Finding the words difficult to the Bruin say in
By Daily Bruin Staff
June 9, 1996 9:00 p.m.
Sunday, June 9, 1996
The oddest thing about this story  likely to be my last
 is that it seems to be the most difficult piece I have ever
written.
My career here has spanned three years, in which time I’ve
covered an NCAA men’s basketball championship, several individual
track and field champions and a storied men’s swimming program in
its last year of competition.
Surely, there have been plenty of big stories, stories far more
important than the one you’re reading now.
But I have never written about me, and now I find myself staring
at a blank screen longer than I ever have before. The reason,
probably, is that there isn’t too much to say about me.
About this place, however, there is so much. And, as I often did
when I sat down to write a feature on one of UCLA’s All-American
athletes, I’m searching for a way to do it justice.
For better or worse, I have been shaped to a large degree by my
experiences with the Daily Bruin.
Undoubtedly, I have had the luckiest career of any Bruin
sportswriter in recent history. I happened onto the basketball beat
the same year that the Bruins won their first national championship
in 20 years, and the following season, I was able to follow the
team to Kansas, Duke, Maui and Indianapolis. But the travel, while
enjoyable, has not been the most memorable aspect of my three years
here. Instead, it has been the people that I have encountered along
the way.
Take, for instance, Jeanette Bolden, a former Olympic gold
medalist who now coaches one of the most successful track and field
programs in the NCAA. Bolden has had to deal with my daily
interview requests for the past three seasons, and not once has she
declined. Because of her, I have gone from a track dumbie to a
track junkie.
There are the fellows in the sports information department, Bill
Bennett and John Dolak, with whom I have been lucky enough to work
for the past three years. Without Bill and John, our basketball
coverage over the past two years would have been seriously
lacking.
Of course, there have also been the outstanding athletes,
competitors like Valeyta Althouse and Amy Acuff, Ed O’Bannon and
Tyus Edney, all of whose championship spirit has inspired the
masses.
But mostly, I will remember the people in the Daily Bruin Sports
office.
You see, we here at the sports department are a uniquely
tight-knit group.
Missy, Ross, Esther, Tim, Mannie and Larry have all served as a
secondary family to me for the past three years and have taught me
more about people, more about life and more about myself than
anyone or anything else at this school.
It is to all of them that I owe this great experience, and my
only hope is that I have helped them in the same way.
Yamaguchi is a senior who was awake for 36 hours before he wrote
this column.
