In a world bereft of sports, many publications have shifted their focus to retrospective stories that tap into the nostalgia, the feeling of the greatest games ever. 

So we turned to our alumni network to help us remember some of the most exciting times in Syracuse athletics history. The prompt: What’s your favorite SU sports memory from your college days? 

Here are some former Daily Orange sports reporters, who’ve gone on to work at publications including ESPN, Sports Illustrated, USA Today and The Athletic, on events from the 1980s to today. 

Kyle Austin, MLive (@kylebaustin) 

A Big East tournament semifinal at Madison Square Garden between rivals Syracuse and Connecticut was exciting enough for a couple of student reporters covering their first conference tournament.

But as Jared Diamond and I took the train to New York from his family’s home in Scarsdale, New York that afternoon in 2009, we had no idea what was awaiting us.

From the top of the Garden, in the auxiliary media seats, we watched a game that people are still talking about more than a decade later.

Syracuse and Connecticut went to six overtimes that night before the Orange finally prevailed. The game was the second-longest in NCAA history.

We watched Eric Devendorf hit what looked like a game-winning regulation shot and jump on the scorers’ table to celebrate, only to have it waved off. We watched Syracuse not hold a lead but yet hang on through five overtime periods before eventually winning in the sixth.

I manned our live blog on the web site, typing out update after update. Jared tried to make some sense of what transpired in front of us for a running gamer. One of our former colleagues, Ethan Ramsey, chimed in with a perfect headline: Six in the City.

The game finally ended at 1:22 a.m. After postgame interviews, we sat down to try to capture the enormity of it all with a series of follow-up stories. We probably didn’t, but we sure learned a lot.

There was no hope of making the last train back home, so we worked through the night in the Madison Square Garden storage area converted into a press room.

After hours of work, Daily Orange alum Pete Thamel, then with The New York Times, stopped by on his way out to say he was glad to see his former newspaper shutting down the building. We were the last ones there.

After dawn sometime, Jared and I trudged downstairs to a Penn Station filling up with incoming morning commuters. We hopped on a train going the other way, back to Scarsdale for some much-needed sleep.

Most reporters hope to cover an instant classic game at one point in their careers. I got to do one on my first season of a major college beat. And 11 years later, it’s still my no-brainer answer when I’m asked to name the best game I ever covered.

Greg Bishop, Sports Illustrated (@GregBishopSI)

The scene: Freshman year, Carrier Dome, Syracuse vs. Virginia Tech. Nov. 14, 1998. I didn’t cover this instant classic. I don’t remember much from the game at all. I went with friends from Sadler Hall, everyone wobbling together across the street to the stadium after spending a few hours consuming more than a few adult beverages.

My future roommate, let’s call him IT Paul, was drunk. The Dome nachos concession stand being closed didn’t help. Another beer or three didn’t help. Water didn’t help. So we left at halftime, carrying IT Paul back to Sadler, blissfully unaware that we were all about to miss one of the signature wins of the Donovan McNabb era. Most of us were about to miss it, anyway. 

IT Paul fell asleep while we decamped to different dorm rooms. IT Paul woke up. IT Paul felt hungry, and IT Paul, a man whose prodigious appetite compared favorably with McNabb’s cannon-like arm strength, went back across the street, intending to eat at the Carrier Dome and watch the end of the game on those small TV monitors that hang throughout the concourse. He saw McNabb lead Syracuse down the field late, saw the offense march more than 80 yards, saw the quarterback toss a desperation heave into the end zone, the ball arching high in the air, hanging up for what felt like an eternity, until it somehow landed in the hands of a tight end named Steve Brominski for the 13-yard, game-winning score. 

Everyone at Sadler leapt up and ran around, exchanging hugs and high-fives. It was delirium. But IT Paul was nowhere to be found. Instead, he had ran onto the field with the rest of the SU fans – those who didn’t have to take their inebriated roommates back to the dorm, anyway. His drunkenness and insatiable hunger had been rewarded. Our kindness in taking him back to the dorm had backfired.  

