I’ve been following athletics closely since before I could do long division, and I still can’t quite figure it out. What is it about a bunch of people throwing around a ball in some manner that captures the hearts of millions? How can people become so invested in that ball-throwing or kicking activity through nothing more than watching it on television? Why do people quite literally dedicate their lives to these events even though so few make it?

Two conversations I’ve had stick out in my mind as the closest thing to an answer to those questions.

The first was with Brandon Beachy, former Indiana Wesleyan University baseball player and current rising star in Major League Baseball with the Atlanta Braves. Following his team’s untimely end to the 2011 season, I got a chance to talk with him on the phone. It had only been a short time since the season ended, but he told me he was already itching to get back to playing.

One thing Beachy said that surprised me was the fact that his offseason regimen started off with not even throwing a baseball for weeks, even months, on end. I caught him in the middle of this athletic abstinence. He said it was driving him crazy. I can only imagine it’s the same way for countless others with the same routine.

The second conversation was with current IWU student and former Wildcat volleyball standout Kelsey Masuda (sr). This talk happened in two parts: the first, shortly after her final season ended, and the second just weeks before she closes the book on college entirely. During both talks, one thing was evident: She still had the fire inside her to play. Whether it was four days or four months after her last dig, she still had that passion for the game.

It was easy to see in her, as well as Beachy, that athletics weren’t just something they did for fun or to pay the bills. Something deeper drives them to do what they do. Something inside them makes them want to sacrifice their bodies, time and energy for their sport. Both of them knew that they would miss their game because it was a part of them.

While I’ve never even so much as sniffed a high school junior varsity roster, I can relate to this idea in my own way.

I’ve been writing sports since I was 15 years old. As a high schooler working for my local newspaper, a staff writer for The Sojourn and now the sports editor for that same publication, it’s all I’ve known for as long as I can remember. Now that I’m moving on again, writing my last Wildcard, I’m finding that I still have that passion for sports that I did when I was 15.

Whether you’re an athlete, writer or just a die-hard fan of athletics, there will always come a time when you have to say goodbye to them in one way or another. As I’m finding out right now, typing these last few lines, it’s not always the easiest thing to do. Some people don’t get it. Heck, I’m still not sure I fully know why. But for me, it’s OK to not have all the answers. It’s OK to sit back in amazement.

Because there’s just something about sports.

A few months ago, I wrote a piece about the prospects of Indiana Wesleyan University getting a football team. How it didn’t happen last year, how it probably won’t happen for a while but how we can all look forward to the Wildcat logo on a gridiron … someday.

But I failed to consider the cost.

I don’t take back anything I said. Should IWU ever field a football team, I will be first in line for tickets. I’ll be at every game. I’ll cheer until I can’t anymore. But until that happens, I will not be cheering for this school to pick up the pigskin.

It’s not because I hate football, it’s actually my favorite sport. It’s because I love IWU without football and getting a team would change some fundamental things about this university.

Education and athletics have always had an interesting relationship. Ever since you were in high school and the drama club wondered why it was stuck with second-rate props while the basketball team got all the funding it needed. That precarious relationship continues through the college ranks. Starting a football team at a small school like IWU adds more than just something new to do on Saturdays.

One of the more noticeable aspects football adds is sheer numbers. Taylor University is a comparable college that already has a team. The Trojans’ website lists more than 70 active players on the football roster.

At IWU, with an on-campus undergraduate population of around 3,000, it’s easy to wonder where those 70 athletes would come from. The answer is most likely an increase in overall enrollment, another step away from the personal, small-college experience that runs a cool $30,000 a year.

With those additional students would inevitably come a different type of IWU student. This is not always the case, but football would bring student-athletes who come solely for football and are uninterested in contributing to the other aspects that make this school what it is. This goes for any school and any activity, but in my opinion, football at Christian universities tends to be the greatest offender.

Then we have the issue of money. At a university making many cuts to prevent further financial difficulties, is the high cost of a football team and all the accoutrements that go with it really what IWU should focus on at this point?

Two weeks ago, we learned IWU is fielding a Wildcat club football team. This is intended to be a step in the direction of an intercollegiate squad, but on a level that is much less of a financial risk. The players on the Wildcat roster will probably come from current IWU students and not be used as a recruiting tool for high school athletes.

I’m not looking to cause a stir. If nothing else, I hope my words promote contentment for the situation the Wildcats are in right now. A situation that is on purpose, because as IWU’s much-beleaguered administration has rightfully determined, this is not a good time for intercollegiate football.

