Breaking up with UConn

I think I've been a little shy about letting you know how I feel about you, UConn. And, well, it's difficult for an introvert like me to say so, but I'm leaving in three weeks, so what the hell: I like ya, UConn. I really do. And I'm gonna miss you, girl.

There's so much about you that I've liked during the last four years. Rentschler Field has moved steadily closer to getting this whole college football thing right (just as soon as you start working on getting people inside the stadium before kickoff). Gampel Pavilion's student section doesn't take a backseat to anybody in this part of the country. Morrone Stadium is the best home-field advantage in college soccer.

After four years of flirtation, your charms have finally pulled me in, UConn. You turned me into the type of person who gets pumped up listening to the fight song and teary-eyed hearing the alma mater, the type of person who watches the 2004 national championship highlight video on YouTube when I need a morale boost.

Deep down, I'll always keep you in my heart, UConn, even though you're not a lady, just an anthropomorphic representation of a tiny New England campus town. You lured me to Charlotte, N.C., Detroit, St. Louis and Tampa Bay, Fla., and every dollar I spent on gasoline, plane tickets, or Meineke Car Care Bowl shirts or Final Four shot glasses was worth it.

Yet I don't know - on the one hand, you've got so many good qualities, and I've really enjoyed my time with you. But on the other hand, you've got a dark side. Deep down, UConn, you're a bit of a gold digger.

Normally, I don't have a problem with that. As it is, I've been paying you $25,000 a year for your services. You've been very good to me, and I've been able to travel the country and have the best job a college kid could have.

But I can't help but feel like you don't really love me like I love you.

I've sat in the student section at Gampel Pavilion dozens of times, and I see you stifling my fellow students' creativity, banning signs for the last month of the season. I see you take away any of the spontaneity and atmosphere by banning cool fan gimmicks (like that time the guys in the front row tossed up baby powder in sync with Jeff Adrien).

And I see you suck the life out of the college basketball atmosphere with constant distractions and silly games. All this while you snuggle up with the silent, well-off folks for whom the game is a social event. I know you're trying to make me jealous. It's working.

It's almost like you're treating us like we students are burdening you, baby. And I hate that about you. You may be acting like Ms. Big-Shot University dealing with the high-rollers, but at the end of the day you've gotta do right by us. One of these days, I know you'll figure out that the students are your core audience.

But that's just one reason I don't think I can commit to you right now, UConn. I'm more concerned that you keep dropping by the XL Center to play basketball games. What is up with that?

Don't you know how embarrassing you look, playing your games in a building so dead-quiet, decrepit and obsolete that it should've been bulldozed 10 years ago?

It's not that the exterior is ugly, and the interior slightly more hideous. It's not the now-empty shopping mall that serves as an ironic reminder that you're in "New England's Rising Star." It's not even the tacky Whalers jerseys that hang from the rafters, which bring to mind a failed NHL franchise with an inexplicable current following.

You're better than that, UConn. You deserve better than that.

In 1975, when you starting playing at the then-Civic Center, you played your home games in a 4,000-seat Field House that was, uh, charming, but ultimately too small to fit into future plans.

But that was then. Now, you play in a perfectly nice, perfectly located building in the heart of campus. Gampel has been your shiny fur coat for 20 years. Isn't it time you drop that shabby, useless stained leather jacket?

Maybe you wanted to get away from Hartford for good, at one point. Maybe in 1990, you told students in The New York Times that you would only play at Hartford "at Christmas and other times when the students are not on campus." (In fact, you did say this, and the particular person who said this still works in UConn's athletic office.) But at some point, you're going to have to take the plunge and come home.

I hope that you're able to figure it out, UConn. I'll be watching from afar, and you and I will always have a special bond. But after four years, it's time for me to move on and find someone else.

It's been real, Storrs.