So, this is pretty sad. I’ll be honest and say that. I’m a little depressed to be staring at my final day working at Nebraska. I don’t really know what to expect tomorrow, but I’m thinking that it’s going to be kinda tough for me.

I’ve made a lot of great friends over the years here. And with some of the unexpected emails, it reinforces that even if it’s not an everyday friendship, there are a lot of people around the periphery who actually do care about other people here. I don’t know that I understood how much until I started getting replies from people who found out I was leaving. It makes me feel appreciated, but at the same time, sad for having to leave such good people.

I cleaned out my desk and basically have everything already out of my office. It’s like the first time I moved out of my house and went off to college. The feeling of knowing the room’s there and I can still use it, but already doesn’t feel like my own any more, which makes me want to get it over with quicker.

But soon enough it won’t be my space. Soon someone else will be using that desk and those cabinets and someone else will be working with my team. I guess it won’t be my team any more. And that’s the suckiest part of leaving.

I’ve always loved working with the players. We have to call them student-athletes because if we don’t then the media won’t ever do it either (even though they don’t always anyway). But they’re not players to me — they’re my guys. I’ve had some great ones to work with over the years. And all truth being told, I’ve shed a tear or two on more than one Senior Night. Call me a sackless wonder, that’s fine. But when you’re around the guys with such a small team who work so hard every day and you get to know their parents sometimes, see them actually grow up (and not to mention I’m getting older and becoming more, um, mature) and are around when they’re injured and no one else besides the trainer and strength coach see what they’re going through, well, with all that it’s easy to get a little attached.

I said goodbye to my guys today with an email since most of them are not around. The few I saw yesterday, well, that wasn’t easy. “No more, Trickie?” the big Puerto Rican said. “How could you do that without asking me first?” said the crazy German. Every team is a unique mix and makes for some of the strongest memories of my time here. Like last year’s bus ride back from Kansas when the German was trying to teach the Puerto Rican to speak French, all while also talking on the phone in English. No, seriously, that was the conversation. And years ago when the program’s all-time 3-point leader asked me, with all sincerity, “How many dead people do you think are in that cemetery?” “Well, probably all,” was my response. Those kind of things are also what I’ll miss.

Most of all, though, I’ll miss the BSing and the jabs and give-and-take within the office. And the incredible amount of work we’ve performed together over the years. I can honestly say I believe I’ve worked with the best group of people anyone could ever ask for. I thought we made one hell of a team. It was the best collection of talents — each different, but all complimentary — in a college athletics media relations office anywhere in the nation. Hands down. And we were together for so long that it seemed second nature to know how to help the other without even being asked.

If I was playing poker, this office, this group of full-timers is a made hand. It’s one that’d rake the pot every time. And the kind of hand you’re glad you got to show at least once. So I’ll always have that.