2B — April 22, 2019 SportsMonday The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com E very email I’ve ever sent to the sports staff has ended with some varia- tion of “I love you.” To some, that probably seems like an unpro- fessional, aggressive overuse of the term “I love you.” Under other circum- stances, I might agree. But I don’t agree here, because: a) it’s absurd for anyone to limit their allotted number of “I love yous” in this lifetime, especial- ly if you really, truly mean it, and b) I really, truly meant it. My “I love yous” were never included on the basis of say- ing it just to say it. They were included because I meant it, from the bottom of my heart, every single time. I have so much love for The Daily, for the sports staff and for everyone who has ever con- tributed in any capacity to this institution. It’s kind of hard to explain why, because to a lot of people, this is probably just a student newspaper. It’s just like any other organization on this campus: It’s a creative outlet, it’s an extracurricular, it adds a little spice to students’ resumes, something fun to talk about in interviews. Not for me. For me, The Daily is so, so much more. For being a student journalist, it’s a little ridiculous that I’m sitting here struggling to string together coherent sen- tences that accurately convey The Daily’s importance to me. It should be easy to explain, but it’s not. The only way to explain it, I think, is to explain why The Daily is a large part of the reason I’m graduating from Michigan in two weeks. In high school, my plan was commmunity college. I applied to Michigan on a whim, and only decided to come here after the love of my life (financial aid) came through. But when I first got here, I realized I knew no one, and I was as academi- cally ill-prepared as humanly possible. I quite literally hated it. Everything about Michigan was different from my little village back home — my econ class was bigger than my high school graduating class, by a lot. I knew maybe three people? The lowest-level math class you could take was pre-calculus, which was still two levels too high for me. I failed two of those exams in a row, and nei- ther of my parents had gone to college, so I felt like I had no one to talk to about it. And, to top it all off, I got sunburnt at every single god- damn football game. I was ready to transfer. I was going to go anywhere else. Michigan was not my home. I hadn’t even planned on going anywhere other than commu- nity college in the first place. I did not sign up for this. Instead of transferring, though, I signed up for The Daily. It was kind of a last- ditch effort to stay at Michigan, and I did techni- cally only join because I was binge-watching Gilmore Girls at the time and Rory wrote for her school paper, but that’s not important. Because when Ted and Kevin started offering to help me with my math homework, and when Avi offered to meet me at South Quad for lunch before volleyball, and when Kelly gave me every piece of advice she had, I realized that there was a reason for me to stay on cam- pus and give it another chance. My rocky start wasn’t at all indicative of the life I’d have at Michigan, and that chance I took on staying has given me the best four years of my life. I flew with the hockey team to Madison and State College, and I drove to Ohio State my senior year to cover a football game with four amazing friends. We went to the Peach Bowl last December where we met Mel, and if you haven’t met Mel (which you probably haven’t), just know he makes mean peach booze slushie. Joining The Daily carried me through Michigan. It taught me that going out of my comfort zone and attending a four- year university had been hard, but exactly what I needed to grow as a person. It gave me the chance to start collecting coffee mugs at every school I went to, whether that was to cover a sport or for some other random, unimportant reason, in hopes that my future kids will grow up and see these mugs and not think twice about going to college. (I don’t have an Ohio State mug, but that’s not my fault. I tried to buy one at both a hockey and football game. Their stores only car- ried fake buck- eyes and foam fingers.) The Daily gave me a home in a place where I felt like I didn’t have one, and now I can’t imagine hav- ing gone anywhere else. That’s why I have an absurd amount of love for these people, and why I don’t care that ending every email with “I love you” was probably unnecessary and ridiculous. What I do care about is that everyone on this staff — every freshman, every senior, every junior and every sophomore — knows that they are a part of one of the best experiences on this campus. At this point, it’s important to note that I tried to write this column a million times and couldn’t figure out what I wanted to say. A couple nights ago, I asked a former MSE how to best approach this column, and he said to write it for your- self — not for anyone else. I kept thinking about what I wanted to say. What I needed, not what anyone else needed. All I could think of, though, was how much I loved every- one, how grateful I am that I got to be a part of something so special for these four