Monday, June 16, 2008

A Little Late, But Here’s My Own Unique Tim Russert Tribute

By now just about everyone has shared their thoughts on how they’ll remember Tim Russert. I’ll certainly miss his excellent work every Sunday morning on Meet the Press. He really was the best political interviewer out there. But, rather than focus on his journalism I think I should share a story about the one way that Tim actually, indisputably, impacted my life. He helped make sure I got to the University of Miami.

Back when graduation from Valencia was nearing I figured out that UM was the place I should go after graduation. This was a surprise to everyone, including myself, considering I had spend the better part of two decades planning to go to the University of Florida. After explaining how UM was a much better place for me to study philosophy there was only one challenge remaining and it was a big one: How to explain to mom and dad that UM’s $28,000 tuition could actually be affordable compared to UF’s much lower in-state public school tuition?

I had worked the numbers out for myself over and over, but for some reason it didn’t seem like I could convince anyone else that UM would cost less after applying the financial aid they would give. So, I thought long and hard about how to explain such a convoluted equation in a simple, straightforward, understandable way. And then it came to me…

AN ERASABLE MARKER BOARD!

The rest, as they say, is history.
Thanks for the idea Tim, I loved every minute of being at UM.

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