DP Seniors offer some thoughts

"Someday you'll look back on this and it will all seem funny." -- Bruce Springsteen I taped this song lyric to my desk in the summer of 1992 when I spent a few long solitary nights at The Summer Pennsylvanian with only the air conditioning and the radio to keep me sane. Sometime that summer a former sports editor who had just graduated stopped by and wrote, "Someday you'll look back on this and it will be the best time of your life." I thought he was deranged. I was positive that being sports editor of The Summer Pennsylvanian would be the only editorial position I would ever hold. At that time I would have even gladly paid to relinquish it. But that summer turned out to only be the beginning. Nearly two years and a full term as sports editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian later, I have to admit that we're both right. As editor, sports writer and fan of Quaker sports, I'll look back on some of my experiences as funny. Some of it I'll recall with a shudder and some of it with a profound "What was I thinking?" But as I graduate, I now have to admit I'll cherish the memories and I wouldn't have given up the experience for anything. As a member of the DP staff I've done a lot of things I never would have expected and won't soon forget. I slept outside on a freezing fall evening in a line to get basketball season tickets. I drove through one of the worst snowstorms to get to Providence, R.I., for a hoops game. I spent five days at the NCAA basketball tournament. I competed (not what most would call running) in the Penn Relays. I've been on countless road trips and driven hours out of my way to continue the DP Sports tradition of visiting what could loosely be called a chicken restaurant. Looking back on my junior and senior years, it's almost scary to realize how much of my life revolved around Penn sports. Time was defined by weekend games. My mental calendar of the school year didn't go by semesters. It started with the Dartmouth football game and ended with the NCAA basketball tournament. The months during football and basketball season didn't have dates. Instead it was the Cornell-Columbia weekend or the Harvard trip. I was involved in following the Quakers in a way I've never followed anything before. While on vacation, I scoured out-of-town newspapers for scores. I made frequent calls to the Penn Phone and the Ivy League Hotline. (Yes, that does exist.) My following of the Quakers was a bit fanatical, but not as remarkable as my life as sports editor. I knew the job would be a crash course in Journalism 101, but I didn't fully expect the upper level courses in Managing People, Computer Systems and Design. For someone who had never been a fan of group projects, being an editor was like being in an interminable group project with nightly deadlines. I had to work with a fellow sports editor, interact with a handful of other editors and coordinate a 35-member staff. For someone whose style had often been to put things off, I realized that procrastination could mean large blank pages. I soon learned that being sports editor was more than a job. It was an intense learning experience. The experience was intensified because it shaped my lifestyle. Seven-Eleven slurpees and Burger King chicken sandwiches became the primary elements of my diet. Sleep was never taken for granted. Parts of the job that were routine might seem a bit unusual: Staying awake so the score of the Vancouver–San Jose hockey game would be included in the next day's paper seemed worthwhile at the time. Double overtimes and extra innings cut into my sleep, but that was just part of the package. Working through the night on supplements left me feeling exhausted, but accomplished. It's amazing to look back and see how far I have come. As a kid I used to shy away from strangers. I was the silent, uncommunicative type that only felt comfortable interacting with familiar people. Even picking up the phone to order a pizza was not an easy task for me. As an editor I had to order a lot more important things than pizza. As a reporter, I didn't just have to talk to strangers, I had to interview them. That not only meant asking questions but also looking for real answers. But somehow both situations became easy for me. I've developed the confidence so talking to strangers is now as routine as it should be. Unfamiliar faces and situations are now a challenge. My writing developed to the point where I could edit and make suggestions to other writers. I didn't realize how far I'd come until I saw someone who was just starting out. In seeing newcomers I realized how complicated the familiar moves had once seemed. I began to take pride in the fact that not only did it now come easy to me, but I also had the confidence in my abilities to help condition others. As I graduate it's natural to reflect on what I'll take away from my DP experience. I'll have a multitude of minutiae on Ivy League athletics which I will most likely soon forget. I'll have acquired skills some of which I'll put to further use. I'll have fond memories of some wacky experiences. Perhaps most importantly, I'll take away a life lesson that is as important as anything else I've learned at Penn. Through the confidence that others have had in me, I've learned to have confidence in myself and hopefully inspired confidence in others. I have accomplished things that I not only didn't think I'd want to, but I didn't think I could. I may truly look back on my DP experience as the best time of my life. Rachel Cytron is from Mountain Lakes, N.J., and former sports editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian.

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