I missed a lot of opportunities, squandered some others, and completely wasted a few more. For the first time in my life, I walked off of a job (and though it felt really good at the time, in hindsight it was a terrible decision). There were some phone calls and emails that I didn’t make that I regret almost daily.

I had my confidence as a writer shaken to it’s core, something I’m still trying to get over. It turns out that there actually is such a thing as being too honest, and I found out first person what happens when you let the absolute truth fly through your fingers without giving it a few seconds of consideration. People get angry, and you get told – sternly – to watch your step.

There are some people who, when 2011 started, were my best friends in the world but now I’m not so sure. It amazes me how much a decision made in self preservation – for my own happiness – has come to haunt me. Those people have proven to me the difference between friend and acquaintance. And poser. I hope I’m wrong about them, but I fear I’m not.

I turned thirty this year. This isn’t really such a bad thing, but it does give one pause and begs life’s priorities to be reevaluated. There’s no denying it anymore I’m an adult, and as such I have no excuse for not acting like it.

But, this is a new year. Two Thousand Twelve will be a good good year for me, whether it wants to or not. I refuse to make the same mistakes on this calendar that I made on the last.

This January First I live in a new place, have a great new girl, have reconnected with my tried and true core of friends and – somewhat thankfully – have a blank slate as far as employment is concerned. All of that, as far as I’m concerned, means that I’m in a perfect position to start this new year off right.

The suckitude that was 2011 taught me a lot of lessons, and reinforced some that I had previously refused to learn. This year, I will not repeat my mistakes. I will work hard – in all facets – to ensure that I come out of this year a better man.

I’m not (publicly) stating any of my goals, the only thing I’m declaring – because if you’re reading this you know me well enough to tell if I’m being successful – is that I will do everything I can to make 2012 a success.

Because, let’s be honest, 2011 was a failure and I won’t fail again. I’m too old to get beaten buy another year.

Here, in all of it’s unedited 2700-word glory, is my interview with ZipSix:

1) What is your first soccer memory? Was it a game you played in, saw on TV, saw in person? Best non-Crew soccer memory? (If you’re like me your best soccer memory is MLS Cup 08, but other than that…?)

In second grade I lived in Brecksville, Ohio, not too far from Richfield Coliseum, and my dad would take me to see the Cleveland Force. I think I was hooked from the very beginning. The orange ball. Darth Vader pounding on the glass before games. Cris Vaccaro and Ali Kazemaini. Kai Haaskivi. These were my heroes. I remember the Baltimore Blast and that the goalkeeper for the Kansas City Comets would wear a football helmet. It was a great time to be a kid. I had no idea that indoor soccer wasn’t really real outside of America. I played youth soccer like every other kid in the 80’s in Ohio, both indoor and out, and we had awesome team names like Fireballs and Blue Blasters, and we always made the playoffs in my memories, but I doubt we always did.

In 1994 I was back in Lowell, Massachusetts, where my grandmother lived because she had recently passed away and the World Cup was on. I went crazy over it. I made my extended family watch Ireland – Italy or something and when anyone scored I changed the channel to Univision so we could hear Andres Cantor yell GOOOOOOOOOL and if you can’t get excited about that then you have no business watching soccer, let alone breathing oxygen.

My favorite non-Crew soccer related moment was being at the Crew Stadium watch party for our 2002 World Cup opening game, USA – Portugal and scoring so early. I was wearing a lucky blue shirt and I had left my girlfriend back in bed to drive over to the stadium. We scored early. We took such a huge lead. “Drubbing Portugal” as Jack Edwards said and then we held on for dear life. 2002 was an amazing World Cup.

2) Let’s talk about Crew memories: What is your first? Your favorite? The one that you will tell your grandkids about?

My first Crew memory is the first game I attended in person in 1997 in Ohio Stadium. I went with high school friends, one of whom was a DC United fan, probably because he was a huge front runner and not worth being friends with. I don’t remember much about the game. We were given free programs, the grass was green, and the popcorn was salty. I had a good time but I guess I didn’t really get it in 1997.

From there I watched on TV because I went to school at University of Illinois from 98 to 2001, and when I was home for the summer I would go up to Columbus especially after Crew Stadium had opened. I met friends, someway or another, in Section 137. The infamous V-Army. I brought a drum and played. I acted like I was one of them, even though I was mostly by myself, and then somehow some day I was one of them. I was V-Army.

