On a sun-splashed Saturday morning in September 2005, I woke up early in my Flint Hall dorm room and prepared to become a Syracuse fan.

Guys from my floor packed into my room at the end of the hall. We drank shots of rum. Paint was scrawled across chests. One guy donned a cape. Then my new best friends and I rolled down the Mount Olympus steps and into the Carrier Dome to watch the Orange play West Virginia. I knew, vaguely, that the old head football coach was gone. I wondered if Diamond Ferri was still here. Yeah, I didn’t know much about the team. But little of that mattered as we piled into the student section.

A lean man with white hair came out of the tunnel before the game started. He pumped his fist at us. The crowd roared. Greg Robinson, I remember thinking, this guy might be alright.

That’s my first Syracuse sports memory. I cherish it. I don’t know why. It’s a weird memory, of course, considering three years later I would write that nice, white-haired man was incompetent, a failure and someone who needed to be fired – immediately.

But it’s a memory. That’s all I can offer. That’s all anyone, when talking about sports, really can offer.

This column is supposed to be a retrospective of the past four years in Syracuse athletics. If you’re reading this in print, you’re probably a senior like me. You’re probably graduating this weekend. So I’m supposed to write to you, Class of 2009, this column as an 800-word bow to wrap up your four years.

Well, I can’t do that. Sports aren’t that easy to understand. No one figure embodies these past four years. No one fits. Greg Robinson? Too pessimistic. Jonny Flynn? Too optimistic. Donte Green? Too fleeting. Jim Boeheim? Too enduring.

So hopefully you have some stories to tell. To my mind, that’s what makes these games special.

Maybe you don’t think that way. Maybe you subscribe to the Lester Freamon prom date theory: If you’re going to the dance, you need to get something out of it. For you, maybe sports are about supremacy. Championships. Parades. Bragging rights.

If that’s the case, I don’t know what to tell you. The lacrosse team won a title, its 10th. But football sucked, and men’s basketball only won two NCAA Tournament games. So if you fixated on winning and losing, well, sorry to hear.

I’ve got a bunch of memories. And that’s enough for me.

I remember standing with my arms outstretched, holding up three fingers to salute Gerry McNamara. I remember how the entire town of Scranton jammed into buses to come see Gerry’s last game.

I remember watching Mike Leveille strap Syracuse lacrosse onto his back at last year’s national semifinal in Foxborough, Mass. I remember standing in the Gillette Stadium press box, waiting for someone, anyone, to end that double-overtime thriller. I remember the joy on Leveille’s face as he walked into the tunnel, having finally scored to end the game.

I remember the hollow eyes of Syracuse football players after losses. I remember The Pistol, that silly offensive formation that garnered such derision from fans. I remember that harried look that plagued Greg Robinson. I remember the hunger of Curtis Brinkley, the way he once leapt through an open hole at the goal line.

I remember Donte Greene wearing a ‘Don’te Leave,’ T-shirt – and then leaving. I remember asking Jonny Flynn about the NBA at Basketball Media Day this year. ‘We all have the same goal,’ he told me. ‘We’re trying to make some money playing this game.’ I remember thinking then that he probably wouldn’t stick around much longer, either. I remember thinking that was probably for the best.

I remember these things, and so much more. And I haven’t been a Syracuse fan for years. Those halcyon days of freshman year are long gone. I haven’t sat in the student section for a basketball or football game since 2006. When Syracuse made the NCAA Tournament this year, the campus flooded Marshall Street in shades of Orange. I wore a Clippers jersey. But I still have memories. Mine are just different.

My friends ask me who I root for when I cover games. ‘The story,’ I always answer. I root for a good story.

Of course, they laugh at me. But they’re rooting for stories, too. They just don’t know it yet. Stories, memories, it’s all the same.

I hope you have your own.

Andy McCullough was the enterprise editor, managing editor and feature editor of The Daily Orange, where his columns will no longer appear. He covered football and men’s lacrosse. You can reach him at ramccullo@gmail.com

Published on May 13, 2009 at 12:00 pm