I happened to interview McNabb before the Super Bowl last January, at a hotel room on Miami Beach that overlooked the Atlantic Ocean. Before we started the interview, I said I had to tell him a story, and I spilled it all: IT Paul, that game, the nap, The Return. McNabb doubled over in laughter, then explained that his own mother had run onto the field. He had turned around and there she was. 

I told IT Paul that McNabb now knew the truth. “Did you tell him the real story or your version?” IT Paul asked.

“Both,” I responded.

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Sam Blum, Dallas Morning News (@SamBlum3)

You might not think the word “sh*t” and the word “shoot” sound all that similar. It’s because they don’t. 

That’s why, when I asked Syracuse women’s basketball player Taylor Ford what it was like to look around at a nearly empty Carrier Dome during games, she said — or so I heard, thought, and still think — “I’m like, ‘Oh sh*t.’”

The story was about Syracuse having the worst attendance of any Power 5 women’s basketball program. The team averaged 649 fans at that point in the 2014-15 season; a drop in the bucket of a 35,000-person venue. 

No one could blame Ford for being like, “Oh sh*t.” I covered every game, and I had that exact same thought seeing the one die-hard cheering in the student section, the pockets of completely empty sections, and the smattering of WAER hopefuls sitting alone while calling the games into their recorders.

For a team as good as that team, it was kinda sh*tty how few people showed up.

The day after the story came out, the women’s basketball SID called me to say that Taylor thought she said “Oh shoot.” Then Sue Edson called. They were insistent that no cuss had been uttered. 

I lost my mind that day. I re-listened to my audio over and over. Our entire staff did. I played it for everyone to hear, and every time I heard “sh*t.” 

I remembered her saying the word “sh*t.” I remembered hearing it live, right there in front of me, and I remember thinking, “Sh*t, that’s going to be my lead quote.”

The editors and I went back-and-forth for hours over this one word. Ultimately, out of the interest in preserving a good relationship with the athletic department, a correction was added and the quote was changed.

I was distraught. It ruined my day. Not because I felt I was wrong. But because we had to “correct” something that, to me, was factual. 

To this day, I can still hear Taylor Ford saying “sh*t” in my head.

Rich Cimini, ESPN (@RichCimini)

I was lucky enough to be at the Carrier Dome on Sept. 29, 1984, the day Syracuse shocked top-ranked Nebraska, 17-9. To appreciate the enormity of the moment, I have to take you back a year. I covered the 1983 game in Lincoln for The Daily Orange (best road trip ever!), but the game wasn’t a fair fight — 63-7. Syracuse was only a mediocre football program in those days, and there was every reason to believe the rematch also would be lopsided.

Aside from Mike Siano’s leaping touchdown catch, my memories of the game have faded over time. But I do recall the postgame locker room, with so many players saying they were inspired by coach Dick MacPherson’s speech to the team the night before. Many years later, I got more detail on that speech. I became friends with Doug Marrone, who went from SU player to NFL head coach. He told me Coach Mac had instructed every player to take a blue essay booklet (remember those?) and list the reasons why Syracuse was going to win.

Doug told me he went back to his hotel room and started writing. And writing. He wrote so much, and was so passionate about what he put down on paper, that he was in tears by the time he was finished. “I knew we were going to win,” he said. Doug told me this story over dinner at a restaurant in New Orleans, where he was coaching with the Saints at the time, and he was getting emotional as he recounted the events. It gave me goosebumps.

Let’s fast forward to 2009. Coach Mac was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, and the school honored him with a cocktail party in New York. He was 79, still gregarious, but it was apparent to people that his memory wasn’t sharp. He was forgetful. Yeah, getting old sucks. In the middle of the event, he took a microphone and addressed the gathering. To be honest, I wondered how he’d handle the moment. How much of the past would he remember? 

