What were you doing 10 years ago?

Only if Speed is a female.

 

Oh, nooooooo, certainly not.

 

My first-born was due 10 years ago today ... she eventually introduced herself to the world on Jan. 2. I was about four months away from starting my first sportswriting job.

 

Then: 10 years into my marriage, with a baby, a 1-year-old and a 6-year-old, in a very nice house in a very nice suburb of a large city, working my (then-)dream job, figuring this was pretty much the way it always would be.

Now: First Christmas as a divorced dad, just back from work travel in time for a quick Christmas celebration in my apartment, and then back on the road for work next week.

 

I'd started college that September. So, ten years ago day I was on my Christmas break.

Oh, to be eighteen again...

 

Ten years ago: Preparing to leave to go cover a BCS bowl game.

Today: Two weeks left in the business, then, after 34 years, into a new gig for the final 6-7 years of my working career.

 

Then: Enjoying a hell of a wave before sinking into the undertow.

Now: Avoiding the occasional jellyfish on calmer waters.

 

hey, best of luck, mg. sounds like you're going out admirably, on your own terms. congrats on sliding into a new gig.

 

I was midway through my freshman year of college.

Dec. 26, a kid was shot and killed on the highway in front of my rural-area house in one of the strangest, most tragic events in the last 50 years in my town.

My main ex-girlfriend to that point in my life begged me to get back together when I was home for Christmas that year. Even though she broke up with me, I didn't go for it. That rejection helped change her life -- she got super religious, nearly became a nun and eventually married a guy, and is now cranking out kids faster than seems physically possible (though she may have a complication with the most recent pregnancy, and it could be her last, which as much as I don't understand her life, is terrible).

I spent New Years in Dallas, prepping to watch the Cotton Bowl the next day. We were with family friends and didn't go to a real bar to meet up with all these sorority girls I desperately wanted to go meet up with thanks to an ice storm. That was a fairly miserable New Years, though my team dominated the game. Our friends wanted to leave midway through the fourth quarter to beat traffic, which I thought was really, really stupid. Who travels out of state to a bowl game and leaves early?

I was working at Best Buy while home for the holidays, and got a PS2, which was THE hot item, for Christmas. The store got about four of them in while I was working, and I clocked out, went, grabbed one, bought it and made my parents give it to me for Christmas.

Huh. I only remembered all that in chunks. Crazy. Crazy to believe it's been 10 years since that kid was shot. That was a bad, bad night.

 

Following the Vikings as they stumbled to the finish line, from 11-2 to 11-5. Still getting the ok from the news director to make plans for the Super Bowl in Tampa.

10 years ago... No kids yet, still in an apartment and convinced I was on the cusp of "getting the call" from ESPN.

Ten years later, I have the kids and the house.

No ESPN but still getting a decent paycheck from this crazy, backstabbing business.

 

In Dec. 2000, I was in my first semester of college, living in the dorms. Early that month, my friend from high school was taken to the hospital for alcohol poisoning after he passed out in the backseat of my car and four of us had to drag his unconscious ass into the lobby of my dorm, where we promptly dropped him like a sack of potatoes before the receptionist said "yeah...I'm calling 911."

That was the year we bought blue label Popov vodka by the case after driving an hour to get it, chain-smoked Marlboro reds and played epic battles of Madden 96 for the Genesis. Yes, we still did that.

 

Ten years ago, I was reeling from losing two jobs in a matter of weeks. I ignored the flashing red lights and didn't do much of anything while I waited for my next big break to come along. Took almost two years before I landed a prep gig and almost three years before the big break finally happened.

Today I am long removed from my last F/T gig (which was a pretty big break) and doing enough non-journalism stuff to keep food on the table, though I continue to ignore the flashing red lights and hope to get back into the biz somehow. But I also know that being out of the biz is nowhere near the worst thing that can ever happen. Sometimes, as the song goes, I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then.