It’s inevitable when you are on the beat of a sports team that you will learn who your favorites are, despite how professional or unbiased you are. It’s human nature to like some people more than others, and when you get to know someone over one or multiple years, their true self shows itself.
When I covered Washington State, Gardner Minshew was always a great source for quotes. At Auburn, it was always entertaining to talk to certain student-athletes. Zep Jasper comes to mind. So do many of the 2022 Auburn baseball team that made it to Omaha. Keionte Scott was always nice, and his success this year at Miami made me smile more than it should have.
However, if you ask the majority of the media who have covered Auburn over the past five or six years, two names will almost certainly be at the top of the list: Derick Hall and Dylan Cardwell.
Those two just completed arguably the best moments of their lives. And, as Auburn fans know, their love for Auburn is returned in every single way.
Derick Hall wins first Super Bowl ring
Everyone knows the story about Hall’s birth, in which he was born dead, doctors gave him very little chance to live, and then, 20 years later, he became an All-SEC performer and second-round pick in the NFL draft. On Sunday, in the biggest game of his life in Super Bowl LX, Hall showed why no one – doctors, opponents, coaches, fans – should ever doubt him, recording two sacks, two tackles for a loss and a forced fumble as the Seattle Seahawks made life miserable for the New England Patriots and quarterback Drake Maye.
In a score that looked closer than the actual game, Hall walked out of Levi’s Stadium with a Super Bowl ring.
Leave Santa Clara and travel 120 miles or so northeast in California, and you will find the best story in the NBA this season. Dylan Cardwell was a lot of things at Auburn, including a fan favorite, jokester, and first to take his shirt off in the stands at Jordan-Hare Stadium (Hall would follow suit at basketball games), but there were not many that he would be doing what he’s currently doing for the Sacramento Kings.
After five seasons at Auburn, in which he got better every season, Cardwell went undrafted but was picked up by the Kings in a two-way contract. Many players who sign those take time to make a difference in the NBA. That’s not Cardwell’s way.
The big man has played so well and, of course, become a fan favorite in Sacramento so quickly that he was put on a full contract last Thursday. The details of the contract pay him a guaranteed $870,000 this season and $2.15 million next year. That’s life-changing money for Cardwell, who has worked his way from role player to scoring a double-double for the Kings last week.
Hall and Cardwell will always be welcome back at Auburn, and I’m certain that they will return and pay back to the university that gave them so much. I joked with Cardwell that he would one day become the university president, but I wasn’t fully joking. These two guys make a difference on the floor, sure, but it’s the impact they have off of it that made them so popular on the Plains.
After his last collegiate game, Hall came into the press room and did something that rarely happens: he thanked the media for all of the coverage they had given him during his time at Auburn. It was a heartfelt speech that meant as much to us as it did to him. Cardwell basically did the same after the tough Final Four loss to Florida last April, expressing his appreciation for us, the media.
In a world where it seems bad people continue to build up victories, it’s nice to see two of the nicest get their due.