End of The Road...For Now

All of the athletic events for FGCU have officially come to a close, which means this blog will also come to a close... for now. Why for now? Well to start it off, I just graduated from FGCU this year, and it was one incredible journey going to all the athletic events on campus and seeing the athletes give it their all in each game, match or meet they compete in. For a lot of the teams, they were a lot of bumps and curves they had to battle and overcome, and it didn't stop them from continuing on through their journey.

This year, we did a phenomenal job in all the events. This was a message I sent to the athletes via Facebook Messenger:

"I just wanted to give a big thank you to everyone of you. It's been such a blessing that I got to meet all of you and see you compete in your respected sports. Look at what you've done this school year and what you've accomplished. Did we fall a few times? yes. Did we get back up to finish the job? Yes."

"I'm proud of everyone of you and this has been such an incredible journey for me to see you all compete, but now here's my challenge to you, and this is a serious challenge: who will be the next top Dirty Bird? That's for y'all to try and find that one person that will go to basically every athletic event on campus at FGCU. You find that one fan, you've completed the challenge."

"Thank you again for having me on the journey with you. It's been a thrill of a lifetime, and I hope to stay in touch with you soon."

Throughout the summer, I was still trying to find that fan for all the athletics, and I think I found the one: Santiago Chaparro. I know he'll do an excellent job as the new lead Dirty Bird.

I'm glad I got to meet all the athletes from FGCU until I walked. It was an incredible journey, but now the road on that journey has stopped for now.

I want to thank the FGCU Athletics Department for having me a part of this journey:

Thank you to Mr. Ken Kavanagh for having me around so I can support your athletes, Jason MacBain for having as part of the internship with the FGCU Athletics, Matt Fischer and Chris Duarte for helping me get interviews with the players and coaches after the games and matches, Monica Case for having me help with the video coordination needed for volleyball and soccer games, Denise Da Silveira, Kailey Barrett and Shane Pellegrine for getting me opportunities to sing the national anthem and letting me help them get the crowd hyped up and to Da Silveira for helping me get on the plane to California to see the women's basketball team play, all of the coaches and coordinators for all the athletics, Brandon Robertson and the basketball band for having my back to cheer on the basketball teams, the Dirty Birds that attended the athletic events, coach Emily Chaikin, assistant coaches Joyce Prive and Caleb Houston and FGCU cheerleaders, and most importantly, thank you to all the athletes for having me around so I can support you in your respected sports.

It's never goodbye because goodbye is forever, it's more like see you soon. I'll try and come to some of the athletic events on campus for alumni weekend or something because I want to see us play UNA and Liberty for conference play, and when I come back to visit, I want to see the same hype that happens year-by-year from the Dirty Birds.

Thank you to my fellow readers, Wings up and Go Eagles.

Patrick Clines

P.S.: The blogs will still be available to be read on the website, so I won't take the blog down at all.

link: https://thefgcudirtybird.blogspot.com/

Below are photos of me and the athletes and coaches from the 2017-18 school year:

With softball player and fellow SCF alum Erica Ward

With Taylor Bauman

With Ashley Biddle

With Ahnie Jumper

With Riley Withrow

With Nat Lopez on her 22nd birthday

With Marissa Mesiemore

With Morgan White

With Racquel Fournet

With Brooke Clemens and Bri Bennett

With Bri Innamorato and Farley Callaghan

With Kesley Huff

With Kate Kelly

With Lulu Newmark

With Brittany McGuire

With Ashley Swiderksi

With Riley Randolph

With Julianna Curtis

With the women's tennis team. From left to right (Julia Ascua, Madison Gallegos, Laura Falceto Font, me, Julianna Curtis, Bridget Forster, Maja Ornberg, Sofia Perez and Patricia Villar)

With Brittany McGuire

With Maja Ornberg

With the men's tennis team: from left to right (head coach CJ Weber, student manager Danny Miller, Nicolas Tibaudin, Juan Montes, Felipe Ramirez, Marcelo Tebet, Ezequiel Cerrini, Austin Bates, Javier Fernandez, Mateo Ruiz, Felipe Escobar, Oliver Landert, assistant coach Lucas Vaz)

With Patricia Villar

With Madison Gallegos

With Sofia Perez

With Julia Ascua

With Felipe Ramirez

With Mateo Ruiz

With Juan Montes

With Felipe Escobar

With Oliver Landert

With head softball coach Dave Deiros

With Jamie Cohen

With Bailey Spenlau

With Caragan Phillips

With Joe Lopez

With Phillips and Kelsey Allen

Posing with Olivia Scalleri

With Patrick Natali aka Patty Ice

With the basketball band

With Melissa Mazurkiewicz

With Keri Jewett-Giles

With Brittany Borman

With Tyra Ward

With Phillips after the Women's Tournament Championship

With Paige Pitkin and Ernest Dorman

With Dorman

With Pitkin

With Joe Wright

With Zhara Fayad

With Chandler Ryan

With Nasrin Ulel

With Erica Nelson

With China Dow

With my best friends: Taylor Grandijan (left) and Jessica Cattani (right)

With Fournet

With Alyssa Blair

With Darnell Rogers

With Brady Ernst

With Marc Coffers (left) and Alex Brait (center)

With Spencer Levine

With Jay Hayes

With Christian Townsend

With Eli Lovell

With Richie Garcia

With Kenton Hering

With Ranolph

With Biddle

With assistant softball coach Jamie Kertes

With callaghan

With Petra Halmai

With Michael Gilmore

With Zach Johnson

With Troy Baxter Jr

With Raysean Scott Jr

With Christian Carlyle

With Josh Ko

With Dinero Mercurius

With Christian Terrell

With Kyle Hoffman

With Brian Thomas

With Ryan McAdoo

With Antravious Simmons

With Ryan Roucant

With Dow

With Davion Wingate

With Grandijan

With Tytionia Adderly

With Cattani

With Liberty Brown

With Samantha Kisiel

With Lisa Zderadicka

With Sheahen Dowling

With Ryan

With Courtney Stephens

With Albert Ruiz

With Josh Morgan

From left to right: (Curtis, Ornberg, Villar, Arion Sobers-Assue, Gallegos, Kareem Riley, Falceto Font, Perez, Gustavo Vasconcelos) 

With Riley, Chris Clement and Vasconcelos

With Riley and Clement

With Nicolas Samayoa

With assistant volleyball coach Daniel Mahy

With Mikal Bartosik

With Amanda Carroll

With Sharonda Pickering

From left to right (Snowy Burnam, Ciara DeBell, Cortney VanLiew, Karissa Rhoades, Stephens, Kaiti Krivdo, Alayna Ryan, Maggie Rick, Pickering and Danielle Serrano)

With Dylan Sacramento, Robert Ferrer, Miguel Jaime and Ruiz

With Petra Smetkova (left) and Meghan Mulligan (center)

With Varin Ness

With Dennis Zapata

With Miguel Perez

From left to right (Ashley Parks, Marjorie Boilesen, Nikki Hudson and Lauren Greene

With Shay Jackson

With Natalie Schaps

With Holly Fritz

With Hope Van Wagner

With Lauren Moss and Kavina Ganeshan

With Boilesen

With Smetkova

With Carroll

With former assistant volleyball coach Kim Maroon

With head volleyball coach Matt Botsford

With Stephens

With Burnam

With VanLiew

With Rick

With Krivdo

With Serrano

With Ryan

With Giovanna Borgiotti

With Ciara Debell

With Zderadicka

With Ryan

With Jordan Lue

With Bri Innamorato after graduation

From left to right: Josh Ko, Me, Christian Terrell and Antravious Simmons after graduation