To you and yours.

I have just returned from the celebration up on the Hill and just cannot bring myself to go to sleep. Upon considering putting my head on a pillow, I watched the ESPN video montage of the last decade and realized, wow, this was the decade when I grew up. The things that have happened in the last 10 years did more to shape who I am as a person than anything ever will.

So, how about a recap.

The year 2000 began with me in seventh grade, the Mariners having just jettisoned two superstars and some guy named George W. Bush running for president. As young as it makes me sound, the elder Bush meant nothing to me at the time. He won of course, supposedly thanks to something that happened in Dade county and I was felt unaffected. Certainly I was more interested in the Alex Rodriguez resigning with the Mariners, right?

Well, that wouldn't happen, as A-Rod signed with Texas on Dec. 11, 2000, a rather important day in my life. My birthday, I think.

In 2001, I was rolling through eighth grade, pretending I cared about nothing and no one and on the way to Seattle Prep for high school. As my mom would say, God had me exactly where he wanted me on Sept. 11, at a Catholic high school where I was able to spend the day praying and searching for answers, as opposed to trying to pretend nothing happened. What followed was one of the greatest moments I've seen in my time involved with sports, when the Mariners clinched the division and Mark McLemore led the team around the field with an American flag. This was a team on the way to 116 wins. None were significant on that day.

From fall 2002 to spring 2005 I was at Garfield, walking distance from home, with several firsts. I remember late nights in Wallingford watching The Usual Suspects, outdoor NBA Jams parties, shoe cleaning parties, Queen Anne basketball, two proms and trying to hold onto old friends. Obviously high school graduation stands out, but so do several other things, including a walk-off win against a top-10 Redmond baseball team the afternoon before prom (along with the prom and the morning after baseball game I coached where all the dads wanted to know was what I drink - it was tequila if I recall), a state championship for our girls basketball team, my favorite Garfield Messenger story I ever wrote, about parity in KingCo and some great trips to the drive-in. I actually stumbled over a rerun of Joan of Arcadia the other day that reminded of times at Hannah Weisman's house.

That freshman year and sophomore year also provided two of the more sad moments, the first was when a favorite teacher of mine, Mrs. Beck, died of cancer in December 2001. Then, the following summer, just as I was about to leave for a baseball trip, Mr. Lafond, my favorite and most influential teach, as well as the father of two friends of mine, died of cancer as well. To them I owe a great debt of much of my life's work.

It didn't start there, but the summer after graduation was really escalation of some of the more fun/ridiculous things Adam and I have done, starting in Canada. I had applied for a job at UW, in the athletic department, finding out that I got somewhere in between nights in Victoria. That proved to be the start both of a great tradition and a great four years in the Graves building.

That first game at Qwest Field, a come-from-ahead loss in Tyrone Willingham's first game, was also the beginning of the end for the embattled coach. It was the first of many events, most of which were better than the first. In that first year alone I saw a national championship volleyball team, an incredible Bank of America Arena environment as UW beat Gonzaga and Adam Morrison and the final season of Brandon Roy. The next three years saw me learning to broadcast sports ranging from basketball to volleyball, as well as working stats for UW, the Seahwaks, Sonics, Storm and Mariners. And even doing work for ESPN. During that time I learned such a range of things that I've lost track, but I saw some great games, including the last Sonics game in Seattle.

If I had to pick the best game I've seen live, it would unfortunately be a loss for UW. In 2008, the UW volleyball teaam played Nebraska in the round of eight at UW. Washington took the first two games, at which point the boss of my office came over to ask if I'd be interested in going to the final four. So, yes I still blame him for the fact that UW lost the next three games, including blowing a huge lead in the fifth game, to fall to Nebraska.

The best individual performance is an easy one. In 2005, Brandon Roy hit two buzzer-beating three pointers against Arizona, scoring 35 points for the second game in a row, even though that was also a loss.

The best team is a tie, either that 2005 national championship volleyball team, or the 2009 national championship softball team. Which is a way for me to mention how good Danielle Lawrie has been the latter. A national player of the year and an Olympian.

And the last two awards I'd give, best individual athlete I saw at UW was not Brandon Roy. It was a skinny kid named Tim Lincecum. Now a two-time Cy Young award winning pitcher for the Giants, he was quite likely the great pitcher in UW and one of the best in Pac-10 history as well. Second, the Washington athlete I will remember forever simply for everything he did in his time there, is Jon Brockman.

That was the sports part of college. I still remember living in the dorms like it was yesterday, but certainly miss my apartment at the Parks much more. That family was amazing, so gracious to me and allowed me to live upstairs for more than two years, helping to make my experience so much better.

In those college years, violence became a norm around the UW campus, a devastating shooting occurred a Virginia Tech, which coincided with my reading of one of the best books I've ever read, 19 Minutes. But there were also the great debates I witnessed as a freshman, the lectures of David Domke and, though many will ignore it, the hiring of Tia Jackson. Yes, that was a sports story, but it was a larger one, because it gave UW black head coaches in all three of its major sports, a first in division-I. Yes, I am proud to have been around that.

I am even more proud for my coaching record, in both basketball and baseball. In addition to the difference a coach makes in the lives of his athletes, there are the relationships built. One of those kids is now working for UW for his second year because of the time we've known each other. I am proud of that. I am proud of the many athletes we've seen graduate or play in high school. I am proud to be part of the first Whitman program to ever play in the city championship game and the one of the most successful Seattle PONY Baseball teams ever. When you are doing it, you rarely get to sit back and look at it, but I've never done something more fulfilling and exciting that coaching.

The relationships are something I will never forget and I had a class that fostered more of that than any other when I was senior. A U.S. Congress simulation class, in which I became the majority leader, included news coverage because of a prayer in school issue, ran my phone bill up, but taught me the most important thing a young person going into the workplace can know - how to interact with people. And in the middle of that class was one of the moments, if not the moment that will define my generation: the election of Barack Obama.

Never have I felt the way I did that night, like I had just put everything I had into a cause and it was as successful as it could have possibly been. Standing in the Westin Hotel with all of those people, just soaking it in, was something I will never forget.

Nor will I forget shaking Mark Emmert's hand on the stage at Husky Stadium at my graduation. Or the after party, with my grandparents in town.

On June 16, 2009, I got on a Delta flight, through Salt Lake City, to Washington, D.C. In a decade, the most growth I will ever endure culminated and most likely the longest move I will ever make. Many thanks to all of those who have done it with me and those who will in the next decade to come.

Goodbye to one of the most progressive decades in history, when the internet changed everything in the world, and welcome to what almost seems to be an unknown. It wouldn't be worth living if it wasn't.

Happy New Year.