Maybe the right time is coming. When or if that day comes, you can find me at the 50-yard line. I’ll be painted from head to toe in red, screaming my head off like a moron. But until then, I’m more than happy to cheer for the teams we do have.

Maybe you won’t find any scandals or blockbuster deals here at Indiana Wesleyan University while most of the Wildcat teams are out of season, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t entertaining, or at the very least, challenging for those involved.

The level of difficulty and dedication from these Wildcats is evident.

Like when women’s basketball coach Steve Brooks said he started planning for next season on the more than 10-hour bus ride back to Marion. Or when men’s basketball coach Greg Tonagel detailed his players’ rigorous offseason schedule, saying they wouldn’t be getting very many days off in preparation for next year. Even the student-athletes get into it on their own, as personal training regimens are a necessary part of succeeding in intercollegiate athletics.

I’ve recently gained a new level of respect for what these young men and women do for their sport in the offseason, whether that’s working out before most people are awake or sacrificing a second slice of cake in order to be a millionth of a second faster or throw the ball a millionth of an inch farther.

For me? I just started running again.

That may not sound like much, but trust me, it’s a huge step for a guy who usually spends more time writing in a day than sleeping.

I ran every day early on in high school. Sometimes multiple times a day. But one winter I got sick enough to break me of that healthy habit, and I just never picked it up again. It wasn’t until I laced up the old running shoes a couple weeks ago that I remembered how much I enjoyed it, but also how difficult running can be. Especially when you take a three-year breather.

I won’t admit how much I’m running, or how little it now takes to get me gasping for air like an asthmatic fish out of water. I fear I’d lose respect from the entire IWU cross country team. But it definitely served as a reminder for me how difficult athletics are.

It’s easy for fans (myself included) to forget about all the work athletes put in on a weekly basis between games. But it’s even easier to forget about the work they put in between seasons. For IWU student-athletes, that doesn’t mean changing teams or answering a never-ending string of questions from the media (although I do my best), but that doesn’t diminish what they do. With the end of the school year rapidly approaching, this is something we can’t forget.

Of course, however, it’s not completely the offseason for Wildcat athletics. There’s still a lot more baseball, softball, golf, tennis and track and field to be played.

If all had gone as planned, maybe both of the Indiana Wesleyan University basketball teams are fresh off their respective tournament runs. If all had gone as planned, maybe tonight IWU is having an all-campus party in celebration of two NAIA titles. If all had gone as planned, maybe a dual-championship banner is hanging in Luckey Arena right now.

Then again, if all had gone as planned, the women’s basketball team wouldn’t have ended up in the same bracket as a Northwestern (Iowa) team that had won three NAIA championships in the last six years and IWU wouldn’t have fallen behind by 13 with less than six minutes to play in the quarterfinals. If all had gone as planned, the men’s basketball team wouldn’t have stumbled into the national tournament following a double-digit loss to a team the Wildcats should have easily beaten and George Jones (jr) wouldn’t have gotten hurt.

But those things did happen, and both Wildcat basketball teams left the big dance far too early. The men had barely arrived before they had to leave, bowing out in the first round, and the women, going into nationals as the top-ranked team in the country, only made it to the elite eight.

Both teams had the hopes and potential for much better end finishes to their respective seasons. When a team heads into the tournament as No. 1 and having not lost in more than a month as the women’s Wildcat team did, obviously the expectation is to take home the crown. To an extent, anything less than the title is just a disappointment.

For the men, after an up-and-down season that appeared shaky leading up to the national tournament, the first-round exit should not have come as an earth-shattering shock. However, for a group that was ranked 13th in the country, once the nation’s top dogs, losing to Warner Pacific (Ore.) on day one falls short of what these Wildcats were capable of doing.

So what happens now?

Women’s coach Steve Brooks said of situations like the ones both Wildcat teams find themselves in: “Don’t ask why this happened, ask, ‘What can I do to make sure it doesn’t happen again? How can I use this experience to make me stronger?’ ”

It’s so easy to say “There’s always next year,” because it’s true: Another season will take place and each team’s record will reset at 0-0 with a fresh shot at glory. But that’s not the case for everyone on the roster. No team returns the exact same as it was the year before. Whether through graduation, retirement or some other means, at least one player played their final game. For them, there will be no “next year.” Far too often, teams and fanbases take the encouraging concept of hope for next year and turn it into a crutch to lean a disappointing season on.

