One month ago, the Executive Board of The Crimson began the process of turning over the reins of power to a new crop of executives.

It dawned on me that my time in the building was limited. After four years of sportswriting and editing, I was about to leave.

The night the new officers of the Crimson were named, I began to write some of the things in my head, just a journal, nothing formal (I'm a sports writer--I hate formal).

Since then, I've compiled these thoughts into what turned out to be this column.

**************

It has been a long, long time before anything has compelled me to write. That is, other than a professor.

But tonight I find it absolutely necessary to sit down at my computer and type out my thoughts.

Less than 24 hours ago, The Crimson, where I have served as an assistant and associate sports editor for the past two years, selected its 124th executive board. And for the first time in three years, I was not making that triumphant walk down the hall, ready to be introduced as an incoming executive editor.

I was preparing to leave.

The guard named that night was the beginning of the end for myself and my colleagues on the 123rd executive board. We were about to become, as it is known in Crimson parlance, "fossils" or "dinosaurs". I'm already starting to feel like oil.

So many things were running through my head amid the cheers and champagne in the newsroom. I remembered my first visit to The Crimson, where John Trainer and Y. Tarek Farouki, the sports editors at the time, pitched the idea of comping sports to me. I remembered my first game story--a field hockey story for which I was so nervous that I prepared a detailed list of 20 (!) questions for Harvard coach Sue Caples. (I didn't even know the rules of field hockey.) I remembered my wonder and amazement as I became an executive for the first time in the fall of sophomore year.

There were so many great games I covered--I've seen Harvard in the NCAA tournament for both men's soccer and men's lacrosse. I've watched the hockey team from the press box of the venerable Boston Garden.

But for all those exciting moments, that's not what I'm going to miss the most.

My comp class, the comp class of 1993, is a group of people that will be irreplacable for me. No single organization will ever be able to bring together so many talented, helpful, genuine people. For me, The Crimson was really one place where I could go and every one knew my name.

I'd just walk into the newsroom.