One of the first lessons they teach at the journalism school is the kissing method: keep things simple, stupid. This means that we should be concise and precise. Do not use 12 words when you can use three. It applies to everything, from the writing of necrologies to inaugural covers.
Having lasted 27 years at CBS Sports and almost 45 years in this profession, I certainly failed to join this cannon of journalism.
J -School was right – nobody likes an endless story. Everything has an expiration date.
Mine has arrived – professionally, of course.
This is my farewell chronicle at CBS Sports, a wonderful company that allowed me to be part of our wonderful job. I have been thinking for a long time that journalism is a vocation, not just a job. It’s special. I was lucky to be among those who wake up every day loving absolutely what I do.
Retirement was a difficult decision, but it was mine. It’s time to be more with family, friends and my barcalounger.
Now it’s time to sleep a little … at the end of the Final Four 2025.
I estimate that I covered 250 college football games and that I had somewhere north of 6,000 bèges published. In an unknown profession for its generosity, I work for more peanuts than circus elephants.
In fact, it’s not fair. CBS Sports was more than just for me. And by “Fair”, I mean having the privilege of covering brand events such as the Stanley Cup qualifiers, several Final Fours and Frozen Fours and the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. At CBS Sports, I was able to keep my sequence alive covering 22 consecutive world university series, always the most underestimated championship tournament.
This crazy trip took me to Dublin, Ireland, for Notre Dame against Navy; In Garden City, Kansas, for the backs behind the game at the Junior College; And at Nick Saban’s office in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
The advantages during the mission can also be great. I saw Bruce Springsteen in the rain, the go-gos in the Arizona and Kenny Chesney desert on a Nascar track. I was behind the scenes with Otis Day and the Knights as the BCS 2011 championship match approaches. They made me want to shout.
It was a gas seated with Tim Tebow when he rebuilded the dry when the conference itself turned into a juggernaut. It was the same to walk with the finalists of the Times Square Heisman Trophy at the Rockefeller Center in the middle of New York while interviewing the parents of the former Michigan star, Aidan Hutchinson.
I called cold the house of Tyrann Mathieu at the top of the craze of Badger. (No answer.) I was almost linked to laundry by the goal post – twice – in the Tennessee Field who storm after the victory over the Alabama in 2022.
I was among those who were expelled from the locker room of Miami by former sports director Paul Dee because he was turned upside down by the media after the Hurricanes lost against the state of Florida. These open changing rooms have long disappeared. Unfortunately, the tastes of colorful WEE, who died in 2012.
I interviewed Brian Bosworth in his dormitory. Forty years later, he saw me inside the suite of the Oklahoma sports director Joe Castiglione at the half-time of a Kansas State match and said: “Hi, Dennis”.
Day = fact.
Three times, I locked myself in a stadium – twice in Alabama and once at the Hard Rock stadium in the second BCS championship match. I was forced to scale a 12 -foot fence. A charity policeman, probably suffocating a laugh, helped locate my car at 4 a.m.
Mike Leach once accepted an intersane interview at his home in Key West, Florida. After a visit to the city which lasted eight hours and included the cats of Hemingway, the Salon of Captain Tony and many, uh, refreshments in the heat of Florida, I arrived in my hotel room at midnight, asking out loud: “What did he have just happened?”
The Foundation always lasts: players and their stories make university sports formidable. Heck, everything is what makes all the sports wonderful.
This is why some of us attended four World Series games in 1985 while paying our own pockets. This is why to hit the deadline at midnight after Texas A & M had joined 12 below with 35 seconds to play in a NCAA tournament match Earning double extension requires steel nerves – and a fence beer.
This is why watching Annika Sorenstam face the men of the colonial in 2003 was more an honor than a mission.
Four days in Bristol, Tennessee, will never be forgotten, covering the biggest university game (by attendance) in history while 157,000 Volunteers beat Virginia Tech in 2017.
