It just hit me that my 10-year high school reunion is going to be in 2019. Ten whole years have gone by since then and it’s the weirdest feeling. It doesn’t feel like being in 12th grade was that long ago but, at the same time, I think 18-year-old me would look at 28-year-old me and wonder what happened in my life that made me so washed.
Anyway, I promise I’m not trying to go long about how much I’ve changed since then. My whole thing about high school reunions is that they seem like they’re tailor-made for people who are not me. I don’t ever want to be the guy who struts into the building just itching to tell dozens of people I haven’t talked to in a decade about how my life is so awesome and everyone was wrong for not voting me “Most Likely to Succeed.” If I brag to anyone about anything this year, I want it to be because I could check some goals off of a list of things I’d like to accomplish. There’s so much more value in that, at least to me, than in telling people I’ve made it because I make a lot of money selling Cutco knives and you can, too, if you give me five minutes of your time.
That would also mean I have to make that list. So I’ve thought about it a bit and, surprise, many things on my wishlist revolve around sports in some way. Here’s what I’m looking to get done by Dec. 31.
I know this is pretty situational, but I’m hoping to be able to go cover one of our teams in a state championship game or series again. Going to Stetson for Plant City’s soccer title this time last year and making the trip to Fort Myers to watch Strawberry Crest play in their first Final Four were very cool experiences, albeit with different end results and story tones. The energy you get from just being there, even if you’re acting as a neutral observer like I do, is unlike anything else out there. So I wish you all good luck this year — and not just for my own selfish reasons. Be the best you can be and do it for the glory.
Another thing I really want to do is a deep dive into another Plant City-area sports team or sports-related item of interest. Those of you who have been reading my stuff for the last five-plus years know I love me some sports history, and you’re not even the ones stuck in the Observer newsroom with me when someone’s got a binder full of baseball cards and I’m reciting weird facts about half of the players I see in there. In fact, I think most of my historical features for this paper have been related to baseball. I’m looking for something old to make new again, whether it’s baseball or not, and am open to any and all suggestions. If you’ve got something I’d be interested in, please send an email my way sometime.
Unrelated to work, I’m interested in learning to play ultimate frisbee. Well, I guess it’s just called ultimate these days, but whatever. I spent years in willful ignorance of it because it seemed like such a dorky thing to do when I was younger and I confess I had never even tried to watch anyone play. I thought it was another name for disc golf. I covered a tournament out here last month and actually got to see it live for the first time, and I have to admit I was so wrong about it. It looks like a lot of fun to play and I totally understand why it’s such a hit with the college crowd. It might be something I look into this summer.
My last thing is that I want to go to more sports games just for fun. It’s not that I don’t enjoy myself at a high school game, but watching sports when you’re working as I do is much different than getting to be somewhere as a fan and not having to worry about copy or deadlines or whether the photos you took turned out as well as they appeared to on the camera. I’m of the opinion that few things in life are as relaxing as catching a Minor League Baseball game in the evening. I don’t get to do that enough, or maybe I tell myself I can’t do that enough, and that should change.