We were summer interns, living in Tampa, Fla., fresh off our 21st birthdays, but Steve Jackson and I didn’t spend any time together in the city’s infamous Ybor City bar district, not after early July.
Throughout my teenage years, I would wait in line hours before the store opened on the release day for EA Sports’ NCAA Football series. It was no different that summer, even as I was supposed to be working to convince my editors at the Tampa Tribune to give me a real job. (They did not, and as you read further, that won’t surprise you.)
The first weekend after procuring our prize, Steve, a friend from college, and I went into hibernation, playing the game nonstop and dreaming of what that year’s Michigan football season would bring. The answer was more heartache, of course, but as we plowed through the Big Ten on his Playstation2 into the wee hours of the morning, we found an…