Like the Cornhuskers, I underestimated Mac. He was fantastic. When he got around to talking about the Nebraska upset, he pointed to former players in the crowd and mentioned their role on specific plays from the game. He called out his former quarterback, Todd Norley, who had suffered a major knee injury in the game. Mac said Norley “gave a knee,” and he thanked him for his courage. I’ll never forget it.

Once again, goosebumps.

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Jared Diamond, Wall Street Journal (@jareddiamond)

When I think about the night — or, more accurately, the morning — Kyle Austin and closed down Madison Square Garden, one little moment stands out.

It came halfway through the sixth and final overtime, mere minutes after the Syracuse took the lead over UConn for the first time in one of the greatest basketball games ever staged. With the Orange ahead by five, Andy Rautins managed to penetrate the defense and dish to a wide-open Paul Harris along the baseline. Harris had an uncontested path to the goal for an emphatic dunk. He bent his knees, jumped, raised his right arm for a one-handed slam — and got promptly blocked by the rim. He literally couldn’t make his body leap high enough to reach the hoop.

Nobody could’ve blamed him at that point. He played 56 minutes by the time the final buzzer finally sounded, four hours or so after the referee tossed the ball up for the opening tip. And that didn’t even compare to the real MVP of that Syracuse team: Jonny Flynn, who would deliver one of the most memorable extended performances I’ve ever seen in any sport, one that almost nobody remembers.

Flynn is listed a 6-feet tall, and that’s probably generous. He’s mostly known for being selected sixth overall in the 2009 draft by the Minnesota Timberwolves exactly one pick after they took another point guard, Ricky Rubio, and exactly one pick before Stephen Curry. It seemed like a bizarre strategy at the time. It wound up going exactly as everyone expected.

But Flynn was only in that position at all because of what he did for Syracuse that March. Flynn played 67 minutes in the ‘Six in the City’ game. Sixty-seven minutes. Later that day, he played all 45 minutes in a victory over West Virginia in the Big East tournament semifinal. Yes, Syracuse went to overtime again in its very next game, a piece of trivia that has largely gone forgotten. By the time Syracuse fell apart in the second half of the championship game against Louisville, it was clear that Flynn’s legs were about to fall off. Syracuse wound up losing to Oklahoma in the Sweet 16 that year. Flynn played 39 minutes. At one point, he tried to take a charge from Blake Griffin, who was breaking down the court with a full head of steam. The collision knocked Flynn back, the way I envision it more than a decade later, 20 feet. He got back up.

When I think about covering Syracuse sports, that’s what I remember.

Sam Fortier, The Washington Post (@Sam4TR)

The first time I heard “Dreams and Nightmares” by Meek Mill was in The Royal, a club squeezed between an apartment building and a cafe in lower Manhattan. It was summer 2015, and I was there to cover the draft party of Syracuse forward Chris McCullough for The Daily Orange.

The place was packed. Chris’ family came down from the Bronx, and when the commissioner called his name, they exploded. Some hugged and wept. Others raced outside to scream at the sky. I can still see his aunt Shuron, unable to contain her joy, diving onto a leather couch and knocking McCulloughs over like bowling pins.

When Chris got there, just after 1 a.m., the DJ blasted “Dreams and Nightmares.” Chris floated into the room, into the arms of his family. This was one of the best nights of their lives. Meek Mill acknowledged the moment while promising the trials ahead: “See my dreams unfold, nightmares come true / It was time to marry the game and I said, ‘Yeah, I do.’”

By some miracle, I spent the rest of the night riding around the city with Chris and his entourage in a shiny black Escalade paid for by the Brooklyn Nets. We went to a club where the bouncer asked for my ID. When I stammered out “I’m 19,” one of Chris’ old coaches said, “He’s cool.”

I felt dizzy. This was a peak behind the curtain for a kid from rural New Hampshire. I’d never been in places like these; I didn’t know anyone famous or that well-off. Then there was a rooftop, ice buckets, a kaleidoscope of twinkling city lights.   

