(Editor’s note: This is part of a series of personal essays celebrating 50 things we’re looking forward to in college football leading up to the Week 1 kickoffs Sept. 4.)
When I learned that my fiancee’s due date was set for Oct. 4, I made a joke to her that I still find pretty funny. I told her that I was going to use her stomach as a sundial. The bigger it gets, the closer we are to football season. Maybe most women wouldn’t find that funny, but Brittney, the unquestioned love of my life, smiled.
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She knows who she agreed to marry — a college football nut who found a way to build his life around the sport. Football has always been at the center of my life. When I was a kid, I loved watching it with my mother and father. When I got to high school, I was bad at playing it. And in college, I worked feverishly studying journalism so I could spend my life writing about it.
But the center of my life is different now in the most beautiful way.
My life has changed a lot in the past year. Let’s lay it all out there. I left the Ohio State beat to take a national role at The Athletic. I moved from Columbus to Dallas to be near Brittney. We lived together for the first time before buying our first home. And now we’re expecting our first child. We’re also planning our wedding for next May. That’s all in a 12-month period.
That may seem hard, but it was the easiest thing I’ve ever done. Choosing Brittney is the best decision I’ve ever made, and our future baby is the manifestation of that love. All the changes were challenging, sure, but they were necessary to build a life together. And I cherish that life with every fiber of my being.
So here we are, in mid-August, and Britt’s belly is really out there now. I melt every time I see her waddle into a room, knowing that our entire world is going to be here soon. At first, I stressed about what having a baby right around the time conference play starts would mean for my professional life, but as the months have passed and the preparation for this baby is mostly in the rearview mirror, I’m at peace. Stress has turned into profound joy and excitement.
Having a baby is chaotic. The crying, the feeding, the cleaning, the lack of sleep, all of it. I’m prepared for it even though I’ve never experienced it before. I have spoken to my colleague Max Olson quite a bit about being a new father in this profession, and watching him master it has been a great joy to me. I’m not even sure I’ve shared that with him. When I see his family and the happiness Theo has brought to his world — along with the incredible work he has produced in the recent months — it gives me that warm feeling inside that I’m going to get the same blessing.
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I used to love college football more than anything. But now I love my family more than anything, and that family will be growing by one once we have college football games on in the background playing on the TVs I was unable to mount myself.
There is this vision that I can’t shake. I can’t wait to have my little baby girl lying next to me on a Saturday morning during “College GameDay.” I can’t wait to hear her little giggles as teams run out of the tunnel. And I can’t wait to hold her in my arms during those crucial, fourth-quarter drives that will go a long way toward determining which teams make the College Football Playoff. And, more than anything, I can’t wait to write stories about college football while she’s (hopefully) sleeping in a crib next to me. Maybe we’ll even hear her sweet little cry in the background of a podcast when I’m yelling at Andy Staples or Bill Landis about a take that makes everyone think I’m crazy.
College football season is without question the best season of the year. The temperatures drop, the stadiums fill, the passion is tangible, and the commentary that fills my home makes everything feel right.
My home has always been filled with college football, even back to when I was a bachelor living by myself with a Domino’s pizza sitting in front of me. And if I were to write this column two years ago, maybe I’d write about that exciting feeling of hitting the road for a big away game, the meals the night before those games and the walk into the stadium knowing that what I write about that game is going to matter to a lot of people. Those used to be the happiest moments of my life.
But that life is different now.
My family is my world. And I cannot express enough how amazing it’s going to be to share my favorite season with my future wife and my baby girl for the first time.
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Britt’s sundial of a tummy is a constant reminder of how damn lucky I am. And, more important, it’s a magnificent reminder of how much more complete I am as a man now that college football isn’t the most important thing to me anymore. What could be more beautiful than that?
(Photos courtesy of Ari Wasserman)
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