Not all stories are those of a heroic comeback after a dismal year. Some end with that disappointing finish. If that sad-but-true idea was thought about more, maybe some might not be so quick to be content with “there’s always next year.”

Some nights I wouldn’t get home until after 10 p.m. Then it was time to write the story and pick the best photos for publishing. It was then and only then that it became homework time. Sometimes that was 11 p.m. Sometimes I wasn’t so fortunate.

It wasn’t too hard to worry about how little time I had to get everything done most nights, especially since I had to wake up at 5:30 every morning to catch the early bus to school. But then I thought about the athletes I was writing about. How much crazier must their schedules be? They were taking the same classes I was, plus their time was taken up with games and practices. Sometimes I barely got all of my work done. How did they do it?

Then my journey took me to college at Indiana Wesleyan University, where I continued to cover sporting events. Once again, I became overwhelmed with my responsibilities as a writer and full-time student all at once. Once again, I saw firsthand how challenging being a student-athlete is. I had classes with athletes, I got to know athletes; I became friends with athletes. It really is a full-time job. Then throw in a major, or maybe two. Where does sleep fit into a schedule like that? Some athletes at IWU even dare choose a major like nursing to go along with their sport. Now we’re just getting crazy.

Think about this: An athlete who plays just two games in a week and practices just one hour a day has basically taken on the load of two additional three-credit classes. And that’s just at a bare minimum.

It doesn’t take a whole lot of thinking to realize just how impressive an accomplishment it is to be a collegiate student-athlete. The amount of time it takes each day to keep up with studies as well as speed, reading as well as running and papers as well as perseverance is enough to make even the most organized student start reaching for fistfuls of hair. Yet every year, IWU and countless other universities see dozens, if not hundreds, of students accomplish this impressive, yet undervalued feat.

I was with the other team’s fans. Marian University, to be exact.

This may not sound like a big deal, but for someone who takes sports loyalty as seriously as a Mac lover takes Apple press conferences, I felt strangely like a traitor.

The reason for my seating choice was Jess Chadwell, a sophomore forward for Marian.  Chadwell started the game for the Knights, sank the team’s first basket and scored seven total points in the game.

But before he was a young star-in-the-making at an MCC college that just happens to be a rival of my own school, Jess was my friend. We went to high school together way back in Georgetown, Ohio, what seems like a lifetime ago. As a writer for the local newspaper, I also went to many of his games and closely followed his career.

Back in Georgetown, Jess was a celebrity. He was Superman. Everyone knew him. He helped bring a state title to town. He scored seemingly at will. And to top it all off, he was as good of a person as you’d find.

Jess’ jersey may have changed, but nothing else has. When I found out that he had transferred from the University of Toledo to Marian and would play in Luckey Arena, I knew I had to be there.

Game day came and I sat with Jess’ family. His father (my high school principal) and mother (a softball coach I often worked with) both cheered for him just the way they did in high school. It was a nice dose of nostalgia, especially seeing an old friend play a game at which he is so skilled.

But I still couldn’t help feeling weird about what I was doing. I was rooting for the Wildcats just like always, only with a few cheers for my old friend mixed in. I was doing the same thing that I had jeered others for. The first time I saw a student in an IWU shirt sitting with a student in a Taylor shirt at a volleyball game, I, and the rest of the student section, let them have it.

Why wasn’t I getting the same treatment?

Maybe it was because Marian isn’t IWU’s chief rival. It could have just been the lack of people in the bleachers. But I almost felt like I deserved to be harassed. I promote student pride in our athletics as much as anyone, how could I sit with the enemy?

For me, it came down to the point I am forced to make far too often when the troubles of the real world make us forget about sports, instead of the other way around: There’s more to life than rivalries, allegiances and sports. In the end, it doesn’t matter where I sit, as long as I’m still rooting for the Wildcats.

Goethel, a public relations major, spent the two weeks leading up to Super Bowl XLVI working for NFL Experience 2012. A company which puts on events surrounding the game for an inside look at all things Super Bowl, a football amusement park held at the Indiana Convention Center. Goethel’s job was an operations manager, supervising a specific section of the event, dealing with everything from directing patrons to cleaning up after sick children.

Needless to say, she has some interesting stories.

Jeremy Sharp: Were you at the game?

