Happy Penultimate Day!
The day before the last day is a great time for what's next. (Dispatches, Vol.15)
This morning, one of several mornings in the part of the calendar when the days smudge together, my daughter and I paused to figure out today. I know it’s not Pop-Tarts Bowl Day; that was Saturday. But I searched the ESPN app for Monday Night Football this past Sunday, and I answered the question “What time is it?” with “The sun’s out and over there” on some afternoon between Christmas and now.
“Is it December 30?” It is. A Tuesday. We found our chronological bearings. “Happy Penultimate Day!”
Penultimate — next-to-last, the one before the final one — ranks among our favorite words. We’ve never celebrated this before, but I think we made up a day on the spot, unsure of what it celebrates other than enjoying a word enough to recognize its time in a timeless week.
Everything we celebrate was first recognized as being The Right Thing at The Right Time at some point. Over two years of writing Thrill Shot, I’ve recognized more and more how people decide that some player or team or game or moment means enough to be worth caring about, following and celebrating. When I first started, I wanted to write about championships. That has grown into wanting to focus on the importance of being here, this moment, and with these people when the potential for excitement, awe and connection are on the rise.
Over the next year, I’m aiming for less following the cycle of sports seasons and more of finding the stories that make sense of why and how we care about what we celebrate.
I’ve got the beginnings of a system on the bulletin board next to my recently decluttered desk. It’s organized by month. Each has a spot for a dispatch, a zine and a project. That setup will form the skeleton for what Thrill Shot will bring you next year.
Dispatches are for everybody. Each one will have a “From” section focused on a real place, person and/or event. January will be from Allen Fieldhouse. February might be from roller derby or minor league hockey (we’ll see). After “From”, you’ll see some modular sections based on what I run into that month (see below).
Zines are for paid subscribers. They started because of a need to create with my hands. Nate E. told me getting them in the mail was better than hand delivery and that each one was like seeing into my sports soul. I sent out six collaged-and-copied mini editions in 2025. There will be a dozen more in 2026.
The projects are for me and for you. On my trip back to Kansas, my uncle asked how I get ideas. They just happen? I couldn’t really explain it, but I think it comes down to believing my purpose is to be curious and creative, and see what happens. I’ve got so many ideas. I’m working on sorting them into a manageable queue. January will be the 2025 Of The Years. February will (finally) be Nate E.’s Speed Thrills.1 March will be about my experience of the World Baseball Classic Qualifiers in Tucson, scheduled for publication to coincide with the main tournament.2
See, look at that, the first three months are already lining up! Thanks, bulletin board system!
“Writing is a matter strictly of developing oneself. You compete only with yourself. You develop yourself by writing.
- John McPhee, Draft No.4
Fight the Urge to Predict the Future
Now to the modular sections part. This one pulls its title from a Mike McDaniel line from the second duplex poem I built. This line communicates one of the core tenets of Thrill Shot: we’re here to experience what happens as it unfolds, not anticipate it before. I’ve got two notes for you.
🏐No.3 Texas A&M upended three No.1 seeds en route to the program’s first volleyball Final Four and national championship: ✅undefeated Nebraska over five sets in the regional final in Lincoln ✅, a sweep of previously-unswept Pitt in the national semifinal, and ✅ another sweep of Kentucky to claim the trophy. I live in Tucson, home of the only men’s basketball team to defeat three No.1 seeds in a single March Madness title run. That accomplishment means a lot to Arizona fans. I haven’t been able to dig up whether it’s been done in volleyball before, but the 1-1-1 domination adds a special achievement to a championship debut. I also grew up a fan of one of the No.1 seeds Arizona knocked off, a Kansas team still regarded as legendary, so I sympathize with the one-loss Cornhuskers bounced in the Sweet Sixteen.
🏀The Oklahoma City Thunder started 25-1. They went 4-4 since then, including three losses to the San Antonio Spurs. The best narrative in basketball isn’t the 2025-26 Thunder against the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors (73-9) or the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls (72-10). It’s the Thunder versus the Spurs. Both teams are young and staking claims on the future — wait, we aren’t trying to predict the next dynasty. Hold on. Is this like the end of Thunderbolts* with two teams trying to claim the Avengers mantle? Are we at the beginning of a regeneration of the mythical Bird-Magic, Lakers-Celtics dichotomy from the 1980s? Wait! No predictions implied. Talk about not predicting the future: this lifelong college basketball fan who tunes into the NBA when the conference finals start is curious about the clash of two young NBA teams during the regular season. Whoa.3
When I Hear Music, It Makes Me Dance
This section title is a line from Kendrick Lamar’s “squabble up”. It pops into my head when something is juuuuuust right, like “You know it when you see it” materializing in real time. Three notes on this one.
⚽ “Soccer in Sun and Shadow” by Eduardo Galeano: I’m almost done with this lyrical, philosophical, journalistic history of the beautiful game, and I’ll recommend it to any fan of the sport or history or humanity. It’s told through the lens of South America (Galeano was Uruguayan) and the World Cup. It’s a reminder that the game has always been political and human and, yes, beautiful, even when tied to the political or financial or cultural low notes of culture. Soccer history with notes of magical realism.
🎯 The World Darts Championship: I’ve known about this competition for only two years, and I believe it’s one of the great spectacles the world of sports can offer us. The broadcast production knows exactly what viewers (especially noobs like me) need to see to follow the excitement. The competitors work out word problems in their heads but have nicknames like Happy Feet, Pikachu, Bullet, The Barber, and The Nuke. The crowd dresses up like the Mad Hatter, hot dogs or whatever costume they want. The on-stage announcer sings “One-hundred and eeeeeiiiiiigghhty!” for a perfect trio of throws. From an American perspective, it’s like College GameDay energy during matches all afternoon and evening for weeks straight. The final is January 3. Catch up on YouTube here or read The Guardian here.
🏈 The 2025 Pop-Tarts Bowl: The game ended in BYU’s favor after a 4th-down interception in the Georgia Tech endzone. They got the toaster trophy. They ate a toasted mascot. It’s a surreal intersection of tradition (college football teams playing games weeks apart from the rest of the season) and sponsorship (the helmets and endzones had sprinkles). Here me out: a secondary playoff built from weird bowl games that wraps up with the Pop-Tarts Bowl as the non-CFP winner.
Screen Shots
Pictured in order: Danger Penguin (Mario Kart World), Victor Wembanyama (Mini No.5 cover), Standord and Pepperdine basketball publicity (The Phoenician Scheme), card packs to be opened with Nate F., new Thrill Shot logo, new Thrill Shot wordmark, Pay Heed (Allen Fieldhouse entry), Beak ‘Em (Mini No.6 cover), Jinx interrupting me while writing this.
Working title.
I’m more excited about the 2026 WBC than the 2026 World Cup — which is saying a lot because I love the World Cup.
The landscape has changed. I’ll elaborate in January’s dispatch from The Phog.