Five years later, what I remember most isn’t the car or the club. It isn’t the people or the city. It’s how Chris walked into The Royal, on top and chasing something. He never became the NBA star he dreamed of being, playing 59 games before heading overseas, but that night left me with a moment I’ll never forget — and a song that always takes me there.

I still listen to “Dreams and Nightmares.” I probably always will. It’s forever unresolved, who you could be and who you end up being. Sometimes, I wonder if Chris listens to it too. If he does, I hope he hears what I do. I hope he sees what it looks like when dreams unfold.

Matthew Gutierrez, The Athletic (@MatthewGut21)

I sat courtside for Syracuse’s 2018 win over Michigan State, a 55-53 triumph that punctuated the bubble team’s surprising Sweet 16 run. The locker room in Detroit was rocking. The players were beaming. But my most vivid Syracuse sports experience was watching runner Justyn Knight storm from behind in the final third of the 10-kilometer NCAA D1 cross country championship in 2017. On that November morning, he taught onlookers, me included, that in each of us lies immense power to reprogram our mind and control our fate. 

KJ Edelman and I wrote afterward how Knight, the most decorated runner in Syracuse history, persevered through a stomach cramp to claim the top prize. Halfway through the race, he was hovering around sixth place. In the final 300 meters, he told us later, as the crowd grew louder, he pounced toward the finish line. He passed Northern Arizona’s Matthew Baxter before looking up to the sky and brushing his hands across his chest to reveal the name of the team he defined. Boom. He was a national champion. 

Afterward, Knight embraced a few teammates, a mentor in former Olympian Herman Frazier, as well as his mother. “I love you, mom,” he said as they hugged. “When I got to the straightaway (with 300 meters left),” Knight said later, “I just had an out-of-body experience and said, ‘You know, Justyn, you’re going to look back at this and if you don’t go right now, you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life.’”

I haven’t forgotten how Knight, a future Olympian, had coached up himself, refusing to give up. Something remarkable happened. What I found most impressive about Knight was the self-awareness he showed and the well of trust he had in his abilities. In those final moments, he made up his mind that he would be a winner. For me, the lasting scene from that day always will be Knight crossing the finish line, defining true greatness.

Daily Orange File Photo

Billy Heyen (@BillyHeyen) 

At halftime of Syracuse football’s 2017 home game against No. 2 Clemson, there was one person and one person only testing the pressurized Gate E doorway in the Carrier Dome: me. 

I’d taken over as The D.O.’s assistant sports digital editor a couple weeks earlier, and that meant I had duties to fulfill as soon as the game clock hit zero. As I walked to the Dome that day, the plan was to leave at halftime. It was simply an opportunity to see one of the country’s best teams up close. 

A three-point halftime edge for the Orange made me reconsider the strategy a bit, but under no circumstances could I stay until the game’s conclusion, so out of the Dome I walked. Being a Friday night, the SU campus should’ve been hopping. It wasn’t, though.

Something special was brewing as I made my way down the University Avenue hill, and everyone else was staying where they were to watch the final half hour of football. I repeated the words “There’s no way, right?” on the phone with my parents, set up a laptop in my apartment and prepared for Clemson to steamroll SU in the second half. 

Obviously, that’s not what happened. Eric Dungey did his thing, and the field that I had been sitting probably 50 feet from a couple hours earlier was covered with fellow students as I sat on my couch, taking it all in on a television screen. The D.O.’s staff communicated constantly over Slack for the next few hours, leading to a number of coverage approaches that we felt proud of. 

For me, it was the first big game coverage I’d been even a small part of for The D.O. It was the first night of many where I stayed up late to work and didn’t mind, too. But I can say this for certain: Hopefully it’s the last time I ever leave a monumental upset early.

