It’s important to say “hello” 
before you can say “goodbye.”
My friends and I like to go 
back and look at our introduc-
tory emails we sent before 
becoming Daily Sports Writ-
ers. Mostly, they make us laugh, 
reading through the awkward, 
all-too-formal interactions. But 
they also hold fragments of the 
people we once were and, for 
better or worse, fragments of a 
person we’d never become.
Here’s mine:
from: Nicholas Stoll nkstoll@
umich.edu
to: Ethan Sears searseth@
umich.edu, 
Max 
Marcovitch 
maxmarco@umich.edu
date: Aug 28, 2019, 3:49 PM
subject: Sports Reporter
Hello, my name is Nicholas 
Stoll, I’m an incoming freshman 
this year, and I’m interested in 
covering sports for The Michigan 
Daily. I’m going in as an English 
major, and I’m interested in pur-
suing journalism as a career in the 
future. 
I know the site 
says that there is 
no actual applica-
tion, but I feel it’s 
important to men-
tion that I’ve played 
many sports in the 
past and that I am a 
hard-worker.
Please send any 
important informa-
tion, such as meet-
ing times and locations, my way.
I’m looking forward to hearing 
back from you.
Thank you for your time,
Nicholas Stoll
For those who know me, you 
probably already found some 
things in that email that are 
amusing. First off, I go by “Nick,” 
yet somehow my formal intro-
duction and my unwillingness to 
correct anyone through the first 
few sports meetings have led to 
the “Nicholas Stoll” byline that 
I’ve stuck with for four years. 
Not to mention, I’m graduat-
ing in a few weeks with a busi-
ness degree, just three English 
classes on my transcript and no 
journalism career in my future. 
Then there’s the obvious that — 
beyond any touch-football expe-
rience — my sports history has 
no bearing on my success here.
Before stepping foot into 420 
Maynard, those are the things 
I thought were important. But 
after four years, I know how 
off-base I was. Still, there are 
important things to take from 
this email.
The person that responded to 
me, he’s one of my best friends. 
The sports section I joined, it 
gave me a home with even more 
friends to cherish. The excite-
ment I had to write for this sec-

tion, I still have it (if not more).
This is where I started my 
journey at The Daily. My start-
ing point is different from yours, 
and yours different from every 
other. But this is where my story 
began.
This was my “hello.”
***
The first event I covered was 
a Michigan men’s soccer game. I 
was brimming with excitement 
but still too awkward to show it. 
So, on my solo elevator ride down 
from the press box, I snapped a 
quick selfie to send to my mom — 
glasses, braces and credential all 
prominently on display.
I carried that excitement with 
me into State News practices, 
picking up more stories, meeting 
my best friends in the world and 
falling in love with the news-
room. The Michigan Daily was 
where I laughed, smiled, cried, 
yelled, cheered and laughed 
some more.
The newsroom was my home.
Until, of course, it wasn’t. 
COVID-19 
kicked 
us 
out 
and barred the doors shut. The 
TVs remained off. The decks of 

cards stayed in their packets. 
The newsroom continued to be 
empty.
That summer, I clung on to 
what I had left of The Daily, 
running for Summer Managing 
Sports Editor (MSE). And while 
we did what we could — and I 
appreciated every Zoom call and 
text with that year’s summer 
staff — it just wasn’t the same. It 
didn’t feel like The Daily.
As summer turned into fall, 
and fall into winter, the excite-
ment within me that previously 
poured over slowly faded. I 
wasn’t motivated to do a beat, to 
write at all, really. And as I sat at 
home, The Daily stopped being 
home.
I contemplated quitting — not 
entirely, but taking a definite 
step back. I planned to stay on 
as an editor, but I felt that I was 
done writing. I didn’t want to let 
go of everyone just yet, but I had 
a foot squarely out the door.
However, I wasn’t just about 
to quit on The Daily, I was about 
to quit on myself.
My mental state was as bad as 
I could remember. I didn’t have 
faith in my work, my worth or 
anything else for that matter. 
I was just going through the 
motions, and anything else felt 
like too much to take on. A beat 