years. So, really, this column is just a 1,000-word extension of my senior goodbye from back in December. Oops. In reality, that’s probably because I wasn’t really ready to say goodbye back then. I couldn’t write that goodbye in its entirety because saying goodbye meant I was done here at Michigan, and I wasn’t ready to be done. But, I think I am now. So, let me finish by wrapping up a few things I left unsaid: Megan and Lauren, thanks for putting up with me (and The Daily). I can’t believe we made it through four years together even though we went in blind freshman year. I’m happy none of our fights over plastic bags and dishes ever had serious consequences. Thanks, Mrs. John- son and Mrs. Jarrad, for calling Michi- gan’s office of financial aid every day after I got accepted to find a way to get me here. Thanks, Christopher Loben- herz, for picking up the phone one of those days and helping an unaccompanied homeless youth get to college. Turns out, I don’t have any big-picture theme or advice to give, mostly because I’m 22 and really don’t need that kind of liability on my hands. But I do want to say thank you, and not just to The Daily. Thank you if you read a story, if you were a professor who went out of your way to help me, if you were a GSI who didn’t fail me in pre- calculus even if you probably should have. Thank you all for being here, for being a part of this commu- nity, for reading this incoherent goodbye col- umn. Thank you, everyone, for doing whatever it is that you did to help me get to where I am today. I love you. Laney can be reached on Twitter @laneybyler or by email at dbyler@umich.edu. She wants to thank you (obviously) for reading this incomprehensible and ridiculously emotional last column. You’re all rockstars. She loves you. “I love you” LANEY BYLER Time to turn the lights out A fter a basketball game is finished, and the fans have left, some media members prefer to work in the media room. I always try to go back to the press box, partially because I work better by myself, but mostly because there is nothing like an empty stadium. Where there was deafening noise and heart-stopping action mere hours earlier, now there is silence. It helps my creativity for working and fuels my nostalgia when I’m done. Over the last four years, from hockey to football, I’ve been lucky enough to walk around Joe Louis Arena, the Dean Dome, Mackey Arena, Madison Square Garden, the Alamodome, Mercedes-Benz Stadium and yes, Michigan Stadium. All empty. All magnificent. In the basketball arenas, I think of my dad, Mike. He taught me how to shoot a jump- shot and drove me all around hell and back for tournaments and games over the years, shar- ing stories and advice like only a dad can do. In the football stadiums, I think of my mom, Martha, who I remember yelling at the televi- sion on fall Saturdays and tear- ing up at the Michigan marching band during post-game perfor- mances when we came to games in Ann Arbor years ago. She has always been there for me, in the stands for the easy times and in the trenches for the hard ones. I look around these stadiums and think of my parents, the role they’ve played in getting me here and how much I wish I could show them these experi- ences in person. I liked to sit for a while by myself after running produc- tions at The Daily last year, too. The posters around the room from past Managing Editors are a little like jerseys hung in raf- ters. I think of myself here, and how I’ve somehow found a place in the history of this 128-year- old newspaper. Both experiences settle me down and give me the slightest sense of imposter syndrome. They are my two first thoughts when I think of my “happy place.” The difference is that, if all goes well, more stadiums will be in my future. A silent, empty Stanford Lipsey Student Pub- lications Building at 2:00 a.m. will not. *** From a young age, I would wake up early in the morning to watch SportsCenter. When it ended, I would watch the next episode, which was just an exact repeat of the one I had just watched. In those days, sports were synonymous with Michigan sports to me, and I never really had a choice. My grandpa — Gumpa, as his grandkids called him — attend- ed Michigan, and from there, I think my fate was preordained. So I grew up with maize and blue everything. In Sunday School as a child, I colored a picture of Jesus Christ maize and blue. I used to play catch with Gumpa in my grandparents’ living room with a little, blue, plastic football for hours. I’d say I was Marquise Walker (the real ones will remember) or Braylon Edwards or some other Wolver- ines receiver, as I dove into their couches making one-handed catches. I always thought I would be a Michigan athlete one day. Of course, that dream was dashed, because I am not close to D-1-caliber at anything, though I do hold my own on the IM courts. Time passed, and it eventu- ally came time to apply for col- lege. I thought for a second that I might want to go somewhere else. I knew sports journalism was my interest and that Michi- gan didn’t have a journalism major. But when I actually got accepted here, I don’t even think I had to tell my parents where I wanted to go. They probably knew I’d end up in Ann Arbor before I did. The sports journalism aspect took care of itself, too. At Festifall my freshman year, I was actually looking for the WCBN table — I thought I wanted to do radio or televi- sion. But I stumbled across The Daily’s table, where then-MSE Max Cohen was standing. He asked me if he could be honest with me, and his pitch was something along the lines of, “We’re the best fucking stu- dent newspaper in the country, and we’ll get you a job.” Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I was sold, and the rest is his- tory. Gumpa passed when I was nine. I’d give anything to tell him about the last four years. *** I remember when my Dad was laid off. He is a press opera- tor, and I was too young to have it explained to me fully, but he spent time at home for a while. Mom is an elementary school teacher, and we got by. I also remem- ber taking a drive one day. My parents, my two sisters — Katie and Mary — and I packed into our car and drove about five minutes away from home, pulling down a long driveway into the woods. At the end of it was a small house. We were moving here, away from my childhood home, to this air- condition-less, fresh-water-less place. I know I didn’t take that change well, and I imagine my reaction didn’t make things easy on my parents. I realize now that the move was partially for me. Mom and Dad have always told us kids not to worry about the costs of things, because we’ll make it work. When I wanted to play AAU basketball, they figured out a way to pay for it. When Katie decided on Western Michigan, and I decided on Michigan, they figured out a way to pay for it. When Mary gets into Harvard or Oxford or something, they’ll figure out a way to pay for it. When I got my first internship in Colorado Springs, my Dad got in my shitty, old car with me and drove through the night to Colorado to make sure I got there safe. I don’t write any of this because I think I’m special, or for pity’s sake. I recognize there are thousands of kids and par- ents who have to grind to make ends meet. I tell these stories because I am so, incredibly lucky to have the parents I do. They deserve so much credit. Truthfully, they deserve so much more than that. No matter how many times I’ve been down to my last dol- lar, scrambling to pay rent, they kept a promise. We’ve always made it work. So I’ll repeat what I said in my Senior Goodbye. Mom and Dad, one day I swear it will all be worth it. *** I’ve said a fair number of goodbyes in my life, and I’ve sucked at all of them. The last football game I attended as a fan was Michi- gan’s loss to Ohio State in 2017. My friends went home before me, and when the final whistle blew, I made my way to the 50-yard line. In the shadow of the press box, I watched the marching band’s postgame show and cried. At the end of my MSE tenure, I went home for a family wed- ding. I was tired. A year of this job takes something out of you. I had a long talk with Mom about school and The Daily and my own mental health, and I cried then too. I wasn’t ready to be done with The Daily, and I’m still not. I’m certainly not ready to be done with Michigan. And that’s why this goodbye is especially painful. Because, even if those other ones were “lasts” for specific situations, I still had time left. For this one, I have two weeks, and then nothing will ever be the same as it was these last four years. When I would sit at The Daily on those late nights, I would leave and walk through the silent campus. The walk was better before The Union was under construction, but it’s still pretty good. Maybe after the stories I’ve already told, it’s a surprise I didn’t cry. Instead, I would well up with pride. For all the hundreds of thou- sands of people who walked this campus, I am one of the relative few who was Managing Sports Editor of The Michigan Daily. Years from now, I will be able to walk back into 420 Maynard St. and find my bylines from my time here. I’ll remember The Daily for being the thing that got me through the hard times. When things were at their worst, I never once dreaded walking into that building. Turning the corner from the stairs, entering the newsroom and seeing the sports staff at the first desk on the right washed away whatever else was going on in my life. For a year, that staff — the best god- damn student sports section in the world — was mine, and that means the world to me. It was the biggest factor in the best four years of my life. But at some point, the sta- dium lights go out, and you have to leave. It is the worst part. Persak can be reached at mdpers@umich.edu or on Twitter @MikeDPersak. He would like to thank anyone who has read any of his articles, no matter how ridiculous they may have been. MIKE PERSAK COURTESY OF MIKE PERSAK Senior Mike Persak promises his parents that their sacrifices will be worth it. It was the biggest factor in the best four years of my life. ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily Senior Laney Byler bought a coffee mug at every school she’s ever visited, except Ohio State because she couldn’t find one. Joining The Daily carried me through Michigan. But I do want to say thank you, and not just to The Daily.