Andrew L. John, Palm Springs Desert Sun (@Andrew_L_John) 

Jonny Flynn and Wesley Johnson were a match made in alley-oop heaven. During scrimmages inside the Carmelo K. Anthony Center at Syracuse University, nearly everyone in the building would stop whatever they were doing to watch. They’d shuffle around the edges of the court, patiently waiting to see something that would routinely leave them in awe. 

That usually didn’t take long.  

Flynn, a 6-foot point guard, was a master at weaving through a defense with his skillful ball handling and was perhaps even better at floating the ball up near the rim to a teammate. 

Few players in the country were better at catching the ball high above the basket and finishing with a thunderous dunk than Johnson, a 6-foot-7 forward who once jumped over 6-foot-4 teammate Brandon Triche. 

Flynn and Johnson were so good during that one year they shared at SU that Flynn was eventually selected with the No. 6 selection in the 2009 NBA Draft. Johnson was selected fourth overall a year later.

But they never played together in an actual college basketball game at SU, making them perhaps the greatest ‘what-if’ story in the lengthy history of one of the most storied college basketball programs in the country.

Johnson transferred to SU from Iowa State and, per NCAA transfer rules, was not eligible for the 2008-09 season. But he was able to practice with the Orange and those scrimmages, with Flynn, 2010 New York Knicks selection Andy Rautins, Eric Devendorf, Paul Harris, Arinze Onuaku, Scoop Jardine, Rick Jackson and Kris Joseph were legendary.  

Flynn led SU to a 28-10 record and willed the Orange to a six-overtime Big East Tournament semifinal win over Connecticut, before a loss to Blake Griffin’s Oklahoma squad in an NCAA regional semifinal. Chatter around the program was that Johnson, had he been eligible, would have elevated the Orange to a national title. 

That belief was enhanced when Johnson led the Orange in Flynn’s absence in 2009-10. He dropped 25 points in an upset win over fourth-ranked North Carolina at Madison Square Garden and won Big East Player of the Year in leading Syracuse to the Sweet Sixteen.

“When Jonny left, he was seriously contemplating the idea of coming back,” former Syracuse assistant coach Rob Murphy told me at the 2010 NBA Draft. “The idea of playing with Wes was weighing on his mind because of just how good they could have been together.” 

Like Flynn, Johnson left school with eligibility remaining and by some twist of fate the two were reunited in the NBA when both were selected by the Minnesota Timberwolves. But the chemistry was never as strong as it was for those few months inside the Melo Center. The fleeting magic was gone. 

Flynn lasted just three seasons in the NBA. Johnson never averaged more than 10 points per game.

But for one short stretch, those who were left with their jaws hanging as Flynn led the break and Johnson finished with both hands clenched to the rim is a memory that they’ll likely never forget. I’m certain I won’t. 

Tomer Langer (@tomer_langer)

Covering the men’s basketball team during its Sweet 16 run in 2018 was the highlight of my time writing for The Daily Orange. While all the games themselves were tight (the three tournament wins and eventual loss to Duke where all within five points), and the road trips a bit crazier than I would have ever imagined (New York to Dayton for First Four, Dayton to Detroit for first round, Detroit to Syracuse for three days of classes and then Syracuse to Omaha and back for the Sweet 16), my favorite moment came in the Syracuse locker room the day before a game. 

A sportswriter’s main goal is to try and humanize the athletes they cover. Syracuse’s media session on Thursday, March 15th — one day after beating Arizona State in the First Four game — happened as a game between No. 11 Loyola Chicago and No. 6 Miami was coming down to the end. I was interviewing point guard Frank Howard and we both paused, without saying anything, to watch the last few seconds. And the Ramblers’ Donte Ingram drained a game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer, the locker room exploded. Yells, shocked faces, players jumping on one-another in disbelief.  

