Column: All roads lead to Omaha

OMAHA, Neb. — As I sit on my flight back to North Carolina, 26 hours after the final out of the Diamond Heels’ season in Omaha, I finally realize why it has taken so long to find the words to start this column.

It’s not because of writer’s block, although I have experienced that more times than I can remember. It’s not because senioritis has taken its final blow.

Looking out over the Kansas plains, I now understand that I can’t find the words to describe this feeling because there are no words.

No combination of phrases and sentences can fully grasp how much these last two years working for The Daily Tar Heel have meant to me. They just don't exist.

So instead, I’m going to do what I have done throughout my career when I don’t see a road forward. In the moments when I have felt burnt out, when I have felt that the best path would be to quit and move on from my aspirations, I think back to my younger self.

It’s cliché, I know. But it’s a lesson that has kept me grounded and allowed me to be appreciative of every moment that The DTH has blessed me with over the last four semesters.

I think back to the hours spent with my dad, playing every sport imaginable despite having no future as an athlete. I think back to summer times in elementary school, begging my parents to take me to Citi Field to watch the Mets play a regular season game in June.

I think back to it all. And I tell myself: Imagine what that person would say now. He would have to pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

Many moments will stick out to me when I reflect on my time at The DTH. Covering the 2022 NCAA women’s soccer national championship game, complete with the craziest ending to a sporting event I have ever seen. Traveling and reporting in Charlotte for the first two rounds of March Madness this season.

But nothing will compare to the journey that the 2024 Diamond Heels took me on in my final semester at UNC.

I have always believed that baseball is the greatest sport in the world. I never understood the crowd that said the game was boring. If heaven was a place on Earth, it would be a baseball stadium under the evening lights.

Still, that doesn’t mean there weren’t times when the grind got to me. A total of 36 games covered, equaling to approximately 108 hours of work, will do that to you. I would be lying if I said there weren’t moments when I wondered what the point of it all was.

But anytime I thought back to my past self, that voice would be silenced. Just like that, I was a kid again, excited with each opportunity to cover UNC at Boshamer Stadium.

And then came the Diamond Heels’ postseason run. The word "magic" was thrown around a lot over the two-week span of regionals and super regionals at the Bosh. From the press box, I was reminded why I loved baseball so much to begin with.

Start with UNC blowing a one-run lead in the ninth against regional No. 4 seed Long Island. After a grueling 53-game regular season, the Tar Heels’ year was on the brink of collapse in the blink of an eye. But then came the fireworks. UNC clawed its way out of a three-run hole and earned the win on a no-doubt grand slam from Gavin Gallaher.

That right there is the beauty of baseball.

From Colby Wilkerson driving in the game-tying run in game seven of the Chapel Hill Regional to Dalton Pence narrowly beating the Mountaineer runner to first base to clinch a spot in the Men’s College World Series, I was blessed to be there every step of the way.

And as the Diamond Heels made the 1,207 mile journey to Omaha for just the 12th time in program history, The DTH fulfilled one last childhood dream.

No matter how hard I try, I won’t be able to put into words how thankful I am for this final experience at The DTH. Covering the Diamond Heels in Omaha, from the win over Virginia to the losses against Tennessee and Florida State, has been an honor that I still don’t know if I truly deserved.

So as I sit on this flight, the sun now setting over Illinois farmland, all I can feel is a sense of gratitude. For the memories, for the experiences, for it all.

There is no denying that there were times when I felt this day would never come, when I couldn’t foresee a road forward at The DTH.

But I guess they were right when they said all roads lead to Omaha.

@brendan_lunga18

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