It was April 1996. I was somewhere in New Hampshire, in line at a Burger King.

It would be a long wait, because the restaurant was tiny--really an add-on to a gas station--and one cook had to feed more than 20 hungry Harvard women's lacrosse players and their coaching staff. And one reporter.

I finally got to order my burger. While it was being made, Rebekah Zuercher, a freshman on the team, asked me an interesting question.

"What are you doing here?"

It was kind of funny. For although this was my third year of covering women's lacrosse, and my umpteenth trip on the team bus to a road game, I had never been asked that.

Why was I there? Being stuck in New Hampshire for the whole day to cover some women's lacrosse game--was that really my idea of fun?

It was, and it is. But her question deserves a more complete answer, and my day of graduation seems like the perfect time to give one.

* * *

I was a freshman, and I was scared.

The mighty, mighty Penn men's basketball team was coming to Harvard in February 1994, defending its undefeated Ivy streak against one of the league's bottom-dwellers. This team would soon be ranked in the AP's Top 25, and it had two future NBA players, Matt Maloney and Jerome Allen.

When I walked in and sat down at The Crimson's spot on press row, I was overcome with noise, like some tidal wave had hit me. The Penn band led one-third of the audience in a verbal Quaker orgy, while the Harvard band tried to spark its fans into cheer.

Looking down the press table, I saw people from Penn, from Boston papers, Philadelphia papers, the AP and radio stations. I felt...unworthy.

* * *

Writing articles has been a big part of my job here, but it's only half the story.

The rest of it fell under a big, murky category known as "Sports Editor." This job is hard to describe; it contains everything from layout to assigning stories to just simply being there. You eat and breathe Crimson Sports.