It stood out because Syracuse players and coaches reacted like any of us would. The team was in the middle of the very tournament that garners these kinds of reactions, was roughly 24 hours out from another game and was days away from creating its own stunning moment by knocking off No. 3 Michigan State to reach the Sweet 16. But in that moment they were just like me and you, fans of the game getting lost in the madness of it all.

I thought about that moment again after this year’s NCAA Tournament had to be canceled due to COVID-19. It’s one of the few sports events that brings nearly all of us together. The die-hard fans, the people who don’t follow sports but are in their office’s bracket pool, even the players and coaches themselves are all moved by the NCAA Tournament’s magical moments. Getting to see that first hand, in the moment, was special.

Matt Liberman, ESPN (@Matt_Liberman)
Before Eric Dungey could answer the first question following Syracuse’s 34-18 win over West Virginia in the Camping World Bowl, he cried. As each tear streamed down his face, so did the memories of three years of failure.

For three seasons the Orange showed promise on the national stage, but injuries ended Dungey’s season and crippled SU’s chances of winning. But on that December 28, 2018, Syracuse secured its 10th win, its best mark in nearly two decades, with Dungey named the game MVP. 

As the media watched the school’s all-time leading passer sob, thinking about all he’s fought through to be on that podium, I couldn’t help but reminisce about the game that made that night’s MVP possible. 

Two months prior to SU’s first bowl win since 2013, Dungey was benched for the first time in his career. Following a 4-0 start to open the season, SU suffered back-to-back defeats against Clemson and Pittsburgh, and was in danger of dropping a third-straight against North Carolina, before Syracuse head coach Dino Babers substituted Tommy DeVito in for the struggling Dungey. DeVito led Syracuse to a come-from-behind overtime victory, and many called for him to remain the permanent starter. 

Babers didn’t name a starting quarterback the following week, instead leaving it to a battle in practice. Only the coaches knew who would start against No. 22 NC State until Dungey took the first snap. Now, with his job in question after one of the worst games of his career, the senior QB produced the best game of his career. 

His four TDs ignited a raucous Dome crowd and 443 yards of offense vaulted him into first place in program history in total offense, passing Donovan McNabb. He rifled passes downfield and danced into the end zone with passion unmatched by any I had seen in a Syracuse jersey. 

Following his bowl-clinching performance, I wrote that Dungey’s entire career led to that game. The injuries, the losses and the questions about if he should be “the guy,” culminated in one of the best games by a Syracuse QB ever, and it came in the most important game of his life. As I watched Dungey cry at the podium in Orlando two months later, I could only think back to his performance against NC State, the one that immortalized him in Orange. 

Max Freund | Staff Photographer

Mark Medina, USA Today (@MarkG_Medina) 

The tears streamed down Dan Hardy’s face. He was just asked a question that fully explained why this moment felt so painful.

The Syracuse men’s lacrosse team just lost to Massachusetts in a game that had bigger implications than just the Orange’s regular-season record. SU would miss the NCAA tournament for the first time in 25 years. 

“You grew up here and had family members play for Syracuse lacrosse, so you know the tradition,” a reporter said. “Have you ever had any idea this could happen?” 

Hardy processed the question for a few seconds. “No,” Hardy said, sobbing, before walking away. 

Syracuse Athletics considered the demise of its men’s lacrosse program as one of its lowest moments. During my time at The Daily Orange (2004-08), however, it was my most memorable one. It also became part of what defined my time writing there. I mostly covered previously accomplished teams that experienced its worst stretch in its program’s history. I am grateful I did. 

During my junior season, I covered the SU football team during the second season of the disastrous Greg Robinson era. I covered the Syracuse men’s basketball team when it missed the NCAA tournament. And then I covered the SU men’s lacrosse team when it experienced the same thing. 

Sure, I also chronicled the Syracuse men’s lacrosse team’s bounce-back season when it won its 10th national championship a year after (2008) and when it made its 23rd Final Four appearance a year beforehand (2006). But nothing taught me more about sports writing than covering a former dynasty experiencing an identity crisis. And because men’s lacrosse offers more access than its high profile football and basketball programs, that gave me an opportunity to dive into deeper stories.  