In 2000 we were horrible. Dead last in the “central conference”— long may it be dead. In 2001 and 2002, we were a good team. Not great, but not awful. And we got knocked out the playoffs in the first round a lot. We made the Open Cup run in 2002 that was basically, magical. In 2004, it was the year of The Penalty Kicks game and it took three years for this club to scrub of the stench of those two missed penalty kicks.

I will tell my kids I saw Guillermo Barros Schelotto, who above all else was a winner, play for my favorite club and lead them to our first championship, past all of our demons: the Conference Final, the Chicago Fire, etc.

3) What was your first reaction to Black Monday, when the Crew decided not to renew the options of that core group of players? And then after seeing the draft class and other additions, did your feelings change?

Black Monday was a botch job. From a PR perspective it was a total and utter botch job and I got the sense it happened because of ego. There’s a lot of really weird ego that has always emanated from the front office. I have always had the sense that Warzycha is a my-way-or-highway kind of coach and that he benched Schelotto in Salt Lake to prove a point, but ended up proving more of a point about what a horrible strategic coach he was. Maybe tactically that isn’t a bad move, but strategically it’s perhaps the most idiotic decision I’ve ever seen a coach make, including when Andrulis sat Buddle for The Penalty Kicks game and started old Dante Washington up top as a lone striker even though we needed goals. Come to find out Andrulis probably had to do that because Buddle was allegedly violating team policies. Anyway, Guillermo Barros Schelotto just lead your team to a Championship, and a second straight Shield, and he lives to play in big games, and he starts on the bench in Salt Lake. Why? Honestly, why did that happen?

What rational person would do that? Have we ever received an answer? I mean an answer that wasn’t a total lie about “team speed” or something. Anyway, there’s a lot of this kind of reasoning that went into Black Monday. They said “uh, we looked at the stats and we’re actually a better team with out Guillermo.” They actually said that to the Dispatch! He’s the only player we’ve ever had to win the league MVP, he is two years off a championship season, and he lead the team in goals and assists, but you know, we’ll be better without him. He lead the team in goals and assists. In 2011, he’s not fit to play? Really? But we’ll be fine because we’re scouring the second division for world champions like Tom Heinemann. Sure.

So, Black Monday is about Schelotto. It’s not about Hejduk, or Padulla, or Oughton, who legends as they were, had lost a step (some of them two) and needed to be thanked for their service.

Now, why we got rid of Carroll no one can tell you. I guess it was so we could protect Lenhart in the expansion draft to later trade away for Mendoza’s contract cash and the rights to pick Justin Meram. Awesome. I like Meram but our modern history drafting strikers in the first round isn’t spectacular (cough: Jason Garey.)

4) How did you feel about Warzycha as a player? As a coach? Do you think he was the right choice to follow Sigi and continue the upward trend of the Crew? Do you agree that if the Crew win the east he should be in the Coach of the Year conversation?

Warzycha as a Crew player? Doesn’t really stand out in my memory. Sometimes he hit a good dead ball, sometimes he made a crunching tackle when asked to, and he came in late in the Open Cup final in 2003 and cleared the ball of the line. Yay.

He was clearly not the right choice to coach the Crew in 2009. Are you kidding? The right choice to coach the Crew in 2009 was Sigi Schmid but we couldn’t hold on to our coach because the front office couldn’t show Sigi Schmid “forget about the West Coast” kind of money.

The history of the Columbus Crew, if you’ll permit me, is to hire from within, fail, give the failures a year longer than they deserve, and hire their assistants. Robert Warzycha is a company man from whom you can draw a line straight back to Greg Andrulis. The one time in history of our club we hired a proven outsider we won the championship three years later. Every other hire has been a failure. You know who I want to coach the team? Someone who doesn’t think it’s a good idea to bench Guillermo Barros Schelotto in a playoff game.

If we win the East, Warzycha should definitely be coach of the year, because anytime you unnecessarily tear down your own team, and then luck your way into first place in a substandard division you should be given a trophy with Greg Andrulis’s name on it.

Next to the “he didn’t get a chance to build his own team before now” argument, this really bothers me. If I tear down my awesome palatial house but then build another cheaper crappier house in six days, I should get an award because no one expected me to build a cheap, crappy house in six days? Really? The point to judge the success of Warzycha’s tenure in office from is November 2008. Sorry if that’s “unfair.”

