Thanks for the Memories

Life has a funny way of taking you to places that you never expected to travel, and introducing you to people you never expected to meet. Joining the staff of UW Dawg Pound was more or less the result of me acting upon a whim — as a displaced Seattle resident landed in Chicago, I saw it at the time as a nice way to stay connected to the University of Washington community. Never did I expect that it would lead to me becoming the site’s football editor and later managing editor, titles I’ve enjoyed in some form or fashion for the last three years.

Sadly, my time with this community has come to its inevitable conclusion. Several months ago, I accepted a new job whose demands of my time have strained my ability to be an effective leader of this team to the breaking point. Barring a random post here or there for the foreseeable future, I expect this to be my final piece published for UWDP.

Seven years ago, I joined this little community by authoring my first set of opponent position previews for the game between UW and San Diego State in 2012, only one of which seems to have survived being swept into the dustbin of history. John Berkowitz liked the fan posts I published enough to offer me a chance to post as an authorized author, and I happily took him up on his offer. A week later, I wrote my first news analysis piece (“With Callier’s setback, Sankey gets a chance to shine”).

Since August 2012, I’ve written around 730 articles for this site, which averages out to something on the order of one new article every 3.5 days for seven years. Comprising those 730 articles are: more Dot Dot Dawg link dumps than I care to remember; my gone-too-soon series Dawg Talk with my great friend Alex Hyres, who has since earned his doctorate and now teaches at the University of Utah; reactions to breaking news events like Lane Kiffin’s departure from USC in 2013 (scroll down to the comments for some very amusing-in-retrospect discussion of how Chris Petersen might factor into that development); a veritable legion of snarky tweets (shout-out to @UWonSBN, if you don’t follow already); and so, so many others that I would exhaust myself by continuing to list here.

As much as I’ve treasured the opportunity to write for this site (and I truly have treasured every opportunity, even when I’ve felt utterly tapped by the demands of doing so — a sentiment to which my fellow writers on deadline will surely relate), what I’m going to remember the most are the people with whom it brought me into contact. That starts with our loyal, rambunctious core of readers and commenters, many of whom have been here longer than me. You are too many to name individually, but you know who you are, and I thank each of you sincerely for being such an important part of this community.

To the folks at the SB Nation headquarters who have given us nothing short of their full support — Matt Brown, Caroline Darney, Jason Kirk, Bill Connelly, Steven Godfrey, Bud Elliott, Morgan Moriarty, and all the others who’ve been indispensable allies along the way — thank you for offering the full measure of your help whenever we have requested it.

And lastly, to my current and former fellow UWDP staff members: Rob Foxcurran, Lucas Shannon, Jackson Smith, Ed Strong, Jason Cruz, Aaron Sieverkropp, Wendy Austin, Jeff Gorman, Andrew Berg, Brad Johnson, Kevin Cacabelos, Ben Knibbe, Jack Follman, Kirk DeGrasse, John Sayler, Gabey Lucas, Max Vrooman, and most of all, Chris Landon — it has been one of the great honors and pleasures of my professional life to work alongside each and every one of you. While I’m sad to know that my time as a part of this group is coming to an end, I’m also tremendously excited to see what becomes of this merry band of degenerates with some fresh blood at the helm.

Thank you all for being such joys to work and interact with, from the days when we all brimmed with energy to the days when each and every one of us felt completely spent, and everything in between. It’s been an absolute treat.