The boycott of Missouri threatened football In 2015, was an inspiring lesson in democracy, social justice and civil rights.
Nothing would be possible without the guts and glue, which includes my mentors, boss and influences at CBS Sports with which I was honored to work: Mike Kahn, Steve Miller, Mark Silanson, Jeff Gerttula, Randy Brickley Pate, Marcus Nelson, Jack Crosby, Adi Joseph and Trey Scott.
Special recognition at Larry Wahl, a pillar, mentor and friend of CBS Sportsline who left us too early in 2021.
CBS Sports has always struck its weight. With our fantastic 24/7 streaming platform, CBS Sports HQ, we are seen in the world. I know because friends on vacation sent a text to see my ugly cup on television from a beach bar or another.
Thanks to James “Easter” Heathman for having opened the door to his house in 2001. In 1931, Heathman saw Knite Rockne’s plane descend into a distant kansas cattle ranch. Heathman, living nearby, finally did his job to preserve the memory of Rockne, leading tours to the Memorial Rockne for all those who asked.
Thank you to the friends and family of Steve Boda, the former NCAA statistician whose story revealed There is still a lot of good in the world. I’m still warm and the blurred, remembering that one.
On a lighter note, it was always fun to talk about the record with Saban … or to go on a tangent with the miles. Looking Deion Sanders pre-match ritual Was more red carpet of celebrity than stretching the green grass.
Five days in Iowa City last year revealed not only Caitlin Clark but its hanging on a nation And, in the end, the strength of female athletics.
Covering university athletics sometimes means covering the worst of the human condition. The date was November 5, 2011. I arrived at my headquarters in the press box in Alabama for the LSU game to open my computer and find the first heartbreaking mention of the Jerry Sandusky scandal in Penn State.
Bill O’Brien should always obtain credit to have the courage and foresight to take the work of Penn State which leaves this scandal. For two summers, it allowed me to get on the bus during the program’s off-season caravan in the northeast. Hey, we will always have scranton, Pennsylvania.
We were seven who covered the 16 BCS league games. This particular writing chapter ends after having covered 25 of the 27 championship games in total since they started playing them in 1998 in the eras of the BCS and university football playoffs.
Funny fact: Antiacid has still not been invented to combat the effects of press box food.
Favorite stop on the pace
Lsu: There is really nothing like Death Valley at night.
USC: When Trojan horses are good, they have Los Angeles.
Texas: This is a complete Disneyland football.
Alabama: What other school has so many statues of each winning coach of the national championship? I swear I saw the effigy of the Bryant Bear move.
Orange: He left now, but in his time, the legendary structure of the NW 3rd St. in Miami was an institution bathed in sweat, Swag and Schnellenberger.
Cal: A view of Tillwad Hill outside the front of the press box, the superb Vista of San Francisco Bay behind you.
Where should university football go from here?
- Rose Bowl is expected to host the national championship match each year. Period. The sun, the images, the smells, the San Gabriels.
- Rick Neuheisel should be the university football commissioner. Period.
- University football will consolidate more – perhaps in the 70 or 80 best teams – over the next 5-7 years.
- Millionaire coaches lead to millionaire players. Who described the NFL, but now he understands the middle of the dry and the big ten. It will change little. It’s here. Treat with that. I said that for a while, we will not make noise on Nile and Pay-For-Play in two years. This will be as much part of the match as the goal.
- One entity or another will buy an athletics department. Not just the football program – the entire Department of Athletics.
- Have fun, prepare for owners of de facto teams. There will be more professional professional elite – that is to say Patrick Mahomes in Texas Tech, Andrew Luck in Stanford – having a word to say on the way in which the sports department is directed.
But take heart. On Saturday, we will always care for games, not a temporary ban prescription. And I’m going to miss the hell of all this. Well, anything but parking.
This farewell lasted for too long. Figures. The kissing method should last.
Me? I have a time to come.