5) How do you feel about the overall trend of the team? What, if anything, is your biggest concern going forward towards the end of 2011?

We are learning to win close games, which in MLS, is very important, because MLS is nothing but close games. Also, something really nice is happening with Anor, Ekpo, and to a lesser extent, Duka. They are exciting and they take players on, which is very un-Columbusian.

We’re a median team now. That’s us seventh out of nineteen. Right in the middle. Not showing off. Not falling behind. In the meaty part of the curve. And people on BigSoccer celebrate beating Vancouver in the 90^th minute like its some achievement.

You know what we didn’t do in 2008 or 2009 or 2010? Lose to Chicago at home. Lose to ugly stinking cheating lousy Chicago. In 2011 we did. I love that we beat Colorado 4-1, and I know in MLS anything can happen after that whistle blows. That’s why it’s the best soccer league in the world. But I’d like to see some consistency from us.

My biggest concern ought to be all Crew fans’ concerns, which is that we’ll be dumped out of the playoffs in the first round.

6) If you could replace any current Crew player with any past player (save for Guille – that’s a given), who would you swap and why? What about current Crew member for current MLS player?

I would replace Dejan Rusmir with Mark Williams, because they’re basically the same player and Williams’ has a much more attractive WAG. Why are we paying Dejan Rusmir so much money? It frustrates me.

Current players? Easy. Lenhart is a better player than Heinemann. I’d make that swap everyday of the week. You know, Lenhart occasionally scores.

7) Who is your dream Crew coaching staff (Coach, 2 assistants, TD)?

I just have this sense that if Schelotto coached the Crew he’d find a way to win championships, because that’s all he knows how to do.

8 ) How do you see 2011 ending for the Crew? Who wins the SS? MLS Cup?

I see a playoff exit. Lose 0-1 in Philly. Draw at home. See you later 2011.

As for winners, Seattle is on a tear right now. Why not them? We’ll know more in late October. Colorado took a long time to warm up last year. There’s still time for everyone. Even us. We could win the Cup this year, but something else is going to have to happen. We need to play more like we did against Houston and a lot less like we did against Chicago.

9) Other than the team moving, what is it that you fear the most for the Crew?

I fear most for the Crew what is happening now in New England. Total desultory neglect.

10) What is it about the 2011 version of the total Crew package (players, staff, fans) that bugs you the most? What advice do you have for those fans that haven’t been around as long as you have?

I wish people would just be greater students of history. Record wise, the Crew are one of the best regular season teams in Major League Soccer history. I think only DC and LA have won more games. But it hasn’t translated to playoff success for us. We’ve only been to one MLS Cup final. The people who brought us there? They were shown the door or left for a better offer. Why is there this faith that we’ll get back? I have hope. I have hope we’ll go back to LA for the Cup this year. I want to go. But I don’t have faith that we will. I saw us miss two Penalty Kicks on October 31, 2004, the year we won the Supporters’ Shield. I saw us lose to Chicago and Seattle in Open Cup finals.

It just seems to me that no one really gets it. Perhaps the player who won more championships than any other club player in the history of Argentina played for our silly Midwestern MLS club. What are the odds of that? It just doesn’t happen. We were blessed by it. But instead of trying to hold on to that blessing, to mine it for knowledge and goodwill, we made it a $40,000 offer and ran it out of town.

Why? It seems to me that ego got in the way. Maybe Bliss’s, maybe Warzycha’s maybe McCullers? I don’t know. Maybe they all felt if they shipped Guillermo away he couldn’t take their jobs in one year’s time. I have no idea why it happened.

11) If you could say one thing to Warzycha, what would it be?

What specifically do you bring to the table that another coach wouldn’t?

Steve, understandably, didn’t answer the next few questions. He had already said quite a bit, and – honestly – they’re a little superflous.

12) Compare these last two years with the dark ages of the mid 2000s? Better/worse/same? What’s different about the current Crew problems then back then?

13) What is the biggest positive you see in this squad? The biggest surprise? The biggest let down? The most predictable thing about 2011?

14) What happened to Robbie? He’s a shadow of his former self, but why? (If you don’t agree, just talk about the heat Rogers is getting, etc

15) Do you think there is any hope for Warzycha? Has the Crew lost the plot?

