the paper on the stands each morning with the knowledge that we were upholding a 107-year tradition and that we didn't miss a single day.

There are other memories that stand out far beyond those I have had at the Daily, from taking a train 52 hours to San Diego with Delano and Stonge, to two Boston trips to the blizzard at Penn State where Evans and I left a fellow traveller at a Citgo. But nothing comes close to getting to know the University and to interacting with all of you - from the good to the bad, from the smiles to the fights.

If there is one thing that I ask of campus in the coming weeks, it is to not forget what we have all been through here. It is not all about National Championships, nor is it about academic success or a great job prospect. Remember Tamara Williams, who should be walking with us on May 2. Remember Jefferey Reese, who should have been wrestling this season. Remember those who died in the Comair crash last year and remember all of the things that did not make us proud to be at Michigan - those are what will make us strong, those are what will make this the greatest place on Earth.

- This is Josh White's final column. He can be reached at jswhite@umich.edu

04-21-98