Ethan Hanson: Words aren't enough. Thank you, Lafayette

Writing on a Friday morning, and what I feel is true terror. A paralyzing fear of the news I'm about to break and of the hearts about to be shredded for what I'm about to unveil. Ethan Hanson is leaving Lafayette and heading back to Los Angeles to take a dream job at the newspaper he grew up in and to fulfill his dream of eventually covering the Olympics.

Seems perfect right? The guy from California gets to go back to his hometown to write another memorable chapter. But as I sit here on a wonky, black bar chair writing, I can't help to think about everything I'm about to lose.

The relationships and friendships I've made in just over three years of covering high school sports and Purdue women's basketball. The parents I've connected with, the strokes of luck I've had because of Hoosier Hospitality guiding me either to the right direction when I was lost or simply needed an ear when I missed my family and wasn't able to see them during the holiday. In the course of being a stranger, I was somehow melded into this wonderful, beautiful and passion driven sports community where the Boilermakers are loved above all win or lose and the biggest pulse of a gymnasium was felt on a snowy day in January inside either West Lafayette, Frankfort, Michigantown or Monon.

Writing this, it pains me to say that I'm leaving Lafayette to head back to Los Angeles and become the leader of the very newspaper, the Los Angeles Daily News, that picked me up as a freelancer many years ago. The paper I never said 'no' too and took every assignment. My editors didn't know that sometimes I'd cut class during college to take assignments.