I remember the day I first dropped him off at daycare. It was a cold day, in February 2008. He was 11 months old, and he couldn’t even walk yet. He could say a few words and was in the early days of eating solid food. I handed over my baby to Liza, who ran a wonderful program out of her home, and I walked away.
Then I cried. What was I thinking? How could I let someone else spend these precious moments with my child? He was so young, and so vulnerable. He needed me for everything, and he was already on his own.
And yet, he thrived. Baby Matthew, aged 11 months, made his first friends, learned to eat all kinds of solid food and share his toys. He moved on to preschool, then elementary school, middle school and high school. Everywhere he went, Matthew was successful.
My little boy who loved Dora the Explorer, Thomas the Tank Engine and Lego, grew into a sports fan as a child and an accomplished student, with an ambition to succeed one day in the baseball business.
In part one, we were in Miami, Florida, as we traveled to yet another location to visit universities. In 2024, Matthew checked out a number of schools, all with programs that offered a major in Sports Administration, and he kept an open mind as to what would be the best fit for him.
On a very cold day in early 2025, he was accepted into the place that became his first choice: University of Miami, in sunny Florida. UM, as I’ve learned to call it, wasn’t even on Matthew’s radar a year ago. But it offered him the double major program he desired, a beautiful campus, a welcoming community and even a small scholarship!
If a career in baseball operations is what Matthew desires, then a university in south Florida, with a top-25 ranked NCAA team and a great sports administration program was the right choice. By early Spring, Matthew accepted the offer from the University of Miami.
Fast forward to this week. Time flew by too fast, as Matthew completed his final exams, graduated high school as an Ontario Scholar, and went to overnight camp as a counselor. On Friday, Aug. 9 he came home, and in less than 24 hours, we unpacked and washed (eew, everything from camp must be washed!) his clothes then repacked them.
By Saturday evening we were on a plane, headed south to Miami to move Matthew into school. Where did the time go? Didn’t I just drop off my little blond-haired toddler at daycare? Every first day he experienced raced across my mind as we sat on the plane
I remember how he proudly wore his little Thomas the Tank Engine backpack when he started preschool at age 2 ½. He waved good bye to me as he walked into his classroom on his first day of kindergarten. He didn’t want to show his nervousness as he went to the subway in grade 9, at the start of high school. He grew more independent every day, but I knew he still needed me. He lived with me and was part of our household.
We landed in Miami Saturday night and walked out of the airport terminal to a wall of heat (although Toronto may have been hotter). By the time we left the airport, the skies had opened up, and we drove to our hotel in what seemed like a monsoon. Destination: Coral Gables.
College Dorm Prep
Not only is Matthew my oldest child, which makes me clueless about how to move a teenage boy into college, but we are Canadian, which made all of us even more clueless about what it’s like to move in to a US college dorm.
Matthew traveled with two huge duffle bags of clothes and basic supplies, including one set of Twin XL sheets (look it up, interesting size) that I had bought on Amazon. I had built a basic list of must-haves before the Monday move-in day, so off to Target we went.
It’s not that we don’t have big-box in Canada or that Canadian kids don’t go off to university, but I quickly saw how mega-sized the United States is. We wove our way through a multi-storey above-ground parking garage then walked into a Target that was so big you couldn’t see from one end to the other. The big signs for what to buy for a college dorm were everywhere. I was quickly overwhelmed.
People were running everywhere, filling up their carts with everything from towels and sheets to mini fridges and shelving units. Does Matthew want a grey quilt or blue? One or two pillows? Do we get him beach towels now or later? Should his laundry hamper be on wheels? Oh gosh, we need to buy him laundry detergent. Don’t forget to get a mini fridge! It was mayhem.
By the time we limped back to our hotel room on Sunday evening, after a day of shopping and great pizza in downtown Coral Gables, I was delirious. We all fell into bed quickly, exhausted and anxious for the coming day.
Off to campus we go
Car loaded with duffles, dozens of bags from Target and the mini-fridge, we made our way to the University of Miami campus. I will give them credit: Freshmen welcome, move-in and orientation is a well-oiled machine.
After we parked our car and made our way to the check-in area, I thought about the different words one can use to describe “hot.” Are there special words in South Florida, like sweltering, searing, roasting, blistering or boiling? They’re all accurate.
With his Cane Card in hand, we spent much of the day getting to know the campus better, dropping off forms, eating lunch at the Kosher deli (not really deli as we know it, but it was really good), and surviving the extraordinary heat. Everywhere I turned I saw 18-year-old kids with their parents, all looking a bit confused and overwhelmed. You could see that mix of excitement and joy but also anxiety and trepidation. We felt at home.
College dorm move in
They called it “Cruise Ship Move-In.” We were instructed to get in our car, drive up and get in line at Matthew’s residence. We pulled up front, when it was our turn, and a group of strong and energetic people, all dressed in fluorescent yellow t-shirts surrounded us. They removed everything in the car that wasn’t nailed down, put the stuff in giant rolling bins and whisked them off to Matthew’s room. We drove on and parked our car again. It was astounding.
When we arrived in Matthew’s dorm a little while later, everything had been delivered. Chatting with his roommate’s family, we all got to work putting the boys’ room together. I quickly realized I had to make new lists and that Matthew was clearly lacking in the comfort supplies necessary! I peeked into other rooms and giggled about how much stuff these teenage kids (or was it their parents?) were loading into these modest 13 x 13 foot rooms.
