MIAMI, Fla. — I'm 67 years old now, so I've been watching and writing about sports for a long, long time. I knew I wanted to be a sports writer when I was in the third grade, just a little 8-year-old kid with big dreams.

But I loved sports and loved to write, and when I first started to read newspapers and saw that people got paid to write about the games and the people, I was all in.

Sports has defined my life and my career path. Much of it has been work, but there's also just being a fan, both as a kid and in my media gaps as an adult.

I moved back to Bloomington in 2019 to add Indiana to my media company, and added many more sites since then. Indiana, though, has always been the priority. And after seven years of covering Hoosiers football — and watching it for close to 50 years before that — these past two years have been amazing.

It's been so much fun, both personally and professionally.

I've done a lot of radio interviews in the past few months, and lately the common theme has been if I ever could have imagined this happening.

The answer isn't just no, it was hell no.

When I was a student at Indiana — and in all the years I wasn't working and was just an alum — Indiana football didn't really mean anything to me. I was more of an alum than a football fan. Football Saturdays in the fall in Bloomington were more about just enjoying the weather and counting down the days to basketball season.

And when I moved to Florida, I rooted for other teams during college football season. I had two kids go to Florida State, and I was even an FSU season ticket holder for a few years. I liked Bobby Bowden as much as I liked Bobby Knight.

I've rooted for a lot of pro teams, too, as a Chicago kid growing up in Northwest Indiana, so when I make a list of my favorite sports nights, they fill a lot of spots on my list.

But there's a new No. 1 at the top on Monday night.

This Indiana football story is simply amazing, and this run to a national title as 100-to-1 long shots has been so fun, for so many reasons. First off, this team is incredibly likable. Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza and his family are really special. There are a dozen other players I've gotten to know well, too, and I'm so happy to see them get rewarded for all their hard work. Their families are awesome, too.

I'm happy for all the coaches, too, plus athletic director Scott Dolson, president Pam Whitten, media relations guys Jeff Keag and Greg Campbell and that lost list of people who've been around Indiana football for a long time.

Being on the field after the game Monday was almost a surreal experience, just seeing the joy in so many faces, young and old. I had literally hundreds of friends scattered throughout Hard Rock Stadium, and was thrilled for all of them.  

This was, without question, the new favorite sports night of my life. A lot of has to do with the improbability of it all, because I could have never imagined it happens. Even more so, it's coming near the end of my career. I got that title before it was too late to enjoy.

Here's my updated top-10 list, and keep in mind, it's all very personal. It's really not your place to say what should be higher or lower, because it's how I feel. Your list, obviously, is different from mine. 

I'll at least tell you why.

Obviously, I love everything that Curt Cignetti has done with the Indiana football program. He's brought the entire university together, from the top down. College football is so fun and so important, but Indiana has never been a factor.

Until now. They just blew through the bluebloods on the way to the national title, beating Ohio State, Alabama, Oregon and Miami. There's more than 30 national titles in that group, and Oregon has been the best team west of the Mississippi for the past decade.

Indiana was the first first-time college football champion since Florida in 1996. In a sport ruled by the blueblods, it's Indiana that broke through. Welcome to the club, Hoosiers.  

My two favorite athletes of all time are Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. Some of Tiger's major wins could have made this list — especially his first and last Masters wins — but I'll keep this to team sports.

The Bulls' eight-year run of six NBA titles has been my favorite sports era. I never missed a minute living back up in Northwest Indiana again, at least temporarily.

The run of the last three titles helped get me through a difficult time in my life. Recently divorced and away from my kids, Jordan and the Bulls were a great distraction for me. I knew it was going to be all over in 1998, so watching the last title clincher with my entire family was a night I'll never forget. 

The cast of characters on that Chicago Bears team was easy to embrace, and I just loved that team. Pro football was my favorite sport as a kid. Walter Payton, Mike Ditka, Jim McMahon, Dan Hampton and the others were so much fun. They crushed people all year, going 18-1.

At the time, this was really my first Chicago pro championship and I was already 27 years old. That Super Bowl win was shared with family, too. (The 46-10 win was a little more uncomfortable for the Patriots side of the family. They've recovered over time.)