I wouldn’t say we’ve lost the plot as a team. I think we are doing the best we can right now with the situation that we’re in, and that goes for the fans too. Black Monday wasa blunt force trauma and we’re coping. We are telling each other it’s going to be okay. A lot of people are basically saying, no—lets not talk about it anymore, it’s over. Let’sfocus on San Jose on Saturday. Well, no. Wait a minute. Our team fell apart. We’re building another one, sure, but why did the last one—that championship one- fall apart? WHY? Honestly why? At one point McCullers said, well if you want to keep Schelotto you’d have to get rid of two of X, Y, Z, Mendoza and Rogers. And everyone on the internet shouted: duh, get rid of Mendoza and Rogers. Like, this isn’t hard. But the front office, in its wisdom, chose to go its own way. We got younger, and we got exciting to the extent that when you really have no idea whatis going to happen or who is going to start it’s kind of exciting. Did you know we started some dude named Eric Gehrig last game? I had never heard of him either, and I follow the team! So yeah, that’s exciting. But it’s not “A Massive Season” exciting. It’s not steamrolling to the Shield and winning the big silver cup.

We’ll be fine because we’ve always been fine. But I just feel like we still could have been great. I mean, I love the Columbus Crew, and I love what it represents. It represents Ohio and the Midwest, and not being New York, and sure as hell not being Chicago. It represents always having a chance, but seemingly always falling short. Except for that one time.

As for Warzycha, I don’t know. I have hope, but not faith, like I said.

When I was in tenth grade, after moving from north central Ohio to The Middle of Nowhere, Virginia, I tried out for basketball. I didn’t do it because I had been a baller at my old school, but instead because I was six foot five and that’s what sixteen year-olds who are that tall do. I’d never played ball on a school team before, just shot around in the driveway with my brothers and friends and played in a couple of church youth leagues. I was, by all accounts, far from a jock.

But, sometime after I’d left my old school and started my new one, I woke up one morning and was taller than everyone else. All of my new classmates asked, almost immediately upon meeting me, if I played basketball. After I answered in the negative – saying instead that I was in the band – I was encouraged by most to try out.

On the day of the tryout, for some reason or another, I couldn’t find a ride to the school (forgive my shakiness on the details, it’s been a few years since I was 16). So when I got to work on a day that I had told my boss that I wouldn’t be there, he asked why I wasn’t at the tryouts. I explained to him my lack of transport and he – in his lovingly gruff way – said he’d take me.

I’d never tried out for anything before in my life. All of the sports I’d played to that point were of the “if you sign up in time you’re on the team” variety. I had no idea what to expect. But, I stood in the gym with everyone else, listened to the coaches, and ran through the drills as best I could. I didn’t wow anyone with my superior speed, footwork, or jumpshot, but I gave it my everything and, thankfully, was far from the worst guy on the floor.

A couple of days later when the results were posted, I was astounded to find my name on the list. I hadn’t been selected to be a player, but rather a student manager – basically a water/towel/ball boy that would hang out with the team at practice and go to all the games. I went to talk to the coach, as the sheet instructed, and he said that they liked what they saw in my hustle, heart, and brain, but that I was currently lacking the basketball skills they were looking for.

Coach went on to say that if I worked on my game (presumably with the team in practices and whatnot), and worked hard as manager that they would give me special consideration to be on the team as a player the next year. After giving his offer about nine seconds thought, I thanked him and respectfully declined. In my head, the value of being a towel boy with a shot at being on the team next year wasn’t worth the money I would lose by attending practices and games instead of working after school.

I sometimes think about that decision, and what things would have been like for the rest of high school had I accepted his offer. I would have made a lot of friends, instead of going through tenth grade all but alone as the new kid. I would have made my family – and my surly boss – proud by seeing it through. I would have moved to that small school in Kentucky (where if you sign up in time you’re on the team) a few months later with a better basketball skillset, meaning I probably would have gotten more playing time my during junior and senior years.

But instead I took the option with the most immediate payoff. How shortsighted I was (don’t get me wrong, that was an awesome job, and without it I probably wouldn’t be half the cook I am today – but that’s not the point).