I saw the program humbled for believing its prestige and talent alone would yield endless championship runs. I witnessed Hardy struggling with handling the pressure of donning the fabled No. 22, the same number that all three Powell brothers and Gary Gait once wore. I chronicled Pat Perritt’s off-the-field troubles that included getting arrested at a campus bar for disorderly conduct, drinking problems and an undisclosed medical condition. I outlined the challenges Syracuse coach John Desko faced in recruiting against other lacrosse powerhouses.  

Those times called for tough questions. Those times also called for reasoned perspective. By exhibiting those two qualities, those subjects gave me honest answers without feeling I treated them unfairly. Hardy opened up to me about the pressure he felt with wearing No. 22. Perritt expressed remorse to me for his off-the-field behavior. Desko outlined how his program made various adjustments to its recruiting approach, while bemoaning how other teams often sought early commitments at the same level that major college football and basketball programs pursue them.  

That made it rewarding to see how Syracuse’s men’s lacrosse team immediately rectified its demise by winning another national title the following season. After his press conference, I then approached Desko at the lectern and thanked him for his time and cooperation over the past three years. “You did a great job,” Desko said. If so, I have that 2007 season to thank. 

Jeff Passan, ESPN (@JeffPassan)

I remember Donovan McNabb puking. Of all the moments from that day — the scramble, the sack, the throwback, the field storming — nothing stands out quite like the ralph.

Sorry to be so gauche. It’s just that McNabb, long before he was a borderline Hall of Fame quarterback, owned Syracuse University. When he strutted across the Quad, everyone gawked. He was indubitably cool. And now here he was on Nov. 14, 1998, in a game against perhaps SU’s biggest rival, Virginia Tech, throwing up like a freshman at a house party on Livingston — an existence I may or may not have lived at some point that year. Or month. Or week.

Granted, the circumstances were a touch hairier than an overabundance of Natty from a keg. SU trailed, 26-22. McNabb had just unleashed a 39-yard quarterback draw on 4th-and-8. Before a timeout with barely a minute left, McNabb vomited, walked to the sidelines and smiled. It wouldn’t have been so memorable had he not fulfilled his regurgitative destiny. A roughing the passer took Syracuse to the 1. A miserable play call — a bootleg left out of a full-house backfield from the 1 — wound up an 12-yard loss after Corey Moore tilt-a-whirled McNabb to the turf. He recovered to clock the ball with five seconds left.

In hindsight, the next play looks similarly antediluvian: two running backs, two tight ends, one wide receiver split right. The receiver was double-teamed as McNabb rolled right. He kept looking right, looking right, until with one second remaining he snapped his head left and unleashed a pass that crossed both sets of hashes and targeted a 6-foot-5, 260-pound blocking tight end named Stephen Brominski. He caught 10 passes all year. Five were for touchdowns.

On that play, Brominski boxed out the linebacker behind him, hauled in the ball and fell to the ground. McNabb exulted. The Dome shook. Final: Syracuse 28, Virginia Tech 26. As the dogpile commenced in the end zone, thousands of students poured onto the field, myself included.

I covered dozens of amazing moments and great people and consequential games over the next three years, but I can’t shake that last sliver of fandom, of standing amid that pile of humanity, hot and sweaty and alive because the incredible puking quarterback was cool as ever.

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Matt Schneidman, The Athletic (@mattschneidman)

I know this technically isn’t a Syracuse sports memory, but I’m writing this anyway because it’s about the experience of covering college sports as a college student, which is what we all keep with us today. 

As much as we all hated them in the moment, there’s nothing like those endless, torturous car rides to a Syracuse away game we couldn’t afford to fly to. They suck, but they build character. They embody the college journalism experience, and you bet your ass not every student newspaper treks to South Bend, Indiana for a men’s lacrosse game or Chapel Hill, North Carolina for a women’s basketball game. 

