I really love to write. I thank God often for giving me the desire and ability to do it, and for the chance to do it as part of my profession.

As a writer, I get to fulfill many roles for readers. I can educate with facts and figures. I can complete a thought process with a different perspective. I can tell a story or paint a picture that might otherwise be a jumbled mess in the mind of an interested observer.

Some of my writing is fun, and some of it feels like work. Some of it is emotional and personal, while some is factual and objective. Sometimes, I write about things that don’t interest me. Other times, I let my interests dictate my process.

This piece is different, though. It is in a category all its own. It has no peer, no rival, no comparison.

This piece is the one I’ve least wanted to write. At no point have I desired to put figurative pen to paper to tell this story.

The reason? Because I want so badly to tell it.

You see, over the past two football seasons, I have seen a lot. I have felt a lot. I have laughed and studied and cried and worked and prayed and screamed a lot. Sometimes, my writing reflected those things.

Last season culminated in a loss to Alabama in the Arizona desert. As a Clemson alum partially responsible for welcoming people to the fan experience on gamedays, I wasn’t mad or frustrated. I was just excited to be there, to be part of a fairy tale.

When Clemson went back to the national title game this season, it felt a little too normal for me. I was concerned I was becoming the type of fan I rail against all the time—the complacent, entitled fan too analytical to enjoy the moment and too callous to appreciate the journey.

Then, last Monday afternoon, I entered Raymond James Stadium. I spent two hours on the field before we engaged our radio audience during pregame. In the photos and the chats, walking every inch of sideline, I realized something both profound and reassuring: This would never, ever get old for me.

My ties to Clemson are too strong. The tie that binds me to the place, the campus, the idea of Clemson transcends football. The way my heart and the Clemson spirit connect is as perfect as the shape of the ring that graces my right index finger.

When my pregame duties were over, I returned to the field. Soon after kickoff, I was in the radio booth, and I just watched. I watched the whole thing.

I watched a team that bore the burden of expectation so openly bear it yet again. I watched that team brim with confidence based not on history, but on sheer faith—the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. A faith that is ingrained within every fiber of the program.

I watched an unstoppable force go ahead by two possessions less than one-third of the way into the game. I watched the other team spend the next two-thirds fighting like mad to stop the unstoppable, to reverse the irreversible, to achieve the unachievable.

I watched play, after play, after play, after play. I watched a Heisman runner-up prove he should have won it. I watched an undersized defender fueled by a steady stream of naysayers make a sizable impact. I watched a former walk-on live out a legend so clichéd, so surreal, so Hollywood it wouldn’t be believed if there weren’t tapes to prove it really happened.

I watched the program that could never win a championship win a championship, after fifty-nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds. I watched a celebration I never dreamed, because I like for my dreams to be somewhat realistic.

So why would I hesitate to tell this story? Why would I hesitate to share this experience? Why could I possibly call this the story I’ve least wanted to write?

The answer is the same thing that kept me paralyzed in the back of the radio booth as confetti fell from the sky: I didn’t want to miss anything.

All at once, I wanted to be standing, and sitting, and yelling, and reflecting, and down on the field, and in the stands, and on the sidelines, and on the podium, and beneath the podium, and behind a microphone, and in the corner, and in the locker room, and in the press conferences. I wanted to be everywhere, but I couldn’t go anywhere, because going somewhere meant I couldn’t go anywhere else.

So, I wept. I wept because I never prepared for a moment I never expected to come. I wept because of Dabo’s story. I wept for Miss Kathleen, one of the best human beings on the planet. I wept because my friends—Cam, Thomas, Tyler, Judah, J.D., David, D.J., Adrien, and so many others I’m forgetting—were champions.

I wept for my mom, a graduate who saw the 1982 Orange Bowl in person, and for my sisters, both Clemson graduates. I wept for my home, the community that supported a champion. I wept when Dabo preached from the podium. I wept when Ben Boulware told his Clemson story, which is basically my Clemson story.

I cry a lot—it’s the curse of my gene pool—but I only weep for a few things. Clemson is on the list. It means that much to me.

When the dust had settled a bit (and I was out of tears), I finally moved. I went into the locker room. It was crowded and chaotic. I hugged a bunch of those I mentioned above, plus a few more acquaintances, and congratulated them on what they had just accomplished.

It was a night I’ll never forget, but it’s also a story I’ll never fully be able to tell. There will always be little nuggets—sights, sounds, emotions, plays, thoughts, conversations, interactions—that come and go as I remember Monday, January 9, 2017.

Those nuggets won’t ever make it into anything I write. They will roll around in my brain for eternity, but they won’t be immortalized in print. That’s why I dreaded writing this piece—not for what it would say, but for what it inevitably would never say.

Even now, as I reflect on my best effort, I’m wondering if it’s my absolute best, because I know I only get one shot at this. I only have one chance to put you inside my mind, inside my body, inside my heart on the day Clemson won the national championship. I’ll never get this chance again.

My first instinct, still, is to hit “delete” and start all over again. I know I missed something. I know I felt something I’ve forgotten. I know I said or did or saw something of the utmost importance to my experience that isn’t here.

Such is the blessing and the curse of the story I’ve most wanted to tell, and the one I’ve least wanted to write.

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