Oh, it's tough to rank the three Indiana basketball NCAA titles in my lifetime. This one, in 1987, comes first. I covered a lot of it, which made it special, and I was really thrilled for Steve Alford, who did so much during his four years at Indiana. He absolutely deserved a title for all he went through during his time at Indiana.

I've also become great friends with Dean Garrett and Keith Smart later in life, which adds to the magical moments from this year. Plus, sadly, it's the last one. Hard to believe it's been nearly 40 years now, with a new Indiana basketball title nowhere in sight.

I grew up a White Sox fan, but never hated the Cubs. This ranks so high because I was so thrilled for my mom that they won. She was 84 at the time, and after she retired, she literally watched every game and could break each one down for hours. She wanted a World Series in her lifetime, and she got it. 

My grandfather turned my mom into a huge baseball fan as a little girl. She took a bit of his money and bought a World Series replica trophy that sits in her living room. Seeing my mom happy — and my little brother, too, I suppose — meant a lot. It mattered too that I knew manager Joe Maddon and player Ben Zobrist from their time with the Tampa Bay Rays. It was a very cool night watching them win in Cleveland.

My time in Bloomington was from the fall of 1976 to the spring of 1980, so I was right in between the two national titles. This one ranked high because I had covered a lot of the guys on the 1981 title team for the two-plus years before that. I was really happy for Isiah Thomas and Randy Wittman, Ray Tolbert and Landon Turner and all the rest of guys. 

I wrote about that team a good bit that year, but watched the final with a bunch of IU friends down in my new home in St. Petersburg. That one was personal, too, because I knew that group of guys so well. Winning was cool, because they really weren't very good for a long part of that season. But they got hot in the second half of the season and spanked people on their way to the title. 

By this time, I had lived in the Tampa Bay area for nearly 20 years, and this team was special because Jon Gruden had come in to coach the Buccaneers, who just couldn't get over the hump under Tony Dungy.

I had known the Gruden family since college, because Jon's dad was a running backs coach at Indiana, and Jon was even a basketball ball boy one year. He was always a coaching favorite of mine, and when they beat the Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII, it was one of the most enjoyable work days of my career.

We crushed coverage of that win, and what it did to the Tampa Bay area wasn't much different than what's going on in Bloomington right now. The Bucs were the worst team in NFL history before their run. To finally win a Super Bowl was very cool. (HM to 2020 too. I really loved that Tom Brady Super Bowl win with the Bucs.)

I know, I know. You're shaking your head as to why this can be so low. But I was still in high school when the Hoosiers went undefeated that year and won Bob Knight his first title.

But you have to remember that I lived in Northwest Indiana and the Hoosiers were almost never on TV there on the Chicago stations. It's not like being in central and southern Indiana, where you could watch every game. I knew of Quinn Buckner because he was local to me, but I didn't really have a personal attachment yet. Obviously I cared a lot because I was headed there in the fall, but I never once saw that team in person.

Fun side note. They weren't even my favorite undefeated team that year. I was a senior at Lake Central High School in St. John, Ind., and the basketball team I was a small part of went undefeated too, winning all 20 regular-season games. No Lake County team would go undefeated again for 35 years. (Don't ask me about the upset in the sectionals. Still a sore subject.)

It's the only White Sox World Series in my lifetime, and that was a fun run, too. This was just a fan thing; I didn't cover them at all, and I was living in Florida at the time, so I only saw them in person maybe a half-dozen times. 

But it was sure fun to watch them sweep the Houston Astros for their first title since 1917. There is no second World Series in sight, either.

I had two children go to Florida State, so this season was really fun to share with them. As I mentioned about just missing Indiana's basketball titles, I loved it for my son, who was a senior at FSU at the time. And I loved it for my oldest daughter, who made it to the Rose Bowl — where they beat Auburn for the title — before I did.

Yeah, my Indiana friends, I have a lot of garnet and gold Florida State gear in my closet, I don't really wear it any more, but I sure did for 20-plus years in the 1990s and early 2000s. 

I saw former Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher last night in Miami, and we shared some memories of that team. They crushed everyone that year while going unbeaten. I enjoyed it a lot, but enjoyed it even more for my kids. 

I watched Florida State win three national titles (1993, 1999, 2013) but I am thrilled with Indiana to finally have one of my own, too. I guess a trip to Goodwill for that FSU gear can happen now.