They’re just one of the things that separate The Daily Orange from everyone else. 

I’ll never forget, after the first two rounds of the 2016 NCAA Tournament, Jesse Dougherty (buy Buzz Saw), our photographer Margaret Lin and I driving from Philadelphia to St. Louis then back to Syracuse — 13 hours on the return trip — in Jesse’s tiny jeep. We left Missouri around 11 p.m. Central time probably more fun at the time, but the laughs and stories and memories from that car ride, and every other one we all took, will stick with us forever.  

Zach Schonbrun, The Week (@zschonbrun)

“You guys had a football team at Syracuse for long?”

Matt Gelb and I first only looked at each other, barely stifling smiles. The cab driver as we exited Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City was gazing back at us in the rearview mirror, and through his eyes we could recognize that there was genuine interest behind the question, absurd as it seemed. He didn’t mean any offense. 

So I tried to be polite. “You could say that.” 

“You know Donovan McNabb?” Gelb offered. “Marvin Harrison?” 

“Jim Brown?” I said.

He nodded. “What happened?”

Where to start? We would spend a season’s worth of gamers, sidebars and columns attempting to reconcile a once-proud, chest-thumping college football tradition with the pitiful display we were watching unfold weekly in the Dome, and anything approaching an adequate summation would prove as difficult to grasp as an onside kick.

That September day in Iowa, Gelb and I had covered a 35-0 loss to the Hawkeyes that was mainly remarkable in its utter futility. We stared in disbelief, thinking in the cornfields we had found the nadir. Then the whistle blew signaling the start of the second quarter. I remember Syracuse didn’t record a first down until midway through the third. I also remember a sold-out crowd dressed in black-and-gold didn’t stop yelling until the fourth. That didn’t happen back in central New York.

I can vividly recall the shell-shocked look that the coach, Greg Robinson, wore during his brief postgame remarks under the bleachers and the soggy tears of the mortified players in the locker room. Our back page in print the next Monday: “Is this hell? No, it’s Iowa.” 

Mercifully, I would cover finer moments for Syracuse athletics. A men’s lacrosse championship. A Sweet Sixteen run. A Hollywood film premiere.  

But when terms like “favorite” or “memorable” get thrown about my time at The D.O., my mind reflexively drifts toward these low points, our unvarnished coverage of them and the insular feeling that we were like a precious club on campus, as student-reporters, privy to a raw and tightly guarded secret — that the players and coaches, revered as they might be, weren’t that good. 

When the games end as badly as they did for Syracuse between the years 2005 and 2009, my time on the Hill, it was important to capture the anguish and embarrassment, as fairly and humanely as possible, knowing the player you crush in a column on Saturday afternoon might bump into you in Schine Student Center on Saturday night. The player whose tears you described might sit next to you in a lecture. 

It’s easier being a journalist once you’re off campus. The stakes intensify and the readership grows, but the distance widens between you and the world you are meant to be covering with scrutinizing eyes. Time is no longer an enemy. But with it goes the unspoken bond you share with the athletes you intend to embellish and judge, built around the knowledge that your place on campus is finite, and even the wins bring you both closer to the end. 

All the while, you are there at practices and every media availability and every game, so that you know the Dome security guards by name and the pathway from the dorms to the press box by heart. The memory you take with you might not be the final score but the feeling of being the last writer to leave the stadium, after filing a gamer and two siders, and the sunny morning you left behind when you walked into the Bubble has now transformed into dark. A light snow is falling as you trudge up the hill, hauling your laptop and a spasmodic credential bouncing from a lanyard, and you make your way to Marshall Street, to Chuck’s, where your friends are already three pitchers in, already reliving the game for a fourteenth time, happy and relieved to see you’ve made it at last. One of them asks, “What happened?” and you know the honest answer.

Published on April 15, 2020 at 11:02 pm