I would be--gasp--an alumnus.

We cranked on that Extra up in the press box like there was no tomorrow. Every five minutes, Matt would exclaim, "I love this!" Truth be told, I loved it too. And as the sun began to disappear over the horizon, I almost wished our project would just take a little bit longer. But like all good things, it too came to an end.

As Matt, Eric and I loaded the car, Matt gave me a quick handshake.

"Long live the 122nd and 123rd [executive guards]," he said quietly.

"We were the greatest," I said.

As he drove off, he stretched his hand out of the car window, pointing his finger in the air.

I didn't realize how much I was going to miss my sports boards, both the 122nd and 123rd boards. And it wasn't until that moment that I realized that was how I felt.

We were the greatest.

***********

Then there were the Friday nights.

Once a week, one sports editor spends the entire evening editing the stories and laying out the sports page for the next day. My night was Friday. For two years I spent Fridays in the basement of the paper, a room named for our production supervisor, a 56-year-old priest from Everett (with Mafia connections), Mr. Patrick R. Sorrento (hereafter referred to as PRS).

In the beginning of my days as a page editor, I was as effective as a Tim Wakefield fastball.

I could just do nothing right--the fonts were wrong, the wire stories always seemed to come in late, and my layouts weren't looking so hot.

But practice (and a little help from the previous guard and PRS) got me going better.

Four figure closeouts as far as the eye could see!!