I loved FJM but was kind of a latecomer to it (found out when it was revealed Mose Schrute and Ken Tremendous were the same people). Anyway, when they suddenly didn’t post anything for a week I was just waiting for a “goodbye” post to pop up. It finally did, but it’s still annoying.

It was brilliant writing, and helped fight the lack of accountability that some sportswriters think they have for whatever reason. It also fought hard to convince people that just like there are good papers and terrible papers, there are good blogs and terrible blogs. That and not all bloggers are writing in their underwear from their parents’ basement (I am writing this fully dressed from a small office in my little rental house in Pullman…so deal with that, Rick Reilly).

I wish they’d just say “hey we’re going to keep doing it but cut back” or find a way to keep it going instead of quitting like this. But that’s their call. At least they haven’t copped out on us by writing once every six months like Maddox now does.

Anyway, this bummed me out because I’ve always been afraid of burning out someday in the future from balancing the blog and whatever responsibilites I have (which is tough, trust me). And when writers who are Harvard grads and married to Regis Philbin’s daughter (seriously, Michael Schur is) are giving up it makes me wonder what hope us little guys have. But then when I was googling Brandon Scheller to make sure he was, in fact, a sportswriter for the Evergreen, I saw a quote from his final article:

"If you really love sports, then stop writing about them," [an older sportswriter] said. "When you start covering it to close, it’s just a job. You know things you wish you didn’t. And it’s not all that fun anymore."

Why do I feel better after reading this? Because since this isn’t my job, I can still do what I want, which is write about the Cougs from a fan’s perspective. What the writer in this quote was referring to (I assume) is that when sportswriting is a job, and you have to cover whatever team your employer tells you to, and you have to make deadlines and stuff, it sucks the fun out of it.

So I feel better about my decision to become a pharmacist and not a sportswriter, because my real job distances me from my fake job (this) and keeps it all in perspective. So I don’t see myself stopping from writing about the Cougs in any capacity anytime soon. Plus my grades have great so far this year so the higher-ups at the college pharmacy can’t really say it’s hurting my school performance.

I swore by FJM. It litterally changed me as a sports fan and gave me a great laugh.

I’d been reading for about three years. This was heart breaking.