was out of the question.
Then Ethan, the same MSE 
and best friend that replied to 
my email, called me.
“You’re doing a beat.”
It wasn’t a question.
“You’re too good of a writer. 
You need to be on a beat. You’re 
doing softball.”
Then Kent — the MSE at the 
time, my former co-Summer 
MSE and my future roommate 
— called. He echoed more of the 
same.
Neither of them knew how 
much I needed that call — how 
much I needed that push. That 
push put me back on track. Cov-
ering a softball game in-person 
was the happiest I had been in a 
while. I loved my beatmates, and 
I remembered why The Daily 
was special. Like an overfilled 
pitcher, my excitement was 
pouring out all over again.
Thinking back on it, I can’t 
believe I almost walked away. 
I almost said “goodbye” far too 
early.
***
Honestly, it still feels too early 
to say “goodbye.”
In many ways, 
The Daily sports 
section 
is 
my 
home.
Every day I 
wake 
up 
and 
head downstairs 
to find The Daily 
sports section in 
my living room. 
The 
people 
I 
eat 
with, 
live 
with and share 
a house with are people I met 
on The Daily. As MSE, I spent 
more time in the newsroom than 
anywhere else, fully living and 
breathing 420 Maynard.
I made it my personal mis-
sion to make sure everyone else 
who walked in the doors felt the 
same. I wanted them to come 
in and fall in love like I did, and 
— unlike me — never want to 
leave. I wasn’t always success-
ful. Some people walked away, 
and each time I still wondered 
what I could’ve done to stop it — 
what call, what text, what words 
I could have said to keep them 
here.
I’ve accepted that I may never 
know what I could have or 
should have done. Instead, I like 
to look around the room and see 
the smiles of the people I know 
who stayed. Recently, I’ve been 
seeing new smiles that I don’t 
recognize, filling me with joy 
and reminding me of the bitter-
sweet reality that my time has 
passed.
Hopefully, they’ve found their 
home, too.
If they have, they’ll find it just 
as hard to say “goodbye” as I do 
right now. So instead, I’ll leave 
The Michigan Daily with this:
Thank you for your time,
Nicholas Stoll

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
14 — Wednesday, April 19, 2023

SportsMonday: Hello, goodbye

NICHOLAS STOLL
Daily Sports Writer

Sports

SportsMonday: 
Looking back on a list

I’ve had a file on my laptop 
since the first semester of my 
freshman year. I’ve been wait-
ing to open it again until now. 
See, college moves fast — 
way too fast — and I was lucky 
enough to recognize that pret-
ty early on. I wanted a way to 
remember every-
thing, 
beyond 
mere photos and 
fables. A diary 
wouldn’t 
work, 
because 
I 
had 
tried that before 
and lacked the 
dedication to see 
it through. Ditto 
for a journal. 
But on Dec. 11, 
2019, I needed a 
solution. I had 
just experienced 
my first last night of produc-
tion at The Daily. I hung out 
at 420 Maynard well into the 
early morning, eating NYPD 
and playing chair monkey. At 
some point, I wandered back to 
my dorm at Alice Lloyd, feeling 
happy and probably a bit tipsy, 
too. 
The clock begged me to go to 
bed, but something about that 
felt wrong. I didn’t want to lose 
the magic of that night; I had to 
do something, anything, to keep 
it alive. So I opened the “Sticky 
Notes” app on my laptop and 
started jotting down my favor-
ite memories of that semes-
ter, specifically those tied to 
The Daily. Soon enough, I had 
formed a pretty comprehensive 
list. 
I can’t remember the last 
time that I’ve looked at the list. 
Sometimes I even forget that it 
exists. But as I struggled writ-
ing this piece — because there 
are few things that I dislike 
more than talking about myself 
— the list became an all-con-
suming thought. It was time to 
read it again. 
When I went to open it, a 
weird 
thing 
happened. 
My 
heart started beating fast. My 
hands grew clammy. My mind 
raced. And as I sat on my liv-
ing room couch, I became oddly 
emotional. 