Jenn Goethel: Yeah, there was a huge group of people and we just wanted to see how far the passes could go, so we definitely got to the front section. People were loving it. Because hey, it’s the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl game, why not?

JS: I know you have some good stories …

JG: I met Mike Greenwald, the “Mike and Mike” guy, in the elevator. I asked him why he was here, not even knowing who he was. I get on the elevator and I just saw this guy taking a picture with people and I wondered who he was. And he looks at me, I’m in full work attire, and he goes, “So why are you here? You here for the big game?” And I look at him and I’m like, “Yeah, I’m kinda working it.” And he goes, “OK.” And I go, “You?” And he goes, “Yeah, I’m kind of working it too. I’m an ESPN sports analyst.” The next day I was talking to my dad and he goes, “You are an idiot.”

JS: How’s this job going to help you in your future?

JG: I’m getting so much out of it already. It really developed my communication skills because you had to be clear and concise with whoever you were talking to. Also, respecting the athletes and not being able to ask for an autograph and not being able to take pictures and keeping professional. That’s where the lines were drawn. Are you in it to meet the athletes or are you in it because you love it? And I discovered that I was in it just ‘cause I love it, not because I need the autograph. I mean yeah, I got some cool stories, but you know when they say, “Do what you love and love what you do,” I found the perfect job.

JS: Are you going to keep working there?

JG: What happens is, I can look at them and continue on for the next two Super Bowls. They kind of have a travelling team. Not everybody that works for them works for them all year round. We have the opportunity to keep travelling with them to New Orleans next year and New York City the year after, so hopefully we’ll see how everything pans out. But yeah, it’s looking like that might be in the works.

JS: One more cool story.

JG: It was close to closing time and all of the sudden I hear, “Somebody just got a bloody nose on the Lombardi Trophy, can we get somebody out here to clean it up?” The Lombardi Trophy is in a case, but there had already been a joke a few days before that somebody puked on the Lombardi, so I wasn’t sure if this was a joke. But from the panic ensuing in the manager’s voice, somebody had literally gotten a bloody nose on the Lombardi Trophy. So we can’t figure out if the kid ran into the trophy or what. People were freaking out because you can’t get blood on the Lombardi Trophy.

It didn’t take long to figure out why someone like Katelyn would have a packed planner.

Katelyn is a member of the Indiana Wesleyan University cheerleading team, a team that practices two or three hours four times every week. That’s not even counting the time spent at basketball games. That’s before the team steps up its schedule to get ready for its national competition in April.

And they say cheerleaders aren’t athletes.

“Basketball games are just the surface of what we do. There’s so much more to it than that,” she told me as we chatted about everything from workout routines to the perception of cheerleaders in general. Even the perception of cheerleading at IWU could use some fine-tuning.

As we talked, it became evident that not only are cheerleaders at most levels fully aware of the stereotypes that surround the sport, but that they actively try to fight those labels.

Yes, I called it a sport. Cheerleaders practice, train and compete – the three main aspects of an athletic competition. The same logic that is used to boil it down to just yelling and raising your hands can be used to strip baseball to simply hitting a ball with a stick. The debate over whether or not competitive cheerleading is a sport is over, and the “gimme-an-I”s have it. Now it’s just a matter of how much respect the sport and those who participate in it are given.

Cheerleaders undeniably get a bad name. But most of that reputation comes from a “one bad apple spoils the bunch” type of situation. Opinions are formed and reinforced by watching teen dramas on television that are hardly an accurate representation of reality.

But the truth is that these young women and men aren’t those preppy cheerleaders you might have gone to high school with. They are athletes who work very hard at their craft and perform it very well. I’m not going to pass myself off as an expert in this field. When I go to basketball games, I can’t professionally evaluate the cheerleaders’ stunts or lifts. But I do know hard work when I see it. And what the IWU Wildcat cheerleaders are doing is definitely hard work.

Routines that the team does on gameday during timeouts may seem easy enough, but think of everything cheerleaders have to do to make it look effortless, just like those who play basketball, volleyball or any other IWU sport.

My interview with Katelyn didn’t last very long. We both had other things to do. After all, cheerleaders have a minimum G.P.A. requirement just like other athletes. Getting a look, however brief, into the life of a full-time student-athlete who spends so much time outside the classroom working on cheerleading made me appreciate what she and others like her do. It takes guts, skill, time-management and lots of hard work to pull off, but the IWU cheerleadering squad does it on a daily basis.

