THE INSIDE STORY Being Wrong is Just Part of the Game

Author: David Lindholm

Now, I'm always the first to contend that I am never wrong, and to be honest, I never really am, but this year has gotten me to start doubting myself. As a Sports editor, I write this column every week, and try to provide insights into the sports world at Middlebury and beyond. But I think I may have failed you, my faithful readers, in terms of my ability to predict. From what I've written this year, I'm starting to learn the power of a curse that is on par with the Sports Illustrated cover. Here's what I mean:

A couple weeks ago I wrote a column entitled "Sports Spring Eternal." The writing in it was about as good as the title (yeah, sorry about that) and I talked about how spring was such a great time for sports with the great weather and general happiness. And what happened? The temperatures dropped and it began snowing, causing the activity on campus to freeze up like the Bruins in the playoffs.

Not enough? A couple weeks before the snow, I wrote that Major League Baseball needed a salary cap to give teams like the Expos and the Twins a chance. Now both teams are at the top of their divisions despite paying their players little above minimum wage. Last I heard, the Expos were going to strike until their salaries were made equal to what the ground crew is earning. And they're in first!

It's not just about cursing people, but I definitely would like to apoligize to the women's hockey team for prediction that they would easily win the NESCAC tournament, and also to Michael Jordan, who got hurt after I wrote about him. Also to Doug Flutie, who I praised incessantly before he starting having a pretty rough second half of the season. And Hapoel Tel-Aviv, an Israeli soccer team, who lost after I said they had a great shot of winning.

But it was my first year, and I learned a lot from being on the Campus staff this year. First of all, I learned not to overstep my bounds as a first-year student on the staff. The hazing is bad enough when they like you; if you mess with ANY of the senior staff members you're in for hell. Also, I found out that "dogg" is an appropriate name for anybody (especially if you don't know what their name is) and that being a Sports editor comes with a lot of responsibility. If somebody asks me when the second-round IM softball playoffs are and who's playing, I have to know. I'm liable to get fired if I don't know that kind of thing. It's a rough profession.

Anyway, I'm sorry again for letting you all down this year. In the future, I'll try to stick to things that have already happened, because it's a lot harder for me to be wrong about those types of things. And thanks for reading, as always.