Flock Talk: Kingdom of Rain

 

This past week I spent some time looking over a lot of my former articles, posts, thoughts, and sometimes incoherent blathering about Oregon sports. Back in 2013, I went through what I can only describe as a writer’s existential crisis. There was a point that year when I came dangerously close to returning to anonymity—to just fade back into the stands and reclaim my old seat as a fan rather than a chronicler.

That season, I had traveled more than ever before, cultivated sources, and found a rhythm to the work. But something changed. The joy began to wane, and the weight of expectations—my own, and those of the community I’d grown to serve—began to erode the purpose that first got me behind a keyboard. I remember a conversation with AJ during that time where I admitted that the negativity I felt covering a potentially historic season was heavier than what I’d felt during the 5–6 campaign of 2004. Burnout had taken root.

I stepped back for a time. I had to. And when I returned, it was with the sort of fragile optimism of someone who knows what it feels like to lose his voice. I started a piece once called A Season Removed from Purgatory—because that’s where I felt I’d been cast: not fallen, not ascended, just drifting.

Now, more than a decade later, as Oregon approaches the final stretch of the 2025 football season, I find myself reflecting again. The second bye week has a way of forcing stillness, and in that stillness comes perspective.

It’s been an arduous year at the day job. Truthfully, the storm started last November and never let up. Our business model flipped on its head, and we were tasked with saving a ship we hadn’t sunk. There’s been no respite, no offseason—just adaptation.

In some strange, poetic symmetry, it’s been Dante Moore’s season personified. We started smooth, confident, unshaken. Then came the pressure—simulated, disguised, relentless. The kind that tests whether you’re reading the field or just reacting. Somewhere along the way, the rhythm returned, but only after every structure we trusted had been tested.

Just as the operation began to steady, the Rivals acquisition by On3 sent another tremor through the work I love most. For the second time in as many years, the familiar gave way to the uncertain. And yet, as I recount it all now, there’s a comforting simplicity in the chaos: covering Oregon football has always been my escape.

Everyone who’s followed my writing knows this part of the story. The abandoned career path. The recalibration of dreams for the sake of family. The slow rediscovery of something that felt like purpose again. Writing has never just been a hobby—it’s been my way back to myself.

This year’s quieter rhythm—fewer tailgates, fewer miles—brought a new kind of connection. Our local son started coming down to every game with his girlfriend, and Brandon and Leslie joined us. Conversations replaced chaos. Laughter replaced the chase. Even when Wisconsin weekend brought a few extra guests, I realized something profound: I still love being part of something bigger than myself.

And that’s when I knew. I’m not ready to fade back into the stands. Not yet. I’ll “stay on the scene,” as it were, a little longer.

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The Sun Also Rises — Football Edition (Revisited)

When I first wrote The Sun Also Rises – Football Edition back in 2016, it came on the heels of Oregon’s Alamo Bowl collapse against TCU. I woke up to snow that next morning—heavy, quiet, reflective snow—and I wrote about how the sun, despite our despair, still rose. It was a metaphor for renewal, though at the time it felt more like resignation.

Today, nearly a decade later, the weather is different. I woke up not to snow but to the unrelenting drum of rain—a days-long deluge that soaked the streets, my shoes, and, by the third walk of the day, my resolve. Fiji loved every second of it. She bounded through puddles, chased reflections, dug deep into the mud to catch a mouse, and shook off the rain as if to say, “What else did you expect?”

And as I walked her—again and again through the rain—I realized that the lesson from that old essay still holds true. The sun still rises, yes, but so does the rain. Both are reminders that life moves forward whether we’re ready or not.

Maybe that’s what this “Kingdom of Rain” really is—this space between love and exhaustion, devotion and distance.

We keep showing up, year after year, still making love dutifully sincere, but wondering if the feeling has changed—if the joy we once felt has become quieter, more deliberate, less electric but no less real.

I would lie awake sometimes and wonder:
Is it just me, or is this the way love is supposed to be?

We are still fans—nothing more and nothing less. We still ride the emotional highs and lows of this sport as though our livelihoods depend on them, when they don’t. But we also know that the game connects us—to each other, to a place, to moments we can’t recreate anywhere else.

The players and coaches still care more deeply than we ever could. They still shoulder the burden we only imagine. The faces change—Rodney Hardrick once, now Bryce Boettcher or Dillon Thienemann—but the core remains: young men chasing growth through struggle.

And here we are again, the expatriates of fandom.
“You’re a fan. You’ve lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake SEC standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed with winning. You spend all your time talking, not working. You are a college football fan, see? You hang around message boards.”

Maybe it takes a rainy morning and a soaked dog to remember what this is all about. It’s a game. A beautiful, maddening, connective game that mirrors life in all its contradiction—hope and heartbreak, frustration and joy.

So yes, the sun still rises. But sometimes it rains first. And maybe that’s the real message now: it’s not about waiting for the sky to clear—it’s about walking the dog anyway.