I'll admit that I'm still mourning the Pac-12.
If you've ever suffered a loss in your life, like the passing of someone close to you, you surely recognized the five stages of grief. The final stage is acceptance, but there's a fallacy there. The word acceptance implies that the process is over; you've completely recovered, and your life has returned to normal. But when the loss is significant enough, there are constant reminders of what once was, constant reminders that your life will never be the same.
Usually the moments arrive at the most unexpected times. Maybe you'll put on a coat that you haven't worn since last winter and discover a receipt or a ticket stub that takes you back to a treasured memory. Maybe you'll be standing on the subway and see a stranger whose eye brows somehow bring to mind a person you've lost. You never know what will remind you of the weight you carry or when that weight will make your path too difficult to walk. This is the nature of grieving.
I realize that I'm being overly dramatic in comparing the death of the Pac-12 to an actual death, but in some respects a loss is a loss. I have selfish reasons for missing the conference. Anyone reading this will probably be surprised to learn that as much as I've written about the Cardinal in this space, I've only been inside Stanford Stadium twice in the past 25 years. I don't know if I'll ever again get to see the Cardinal down here in L.A. playing USC or UCLA, which means I don't know the next time I'll get to watch my team in person. When I thought about my retirement from teaching, I always imagined I'd spend some of my fall weekends travelling to Stanford football games with the goal of eventually visiting every Pac-12 campus, but that dream is gone. I have no interest in travelling across the country for a game in North Carolina or Maryland. Why would I?
Sometimes you can see the grief coming. Birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays can trigger feelings of loss as we have a natural tendency to dwell on what's missing rather than being grateful for what we once had. And so it is with me. I always knew that this week would be difficult for me. It's media day season, and as I type this Stanford head coach Troy Taylor is on stage discussing the 2024 Cardinal, but I'm not there to ask him any questions.
I attended my first Pac-10 Media Day in the summer of 2011, and I was immediately hooked. I ate lunch with Andrew Luck, I had a conversation with David Shaw, and I spent the entire afternoon feeling like Dorothy when she walks out into Oz and experiences the world in technicolor for the first time. I was an interloper, an English teacher pretending to be a reporter, but somehow that was okay with everyone. The Stanford coaches, players, and support staff all treated me with respect, and I even developed friendships with other reporters in the room. Over the years it developed into my favorite day of the summer, and even last year when the event was moved out of my backyard and onto the surface of the sun (Las Vegas), I only felt a tiny bit guilty paying for plane fare and a hotel room to enjoy what I knew would be my final media day.
There are any number of reasons why the destruction of the Pac-12 makes no sense and any number of reasons why I should be sad, but this is the last time I will write about any of that. Today is the day when I begin looking forward, even if that means looking to the other side of the country.