It’s been fun.

This newspaper issue marks my last as a sports editor for The Oberlin Review. This is not a retirement nor a resignation, but rather my decision to take an “extended leave of absence” from campus.  Next semester, I am going abroad to London. While I am not excited about the high prices and supposedly bland food, I am looking forward to becoming the token Asian tourist, with my fanny pack and camera, seeing all the sights Europe has to offer.

But travel plans aside, I want to dwell on the sports section for a bit.

This column is not a “spotlight on Mike Mullaley.” 99.9 percent of this campus probably has no idea that I am sports editor here. I’m okay with that. I am not in this position for the fame, or lack thereof. But my focus is on the section’s readership.

When I walked into the dirty Review office as a naïve second-semester first-year, living right above in Burton 114 with my roommate from Vermont, I was full of excitement to take a position on a college newspaper. At last, I thought, all of my hard work in life has finally paid off! Just joking. No, but seriously…

At first I did not care how many people read the section. I was writing in a paper that got distributed throughout the entire campus. At least half the campus would read my beats and feature stories, I thought. Boy, was I wrong. Slowly, as I finally got settled in on campus, I realized that I would be lucky to get a handful of people to read the section. Even athletes themselves turned their heads and the only readers I got would be from the team I wrote about or friends giving me sympathy compliments. Even then, my buddies would forget to read, or they’d skip over my articles (except Bean).

Were all the hours I put in for nothing besides my personal enjoyment?

After two semesters in charge, I knew things had to change. Last semester in the spring I tried hard to change things around. An editorial was added, more feature stories were written and even layout was adjusted. Still, I sensed nothing had changed. I began to assume that  the section’s lack of readership was due to the normal disregard for Oberlin athletics, combined with a generally mundane section.

Then it dawned on me. Would a Con student really care if Luke Hoffman scored his eighth goal in nine games this season? Is it significant that a first-year runner claimed the conference championship and qualified for nationals? Is it the same reason why my interest is not perked when a student earns an academic scholarship or some violin award. Is it the fact that we are all on our individual paths here at school and that we do not have enough time to invest in other aspects on campus?

I may not be the most artistic or cultured person, but I try to make it to plays and concerts, and I hope to visit the Allen Memorial Art Museum for the first time before I go abroad. I am willing to try new things. This feeling diverges from the sports section and just toward sports in general; would it really hurt you to check out a game or two every once in a while? The athletic department is working head over heels to try and grab the campus’ attention with catchy programs and student-athlete integration projects to get students involved with sports. But is this really working?  Maybe there is an inherent disregard for sports that will take time to break.

Well, what better way to try new things than at college? If you are willing to try sex, drugs and alcohol, why not get high off the euphoria of a competitive sporting event? That is probably the corniest line I have ever written, but it is true.

When I look back over my four semesters as the sports editor, I would like to know if I made a difference in the general rise of athletic interest here. Odds are, I probably didn’t. But if my column grabbed your attention just once, if In the Locker Room made you laugh just once or if you admired the picture of how high senior Deysi Villarreal could jump, just for one moment, then maybe I did have some indirect effect. Maybe the late hours until three in the morning making up corny photo captions and headlines were not all in vain.

Maybe the fact that you read all the way to here on the last column of the year — potentially my last column in college — is reason to believe that I made you think about Oberlin athletics just once. If that’s the case, then I can’t argue with that. If you gave sports here at least a chance and didn’t like it, I can’t ask any more from you.

A willingness to try reading, watching or listening to sports is all I could ask. Your time is appreciated. Happy Holidays.