I’m not going to lie to you; this has not been the greatest semester to be sports editor at the Badger Herald.

When I moved into my desk at the back of the Herald office, I looked at the framed issues that the sports editors before me put out: the two Rose Bowl issues, the Final Four issues and the Ron Dayne tributes, and I was optimistic that Lars Russell and I would add our pages to the wall.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened yet. Not that our pages weren’t great–they just didn’t have the same material and content that the previous editors had to work with.

For starters, there is no bowl game this year. Every other Herald sports editor that I am familiar with got to go on a bowl trip over winter break. Well, Lars and I weren’t so lucky.

However, we did get to travel to the desired destinations of State College, Penn.; Champaign, Ill.; Columbus, Ohio; and Minneapolis, Minn. As fabulous as these mini-vacations were–where else can you tour Chicago through rush hour and get the entire history of Pennsylvania mountain ranges? –they’re no bowl trip.

As upset as I am for myself, my feelings and disappointment are minor compared to those that the football team itself feels. I am fully aware that my complaining about a lost trip is selfish when you compare it with Wendell Bryant, Mark Anelli, Joey Boese, Mike Echols and their classmates’ disappointing ends to otherwise great careers. The senior class didn’t deserve to go out with a 5-7 season, and my complaints for having to watch this below-average year and moping about a lost winter vacation are, well, selfish.

While in Minneapolis over Thanksgiving weekend for the Badgers’ battle for Paul Bunyan’s axe, I was at a crossroads. As disappointed as I was to have football come to an end, I was excited to turn the focus of our sports page to basketball.

I knew what was expected of the Badgers men’s basketball team, yet I held out hope that this squad would surprise me and everyone else and show that the new Bo Ryan era of basketball could produce wins from a depleted squad. But to my disappointment the projections were right–it’s a rebuilding year for basketball as well.

I have grown to be a big fan of Devin Harris, and his play has shown me that he’s going to make this team good . . . one day. Now the likes Travon Davis, Freddie Owens and Kirk Penney can take turns leading the way on the court, but it doesn’t look like their play is going to project them into March Madness.

The hockey team has surprised me at times thus far this season, but not enough to impress me into building next semester’s success around them. Last weekend’s sweep over North Dakota showed that this team has talent; now UW just has to put together enough wins to move up the WCHA rankings. If they don’t, my winter will continue to be very bleak sports-wise.

But perhaps the most disappointing loss for UW came last weekend, when the volleyball team fell to Texas A&M in the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA tourney. This team was so solid all season that I had pencilled them in for the national-championship game. I even thought they’d win it, and I had counted on them winning it in order to add postseason excitement to our sports page. But once again UW fell short.

As disappointing as UW sports have been this year (no offense to the cross country and women’s basketball teams, who have done very well), it was pointed out to me that when I go home next week for winter break, I can bask in the glory of Minnesota sports. I can watch a pitiful Vikings team struggle on the field and lose games there’s no way they would have lost a year ago. Then I can read about the latest happenings in the process to contract the Twins.

I was beginning to feel like I was a real downer for any sports team that I support–that was until I remembered the Timberwolves, perhaps the one team that has yet to let me down in this pitiful semester of sports I have witnessed. My dad told me this morning that the Gopher men’s basketball team is also improving, but I’m a little skeptical of jumping on that bad wagon.

For now, I will just chalk these last four months up to bad luck on the field and court, youthfulness, and the fact that I am a personal jinx. And hopefully the next months will be a little warmer with more wins, more postseason play, more luck, and more Timberwolves victories.