It’s story time. So there I was, sitting in the sports center at Channel 13 a little more than a week ago.

I’d finished my intern-related duties for the moment, which includes producing Sports Sound-Off, (viewable on Sunday nights at 10:35. A shameless plug, but then again, I have no shame) and was hanging out waiting for the news to begin.

On this particular night a certain nationally-known figure was coming into the station to give a live interview.

This person came in a couple hours early, so he hung out in the sports center and watched the mighty Redskins trash the Carolina Panthers.

No one else was around most of the time, so he watched the game with a lowly intern. Me.

I actually watched a football game with Jesse Jackson.

Yep, just me chilling with the reverend. Hanging out with the leader of the Rainbow Coalition. Can you get more bizarre than that?

It was a fun time, though he was quiet for most of it. Just an occasional comment about what was going on in the game or in the station. Absolutely no rhyming. I guess he saves that for when the cameras are on.

But enough of my name dropping and story telling, let’s get to the other point of the column: I’m retiring.

Yep, this is it for me. After this week I’m calling it quits at the Daily. You’ll just have to find your amusement elsewhere.

It wasn’t so much the pressure to entertain, the stress of school, work and an internship that led me to quit as much as it was my desire to devote my full attention to achieving my lifelong goal: to eat my own weight in cheese.

Unfortunately my Colby-driven ambitions conflict exactly with the time I usually a lot to writing this column. One of them just had to go.

Seriously though, I just don’t have the time to devote to this anymore.

I also think once you’ve said everything you’ve got to say, there’s really no point in hanging around taking up space and wasting people’s time.

So I’m retiring, and the retirement is going to stick. This isn’t going to be one of those Larry Holmes/Chad Calek/Sugar Ray Leonard things; I’m gone for good.

But before I go, I’d like to throw out a few last things:

The Jaguars are going to the Super Bowl this year. Look at this team — they just insert any QB and keep on rolling. I’m thinking of trying out.

The Bulls will win it again next season, then be dismantled. Tim Floyd will be named the successor to Phil Jackson.

The Cyclone football team will win a game. I don’t know which one, but hey, the sun even shines on a dead dog’s butt every once in a while.

The ‘Clones hockey team will recover under the awesome coaching of Al Murdoch to finally overcome Ohio and bring home the national championship.

And sports, though fun to obsess about and hopefully the area of my future employment, will remain only the fifth or sixth most important thing in my life.

Well that’s it for me. I’d like to say I’m going out on top, but sometimes it’s more fun on the bottom.

Elvis has left the building.

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Kevin Petty is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Carlisle.