So apparently, it is a big deal.

Of course, I’ll be on the edge of my seat with everyone else. And you should be too. Because at the very least, what Monday-morning class isn’t going to take at least a couple minutes to discuss the game, the inevitably underwhelming halftime show and yes, the commercials?

I’m as excited as anyone to watch this game. But all of the hype, even just at IWU, made me think about the level of excitement for this Sunday’s Patriots-Giants matchup versus that for Wildcat athletics. If the same number of IWU students who watch the Super Bowl would come to just one basketball game, Luckey Arena would need another addition of bleachers.

Admittedly, I’ve been banging this drum pretty hard this year, but it’s because of the great things the Wildcats have accomplished and will continue to do throughout the rest of each team’s respective schedule. I think that if we can get excited about a sporting event that has little impact on us or the people around us, shouldn’t we be even more enthusiastic about victories that would actually bring something to our own campus?

The Super Bowl will happen, and it will be big just like it always is. IWU students will half-heartedly attempt to do homework while watching the game (or is that just me?) and probably talk about it the next day at the proverbial water cooler (because no one really uses water coolers anymore). By mid-week, we will all have posted our favorite commercials from the night on Facebook, and aside from the stray fan of the winning team (cough, Patriots, cough), that will be the end of our Super Bowl XLVI experience.

But if the Wildcats won a historic championship, our own version of the Super Bowl, there would a party on IWU’s campus that lasted for weeks. At least, that’s how long I would be celebrating.

So yes, watch the Super Bowl this Sunday. It’s an American staple and will be a great game. But you know what you should do then? Go to the IWU men’s basketball game on Tuesday. Go to the women’s basketball game next Saturday. Heck, even go the to the indoor track and field event at IWU this Saturday. If you can find the heart to yell and scream at a TV showing people you’ve never met playing football, you can certainly yell and scream for your own IWU Wildcats.

And that’s a big deal.

Tebow’s story – or maybe more accurately, his message –  is one that you can be interested in whether you’re a football fan or not. Indiana Wesleyan University students from athletes to ministry majors and everything in between can find a good reason to chime in on his faith, which has proven more controversial than his play.

This 6-foot-3 quarterback from Florida has been making headlines ever since the Denver Broncos drafted him in 2010, if for nothing else than the way he starts interviews and press conferences.

“First, I’d like to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

And the way he ends them.

“God bless.”

Tebow’s outspoken nature regarding his Christian faith has drawn both praise and criticism from all around. While he is far from the first professional athlete who believes there is a higher purpose for his play, Tebow’s spirituality, coupled with his success, has made him the poster boy for the issue of God in sports.

Until Tebow began dropping to one knee and praying in the middle of games (now called “Tebowing”), God and sports didn’t seem to have much more in common than some athletes pointing skyward when they scored. But now, questions of the Almighty in athletics run as rampant as shoe deals.

It’s a good question to bring up, and an interesting one at that, especially in the context of sports at an evangelical Christian university like IWU. It’s fascinating to listen to the differences between the way athletes here talk and those who don’t view sports in that light. But at the same time, in talking with many people on both sides of that fence, those differences aren’t as great as you might think.

One of the greatest debates about this issue isn’t whether or not God has a place in sports, but if He interferes with them. Does one person’s spiritual belief give him or her an advantage over an atheist? Or an agnostic? Does IWU hold an advantage on the field over non-Christian schools?

Not if you ask Tebow, or many other Christian athletes.

While there are bound to be exceptions, the overwhelming concept is not that God helps someone be a better player, but that He gives them something extra to play for. It’s more about the motivation than anything else.

The same goes for most of the people I’ve talked to on the subject. Believing in a higher power merely provides a higher purpose for playing a game, whether that means being a witness or just using one’s talents for God through athletics.

It would be almost crazy to think the Creator of the universe watches “Monday Night Football”and benevolently or vengefully determines which way the ball bounces (depending on which team you cheer for). If that were the case, teams would scout talent based on spirituality rather than, well … talent. Sports just aren’t interesting in a world like that.

Some athletes use family to motivate them to perform well, some do it for the money, the fame, a sense of accomplishment, or simply because it’s what they’re good at. Some do it because they believe it’s for a higher calling. I believe it doesn’t matter what you use to motivate yourself for a game, as long as it works for you. Whether God is a part of that or not shouldn’t bother anyone. In other words, Tebow will continue Tebowing, but he’ll just call it prayer.