As I think about the place in life that I currently find myself, and how I’m looking for someone to take a chance on me, this story seems pretty fitting. I’ve worked hard, that’s never been in doubt. I was taught to give everything to every endeavor. But I’ve also taken a lot of paths of immediate payoff. The first time that I think I ever worked hard to prove myself for a chance at something better was when I worked at Honeywell. I was placed there by a temp agency, but worked my butt off for a year proving myself until Honeywell supervisor hired me full time. Had I not loved that job though, I might not have done that. I can say with a lot of certainty that had a better offer come along during that first year I probably would have taken it.

But that experience, coupled with the one from my sophomore year of high school, has taught me an invaluable lesson: Sometimes (most of the time) when you want someone to take a chance, you have to first put in the work to prove that you won’t let them down.

I don’t know why it took nine-hundred words and almost thrity years for me to finally verbalize that, but it did. And it feels good. I promise, to myself and everyone who believes in me, that I won’t pass up a chance to work towards something great ever again.

So, let’s start with the here and now. I’m a decently proficient writer with a passion for sports and storytelling. Mainly storytelling, but sports provide a lot of stories to be told so it works out. I’m building a pretty decent reputation in my admittedly small circle, and it’s high time to move on to the next.

Also, I have this rather large circle of social influence, but I’m not sure a) what to do with it, or b) if that’s even worth anything. But, I think it bears mentioning in this space, if nothing more than a demonstration of value.

But, I want to take my talents to the next level. In my head that means becoming a professional communicator of some kind – writer, talker, show-er, whatever – but I have no idea how to get my foot into that door. I’m not even sure where that door is.

Actually, if I’m going to be honest, I know exactly what I would do to get my foot into one of those doors: I’d charm and schmooze, and then, once standing inside the foyer of “made it” I’d charm some more while working and fighting and scratching and working to prove that I belonged there in the first place.

See, I have a handicap: I’m behind. Not only am I dumbfounded staring at this map, everyone else that has my destination in mind has is already on the road. They all have degrees in things like “journalism” and “PR” and “marketing” or whatever. All I have, other than experience, is a really strong desire to tell stories. To communicate. To do what I love.

Have you ever conveyed an emotion to someone? Do you remember how satisfying it was for them to laugh at your joke or share your tears or ride on the coattails of your excitement? For me, that is like a drug. I love, love, the feeling of bringing someone into a story, of taking them to a place in my head and convincing them that they experienced it with me when in fact all they did was read or listen to my words. That, to me, is the ultimate accomplishment: to transport someone from their reality and into mine.

So yeah, anyway, I’ve hamstrung myself over the last ten years. I’ve got a lot a of experience doing a lot of things – retail management, call center customer service, small business management, photography, supply chain management, even a little bit of radio – but no degree. Not formally anyway.

If I could, I’d give myself a bachelors in “Getting It Done” from Mistakes Were Made State College, and a “Master of Figure It Out” from You’ll Get No Help University. I’m working on my Ph.D. in “Disaster Avoidance,” too.

But none of that matters to the people I want to talk to. They don’t see a degree on my resume, and therefor they don’t see me. I realize that the best and only way to change that is to get a degree, but in the meantime what I am supposed to do? Wait tables? Take phone calls? Sell jeans? And while I’m doing those things I’m just falling further and further behind.

I say no. There has to be a way to get paid to do what that I’m passionate about – and good at – without waiting until I’ve got initials behind my name. Is there no one in the world that will take a chance on me? Is there no one out there that values experience at life as much – if not more – than time in a classroom? Is there not a single potential employer that would read my writing or hear my demo tape and say “Yeah, this guy has it even without the formal education”?

If there isn’t, then I’ll take my defeat and go change oil for the rest of my life. But I seriously doubt that college is the only way to get the job that I want.

My grandfather helped put men on the moon and was instrumental in bringing hundreds of astronauts safely back to Earth, and he – at age 84 – is yet to set foot into a college classroom. Yes, I realize things were different back then, but you see my point: he had desire, ability, and opportunity.

And that’s all I really want: Opportunity. A fair shake. Put my writing sample next to the just-starting-out college graduate’s, Mr. Employer, and compare the two fairly. If mine isn’t better, I’ll accept that and work hard until it is. But if mine is better, why not hire me?

Meadow Soprano once famously said that “College is just a way to prove to employers that you can show up in the same place for four years.” I’m not sure if that’s completely accurate, but I agree with the sentiment: That you can learn a lot of the same things through living life as you can through college. I think it’s time that I get to prove that to someone.

Give me a chance, hire me. You’ll see how much I’ve learned.