It’s been quite a four years, hasn’t it?
A football national championship, a new athletic director, a highly touted quarterback’s controversial departure, a new Mike the Tiger and a new basketball coach.
And that was only the first year.
Back then, I wasn’t yet a sports writer. I was working for this paper behind the scenes, so to speak, in what we term “backshop,” which is where the paper is designed. I was a page designer and copy editor — one of the people that put this paper together five nights a week until midnight or even later sometimes.
After one year I moved out of backshop into the newsroom as a sports writer covering volleyball, gymnastics, baseball and football for two years before finally becoming sports columnist in fall 2010.
As a sports writer and columnist, I got to witness some amazing sporting events in person from the perspective of a reporter.
From Chad Jones’ punt return against Mississippi State to a volleyball Southeastern Conference Championship to a baseball national championship, I was there to witness some of the biggest victories in various LSU sports.
I even got to cover a few gymnastics individual national champions — Ashleigh Clare-Kearney and Susan Jackson  — two of my favorite LSU athletes of all-time.
It’s funny how few people know those two won national championships. The smaller sports around this University don’t get as much love as they should. But that’s a topic for another day (whoops, no more of those).
At times it was hard to draw a fine line between sports fan and sports journalist. If you don’t believe me, try to sit in a press box watching a baseball team you grew up in awe of in the ’90s win a national championship while trying to remain as objective as possible.
Sometimes, I crossed the line.
But I did my best to stay on the objective side.
LSU fans, I’ve come to find out the hard way, are some of the most passionate in the nation. So I took a lot of heat when I wrote things that weren’t what people wanted to hear. I even got into a few arguments with close friends over articles and columns I wrote. But that’s my job.
As Winston Churchill once said, “You’ve got enemies? Good. That means you stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
Because of this job, I’ve talked to and met people I would have never dreamed of in 100 lifetimes.
To all those people who gave me an interview and who helped me get an interview, thank you.
To all the coaches that put up with my questions, texts and calls, I thank you for the opportunity of a lifetime.
To those of you who read what I’ve written, who laughed at my sarcasm and who hated my opinion, I thank you for taking the time to read what I had to say. I hope what I wrote entertained, informed and maybe even made you think a little bit.
To those who worked with me, edited my stories and pushed me to be the best writer I could be, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. You put up with me, my complaining and my incessant worrying. There wasn’t a single semester where I didn’t think about giving up on this job. But every semester, y’all pulled me back in. And I can’t thank you enough.
I don’t know what life without this paper would have been like because it’s the only thing I’ve known since I stepped foot on this campus. In fact, working for a newspaper is all I’ve known for the past six years of my life, since my junior year of high school.
One thing is for sure — I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Cheers.
Andy Schwehm is graduating. His Twitter will remain even when he graduates @TDR_ASchwehm.