I came out to the East Coast in August of 1990, 17 years old, about to start my freshman year in college.

And other than going home for the summer between that and my sophomore year at Catholic University, I’ve been out here ever since.

It’s been a long 18 years; it’s time to go home. We’re doing our own version of the Mid-Atlantic Shuffle, leaving Northern Virginia in August and moving to Minneapolis.

I’ll miss the vast number of Division III schools there are here on the East Coast, where I can basically stumble over a D-III school every 20 minutes on the highway. I’ve seen 222 Division III football teams play, as near as I can tell, and been in 67 teams’ stadiums. Now I’m looking forward to seeing a whole new group. I’ve been to Hamline’s gym and Macalester’s now-defunct gym, seen St. Ben’s and UW-River Falls, UW-Eau Claire, UW-Stevens Point and UW-Platteville. How many Iowa gyms will I get into this year?

There will be a lot of new things to experience.

Like flying to the Final Four. 🙂

So I apologize that it’s been a bit of a quiet offseason around here, other than the silly season with all the coaching changes. We’ve spent a lot of time repairing, painting and packing. I’ll keep the same day job, as sports editor of the Verizon Central Newsroom, and simply work from there instead of Virginia.

Thanks to everyone who has been so hospitable over my years here on the East Coast. Hundreds of SIDs and coaches have made time to help us cover Division III in the past decade. Now I’ll get a different perspective, meet new people and spend a lot more time on I-94 and I-35 rather than I-95 and I-66.