Should I be thankful I have a son who is semi-clueless about décor and would be happy sleeping on a semi-lumpy bed surrounded by blank walls? But I’m his mother. I can’t allow that! After his basic set-up was complete, we said good bye just for the night, and my husband and I returned to the stores to load up on more stuff.
This time we went to Walmart, and I went in armed with the knowledge of what Matthew really needed. I grabbed a soft rug, a nice big cushion for his bed, cleaning supplies for the bathroom (will those ever be used?), a mattress topper (I can’t let him sleep on that lumpy mattress), storage boxes, and more. I had arrived at Target a novice, but I left Walmart an expert!
Saying good bye
After a visit to yet another Target in the morning to get a few final items, we returned to the University of Miami campus on Tuesday to complete the dorm set up. The dorm isn’t fancy, and the building is showing its age. Pink tiles on the walls of the bathroom aren’t exactly what the guys in Matthew’s suite love, but it’s home this year. It’s comfortable, very convenient and I could see that Matthew is happy.
After Matthew “treated us” to lunch (we used his meal plan that of course we had paid for) in the residence dining hall (fresh fruit and veggies, choices galore like pizza from a wood-burning oven, grill and pasta and oh my gosh unlimited soft-serve ice cream), we took another walk around campus.
Across the campus we were greeted with smiles and friendly faces. It was such a warm environment (and I don’t just mean the 34 degree heat). During the move-in process we didn’t even touch on the academic side of the school – it was all about the dorm, food, living expenses and student life.
The four-year university process ahead for Matthew is all encompassing, from academics and career planning to finding a comfortable and safe place to live and making life-long friends. It’s a lot, and it really hit me as I started to say good bye to Matthew.
His dorm was set up, tuition was paid, classes chosen and he’d already made a pile of new friends. He was going to be okay. But was I? The tears welled up as I gave him the last hug good bye. He was ready for me to leave. Matthew was ready for the next phase of life. Unlike the little baby who crawled across the floor at daycare, 18-year-old Matthew doesn’t just walk and talk, he’s a mature, smart, kind incredible young adult who is going places in life.
And of course I miss him. Of course I can’t stop thinking of that day when I dropped him off at daycare. He thrived there, just like he will thrive in university. He’s growing up.
***
Below is the essay Matthew wrote for his US College applications. I admit I’m a bit biased, but it’s such an excellent piece of writing that I feel it deserves to be read by more people than his mother and the admissions teams of different universities:
I walked into Wrigley Field in awe of everything. The patterned grass, brick walls smothered with ivy, rust colored staircases that looked like they could collapse at any moment, all felt dream-like to me. But the smell stood out the most — the century-old atmosphere where thousands of games were played, with a fresh one starting. I’d followed my home team Blue Jays since 2015, but now in Chicago in 2017, I was breathing baseball history, a moment I’ll never forget.
The game was a back and forth, high scoring showdown. The Cubs came out on top, adding another loss in a miserable season for the Jays. Despite that, I remember the warm atmosphere I felt from Cubs fans. Their conversations, expressions, and kindness were a surprise, showing the communal nature of baseball. I’d seen a typical game but discovered a passion to carry through my life.
Since then, my desire to learn and engulf myself in baseball skyrocketed. I talked about it all the time, spent hours watching TV and even unsuccessfully tried out for a house-league team. But no regrets, as I always felt I connected best with baseball’s observational aspects, eventually leading to my next revelation.
In 2020, I spent a lot of time on a screen. It’s when I discovered baseball’s analytical side. With my knack for numbers, I understood the depth of baseball statistics but never took the time to explore them. Everything I thought I understood was the tip of the iceberg of the world I was about to delve into. I started with Youtube, watching countless videos with insights into players, teams, and stories that highlight hidden values. I learned the meaning behind the advanced numbers that power the engine behind player evaluations. I fell in love with all of it.
Baseball has a unique characteristic that separates it from other sports: it has the power of isolation. Every single pitch is a separate entity from the previous. On that pitch, so much can be calculated: spin rate, velocity, movement, shape, release point, and more, happening over 200 times a game. That ball then meets a bat where the exit velocity, launch angle, bat speed, barrel rate, all serve a purpose. Compare this to basketball, where alternatively, there are many variables within every play. Does a player score because of a good pass, was it bad defence, or maybe it was a great move? Maybe it was everything, but that’s the problem. Finding metrics to evaluate 10 players simultaneously moving at high speeds is difficult, an issue baseball simply just doesn’t have. It’s this perspective that has driven my mission to go as far as I can into baseball knowledge, where numbers and real life collide like no other sport.
With my appreciation of the sports world exponentially growing, I then discovered something else engaging: fantasy. It started with football, a sport that was relatively new to me. Building a team of real-life players, competing with others for precious points, and ultimately trying to win a championship, is something that fascinated me. I was soon watching 10 different games on Sundays, cheering on my players. I became quite good, upping the buy-ins for each league, and taking home my fair share of the profit. My favorite part is the managing aspect of it, when to buy low, sell high, find value where others don’t. This sparked something in me I hadn’t considered before: what if I could bring these skills together as the foundation of my career?
With my love of baseball – the sport, analytics and fantasy, I want to work in the real industry. There is endless opportunity in a game that is rapidly evolving and progressing, with new insights and methodologies appearing every year. I am aware of how little I truly know, and I strive to continue to learn, to eventually make my dream come true.