My final last night of produc-
tion looms on Tuesday, so it was 
a full circle moment as I reflect-
ed on my first. I wondered what 
mattered to me at the time, as 
an 18-year-old first semester 
freshman. What moments were 
most formative in developing 
my love for The Daily? I sud-
denly needed to know. 
I opened the file and smiled. 
Here’s what I wrote about: 

I wrote about playing a 
game of euchre with Kopnick; 
about walking to buy drinks 
with Ethan; about transcribing 
quotes for Max. I wrote about 
elections, where I sat next to 
Connor and earned the dis-
tinction of “most likely to pass 
out on the bathroom floor.” I 
wrote about getting a phone 
call to go to Denny’s and film-
ing the livestream for State 
News; about following Dan-
iel and Teddy onto the floor at 
Crisler Center for a volleyball 
match. I wrote about wander-
ing into The Daily to watch 
LSU-Georgia on an innocuous 
Saturday night, only to find out 
that Lane, Lily, Ethan and Ben 
were there, too. 
All of these moments may 
seem rather trivial, and maybe 
they are. But this is what The 
Daily is all about — those ran-
dom, spontaneous memories 
that spawn out of nowhere yet 
last for a lifetime. You cling to 
those innocent walks to grab 
dinner and the random invita-
tions to go sledding because 
they made you feel valued; they 
showed you that there’s a group 
of people on this vast, intimi-
dating college campus that 
genuinely care about you. And 
that’s the best feeling that you 
can ever ask for. 
In the time between then and 

now, I’ve accomplished more at 
The Daily than I ever thought to 
be possible. Some people knew 
what they wanted to get out 
of The Daily when they came 
in, writing carefully-crafted 
emails ahead of time to the 
Managing Sports Editors. That 
wasn’t me — I wandered my 
way to a table at Festifall and 
showed up to my first sports 
meeting too early, as I didn’t 
know the door 
code and every-
one was still at a 
State News prac-
tice. Talk about 
apropos. 
But 
I 
found 
a 
home 
pretty 
quickly. I liked 
writing 
and 
I 
liked sports, and 
that 
formula 
wound up taking 
me pretty far. I 
was lucky enough 
to be on a beat each year, and 
three of the teams that I cov-
ered won a Big Ten Champion-
ship. That allowed me to cover 
March Madness and consecu-
tive College Football Playoff 
games; it enabled me to write 
the game story for Michigan’s 
triumphant win over Ohio State 
in 2021. I traveled to Florida 
and Arizona and Texas, criss-
crossing the country as a “job.” 
But I think it’s fitting that the 
list doesn’t include any men-
tion of my writing or any of the 
games that I covered. It’s all 
about the memories that I made 
with the people I’ve since come 
to love and the places we’ve all 
been together. 
I didn’t note any of the fea-
tures that I wrote or the games 
that I covered. Yes, those 
are incredible, unforgettable 
moments that I’m so fortunate 
to have experienced. And yes, at 
its core, The Daily functions as 
a newspaper. But as I finish off 
my 260th and final story here, 
I can say that The Daily is so 
much more than the work we 
produce. 
So maybe on Tuesday night — 
or more accurately, Wednesday 
morning — I’ll sit down in front 
of my laptop, happy and tipsy, 
and make another list. 
Odds are, it will look pretty 
similar to the first.

JARED GREENSPAN
Daily Sports Writer

Thinking back on it, I can’t 
believe I almost walked 
away. I almost said 
“goodbye” far too early.

You cling to those innocent 
walks to grab dinner and 
the random invitations to go 
sledding because they made 
you feel valued.

Photo courtesy of Jared Greenspan

Photo courtesy of Nicholas Stoll